Jared’s phone buzzed, and I stood close enough to sneak a peek when he checked it. The text was from someone named Michelle and said, “hey sexy wanna get 2gether 2nite?” He shot me a quick glance and shoved the phone back in his pants without answering. He probably didn’t want me to see what he wrote back. It had to be from one of his many groupies or maybe someone he’d met on the show. One of those girls from the audition perhaps? The girl with the mohawk and chainmail bikini? Did she seem like a Michelle? Whatever. Jared’s sex life was none of my business.

When the other guys arrived, we walked the three blocks to the address we'd been given for the studio, and Jared told us how Villain Complex’s social media sites had all gained thousands of followers overnight. More people had visited our website in the last day than ever before, and many were even buying the album. It was crazy to think we now had fans all over the country, rooting for us and anxious to see our next performance. Even more pressure to do a good job on this week’s show.

We stopped at a brick building that looked like it had once been a factory or something. The windows were all dark so we couldn’t see inside, and there was no sign or anything—just a number on the black door.

“Is this it?” I asked, checking the address again on our schedule.

“Must be,” Kyle said.

We stepped inside and found a lounge with dark couches scattered around the room, plus an attached kitchen area with coffee and food. A guy at a reception desk directed us to room four, where our gear was waiting for us in a soundproofed studio. Someone from the show had dropped off sheet music, and I studied the guitar tabs, mentally replaying the song in my head. I was already familiar with “Somebody Told Me,” but singing along to it on the radio and playing it with the band was a totally different story. I hadn’t been lying to Jared, though—I did have an ear for this stuff. I set down the papers after a quick once-over and tried out the opening guitar riff. It was easy but very catchy with the way the chords got higher and higher.

The other guys tried some things, too, testing out their own parts of the song. After a few minutes, Jared turned to face all of us.

“Before we do anything else, we need to figure out a way to differentiate our version from whatever The Static Klingons do.”

“Good idea,” I said. “They already have a similar sound to The Killers, so they probably won’t change the song very much.”

“What if we made the song darker?” Kyle asked. “Drop the tuning, make it almost an emo cover of the song.”