Part Three:
Losing The F*cking Straightjacket

Bryan Beller, Vice-President of SWR Sound Corporation. It had a nice ring to it. Didn't it? I asked myself.

I should have known better than to sit around and think of what to do, but that's what I was doing when I returned home from the Mt. Whitney hike. A job in which I'd ascended from Amp Tester to Customer Service Manager to Artist Relations Director to Export Sales Manager to Product Development Manager in five years wasn't enough. Touring with Mike Keneally, both electrically with the band and acoustically as a Taylor clinician, wasn't enough either, nor was constructing one of the most content-rich musician websites in existence. That gaping hole in my schedule, consisting of every spare second of time I possessed, needed to be filled with something, anything, quickly, please.

When the melody for "Bear Divide" appeared in my head during a bike ride in August of 2002, I had my answer. Here it was, the reason why I was working non-stop, why I was using my vacations for tours, why it all made sense to work myself so silly: To build a war chest for the one day I'd really be able to put it to use. There could be no better use than my first solo album. Now all I had to do was write it.

Not a problem. Drawing back on the days of writing a 626-page manuscript while working as Customer Service Manager, I sequestered myself in my apartment, pounding out demo after demo. Apparently 32 years of never having written a song had resulted in some stock on the shelves, and ideas were plentiful. But in the background, there was noise.

It was coming from work. A management shake-up was imminent. Our General Manager was ill. SWR's magic ride of being one of the last independent M.I. companies to beat down the big dogs was in jeopardy. Fender was coming after us. Ampeg had been after us for years. We weren't a "big company," but we were just big enough to be a target. And the owner, my boss and close friend Daryl Jamison, wasn't a bank or a venture capital firm. He was just a man with a family and a bank note and as much guile as he could muster on a daily basis.

So when it became apparent that someone was going to have to step up and be one of only two Vice Presidents in the whole company, it was left to me to make a suggestion. While I could feel a part of me resisting it, there was only one logical choice: Me. Yes, I was young, I wasn't a salesman, I wasn't an accountant, I didn't have a marketing degree, and I sure as hell didn't have an M.B.A. But I knew SWR better than anyone in the building. The monetary rewards would go a long way in financing the record. Besides, I'd balanced it all before, hadn't I? Wouldn't I just have more control than ever? Isn't that what I wanted?

Daryl offered, and I accepted the position, and soon I had so much control that I was locking up the building up three nights a week, usually around nine o'clock, sometimes later. Pretty soon I didn't just have the salary of a Vice President, but the waistline of one as well.

* * * * *

Daryl Jamison was a Certified Public Accountant, and had even worked for Deloitte & Touche at one point, but inside raged the heart of a dice-rolling entrepreneur. I liked to call him an accountant with an attitude. He knew just where the lines were, and just how to cross them. But back in 1997, he was just this long-haired guy hanging around the office in a suit jacket. No one knew what to make of him. He smiled a lot, though.

It was going to be my last day at SWR. I was doing Customer Service, and wasn't all that happy with my job or my pay. He found me outside smoking a cigarette, my waist-length hair blowing in the Santa Ana winds.

"I hear things aren't going well," he said.

I launched into my list of grievances, the main one being a raise in my hourly rate I'd been promised but didn't get. He listened, then went into human calculator mode. "OK, so we're talking about x dollars each week, by four weeks, after tax…sounds like a hundred dollars a month to me."

I stopped and thought about it. He was right. Not all that much money, but every dollar counted. I was over ten grand in debt. "Yeah, that's what it is," I said, sheepishly.

"OK then," he replied, reaching into his suit jacket's inside pocket and pulling out one single bill. "Here's a hundred dollars. Don't quit. If for some reason you don't get what you're looking for a month from now, come to me again, and I'll give you another hundred. Does that work for you?"

The hundred dollar bill was crisp, like it just came from the bank earlier that day.

"Uh, yeah. That works. Thank you." And I stayed.

Three hours later I was informed that I'd gotten my raise after all. When I tried to give the hundred dollar bill back to Daryl, he refused, first kindly, then physically once I became adamant about it.

Four months later, he bought the company. Five years later, I was still there, with letters in my title.

* * * * *

In April of 2003, he called me into his office. He had that Cheshire cat's grin he always got when he was up to something big.

"The Fender deal is on. They're coming here next week."

I knew the possibility existed. We'd discussed it during our trip to Frankfurt, Germany only weeks ago. Fender was going to buy a bass amp company one way or the other, and the whole industry knew it. If it wasn't us, it certainly wasn't going to help us that they'd bought someone else to fund and compete with us. Like any good entrepreneur, Daryl talked about doing a million different things, a lot of which were just talk. This was different. After six years, I could tell.

"What does this mean to me?" I asked, thinking specifically of the costs of the recording sessions for View that were due to start in two days.

"They want to know if you're willing to be a part of their plans. They're very interested in you. It's not a dealbreaker if you're not, but…well, I need to know."

It scared the piss out of me, but I knew enough not to reject it out of hand. "Of course I'm interested in talking to them about it. Is that good enough for now?"

Yes, he said.

That weekend we recorded basics for "Supermarket People," "See You Next Tuesday" and "Wildflower." I didn't want to think about it. Too heavy.

But I didn't get much of a respite. Guys in suits were there early the following week. The conference room door stayed closed for hours. When it opened, people were shaking hands. Daryl walked into my office and laid it down hard. We have a handshake agreement. I'm headed for a hammock. They want you to run the whole thing for them. They want to talk to you. Like, now.

How long did I have to make up my mind? Not long, he said.

Less than an hour later I was in the conference room with the President of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, his General Counsel, and the Principal from Fender's San Francisco-based venture capital firm. They wanted to know what I did here at SWR. I told them. It took a while.

How do you feel about moving to Scottsdale?

Fender's corporate headquarters was there. I knew the question would come. I knew damned well what the answer was. Having been trained never to say no outright to anything in business by both Daryl and my father, I danced. I looked forward to the opportunity of working with them, I said. Details could be worked out later, I reasoned. I'm feeling very positive about the whole thing. And plenty of other bullshit.

The President wasn't buying it. He pressed. He needed a vibe, at least. Finally, I gave him one, saying that while the idea of moving to Scottsdale didn't make me want to go out and do doughnuts in the parking lot, I'm willing to talk about anything.

What is it that you want, Bryan, that you don't have now?

I stopped and thought about how work had been going. I loved Daryl like a father, but it could drive me crazy just trying to keep up with his ideas alone. It had been exciting and fulfilling, but not always manageable without antacid.

"I guess I'd like a little more stability. You know, come up with a plan, detail it, and execute it."

"Well," the venture capital firm Principal chimed in, "with stability comes responsibility."

Outside, I smiled. Inside, I almost turned over the table in rage.

The meeting ended a few minutes later. I thought to myself, I'm spending every dollar I have on this record and I'm going to be out of a job in less than a month. Nice going, boy genius.

* * * * *

Four weeks later, we'd been visited by over ten of Fender's Vice Presidents. (They had Vice Presidents for everything, it seemed.) It was a complete corporate proctologic exam. Everyone was really nice, even cool. Most of them were former professional musicians. All of them had been though this before. Some of them knew me already, because I'd been a Fender endorser from 1994 through 1999. But now it was less than a week before the closing date, and I still didn't have a deal in place, even though everyone assumed I was along for the ride.

I found myself outside the building, smoking a cigarette, talking to the President one-on-one. It felt familiar.

We don't want to do this without you. You don't want to be out of a job and you don't want to move to Scottsdale.

I was with him so far.

Let's do this. You come to Scottsdale three days a week. The other two days you work at home. In six months we'll revisit the whole thing. I think you'll really like Scottsdale once you get to know it.

It ran through my brain. The main obstacle had been eliminated. I still needed two things. One was the ability to mix View. Basic tracking was done and mixdown was scheduled for ten days in early June, and I needed that time off. The other thing I needed was a whole lot of money. He didn't have a problem with either request.

I thought to myself, let's see if I really can do this corporate thing. If I don't like it, I'll just bail out. They may not be too fond of me anyway in a couple of months. Every dollar I make on this job from this point on is a bonus, right?

Fuck it, let's do it.

We shook hands. A few days later, I was in Daryl's office when the wire transfer hit the company account. It was done. We sat for a while and said nothing.

The night before, we'd had a little party. Everyone got drunk, except for Daryl, who no longer touched the stuff. He'd given a little speech, then ended it abruptly when he got choked up. Some people had been working for SWR for over ten years. It was the first time in my life I experienced the phenomenon of what some call survivor's guilt. It wouldn't be the last.

* * * * *

On the one hand, I had a fully mastered solo album in my possession, and had cried tears of elation when I heard it for the first time. On the other hand, I had just come back from Robinson's May, an upscale department store specializing in business casual attire. They also had luggage, and I picked up a nice Samsonite small rolling suitcase, one that would roll down the center aisle of an airplane. I was dressed in the uniform of The Business Traveler, and damned if I wasn't going to look like I knew what I was doing. Having the correct accoutrements dulled the sting of having to buy clothes for a 220-pound frame I didn't want to believe was mine.

Every Sunday night, I did the routine. Pack the little suitcase, fold the dress shirts and pants, pour the shampoo and conditioner into the little bottles that fit into the little toiletry bag, drive to Burbank airport, have dinner in the terminal, get on the Southwest plane with my "A" boarding pass, put my head against the right wall, fall asleep, wake up when the plane landed, walk outside and be horrified by the 100+ degree temperature at eleven o'clock at night, get a taxi, and check into the Chaparral Suites hotel in Scottsdale, where they greeted me the same way every time.

Hello, Mr. Beller. Nice to see you again, Mr. Beller. We held Room 150 for you, Mr. Beller. Seven A.M. wake-up call, Mr. Beller?

Then I'd set up my laptop, check my e-mail, iron my clothes, get into bed, watch TV, smoke a cigarette, and fall asleep.

I adapted well enough at work. I pissed a couple of people off with an e-mail or two that was too blunt, but usually I was pretty careful. I knew a lot of the details about how SWR worked, and that was what the Fender people needed—the details, so that their respective departments could perform their functions properly, and The Machine would keep doing what it needed to do. People seemed to like me. I responded to their myriad requests quickly, accurately, efficiently, obsessively.

The Executive Vice President (let's call him EVP for short) took a particular liking to me. He was Syrian, in his 60's, and spoke several languages, one of which was a mean colloquial English in short, clipped, profane, Arab-accented phrases.

Dood, I like you, dood. There's no fucking bullshit with you. When we do these buyouts it's always a whole new bunch of assholes in our fucking scene, and we spend months trying to unfuck ourselves. But you, dood, you know the dirty fucking details. Just keep doing what you're doing.

The travel was wearing me out. I got so sick of flying that, eventually, I started driving back and forth to Scottsdale. It took six and a half hours, but at least I could wear a tank top and jean shorts and not be herded into a plane like cattle. I like driving, but I-10 between Los Angeles and Phoenix/Scottsdale is not all that pretty. One could be forgiven for thinking that the Mad Max movies were conceived by someone doing this drive.

Meanwhile, I kept waiting for Scottsdale to grow on me. Golf courses, business parks, flat land, 100+ (sometimes 110+) degree weather every day, lots of Indian-flavored orange and brown architecture, very clean streets, nice restaurants, good cheap housing, not funky in any way. Just nice. For a guy with a family.

There were plenty of people at Fender who knew who I was, knew that I played with Mike Keneally, recorded with Steve Vai, all that stuff. I'd gotten over the duality aspect of it long ago at old SWR, but some of these people didn't get it.

What are you doing here?

Transition, I said, transition. I'm trying to do the right thing for me and SWR. I'm loyal to this brand. We'll see what happens.

On the inside, I knew I wasn't moving there. I just knew.

* * * * *

Five months in, during October of 2003, a month before View was released, I had a Big Meeting. I was going to have to sit in front of a bunch of Senior Vice Presidents and tell them everything there was to know about the state of SWR's affairs. I consulted my father beforehand, and he warned me that the President might pull me aside and ask me about whether or not I was moving to Scottsdale. Having been a veteran of several Wall Street mergers and acquisitions, I respected what he had to say on the subject.

I aced the meeting. The transition was essentially complete. We were shipping amplifiers and speaker cabinets again, and the logistical nightmare that had befallen some previous acquisitions had been largely avoided. I startled myself at how well I presented the information, and how easily I fielded the questions coming from every direction of the long, oval meeting table. When it was done, everyone congratulated me. There I was, Bryan Beller, corporate warrior.

Then the President approached me and did exactly what my father said he would do. We scheduled a meeting for the following day. The topic was me, and my plans. I went back to my hotel room that night, ready to deal with the possibility that, once I told him I wasn't moving to Scottsdale, the next day would be my last.

I thought of a scenario in my head that could work. No way were they going to say yes, I thought, but if they did, I'd be fine with it.

The next day, I walked into the office of the President of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, and told him that I just couldn't move there, and my mind was made up. He didn't seem surprised. I then said that I had a proposal for him. Instead of traveling every week to Scottsdale for three days, I'd go there for one solid week a month, and the rest of the time I'd spend working out of my home office, all at the same rate of pay as I was currently getting. I was already doing it two days a week anyway, and no one seemed to be complaining. My laptop and cell phone were always on. I was a real-time communicator. The virtual office is the way of the future. I was spinning the story hard, thinking he wasn't going to go for it anyway, but why pull up short?

Two days later, when he agreed, I didn't know whether to be elated or…something else. I chose the former. That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

* * * * *

My friends and family couldn't believe how good the deal was. After a while, I started to realize how good it was as well. Things began to stabilize at work. The transition really was over. The extra time at home allowed me to finally get control of my health, and I resumed working out with a goal of getting back down to under 200 pounds.

The workaday employees at Fender were wondering why I was coming into the office so infrequently. I was reluctant to explain it, because the deal was so unusual. Sure enough, I began to hear whispers of jealousy in certain circles. There wasn't anything I could do about it. I couldn't help it that my willingness walk at any time also turned out to be an effective negotiating tool. I kept saying to myself, every day I'm here is a bonus.

In April of 2004, something came up. Steve Vai wanted me to play with him in Holland, with the Metropol Orchestra. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and exactly the kind of thing for which Daryl used to accommodate me. The time commitment was two and a half weeks. Again, I was prepared to walk if they said no, because I wasn't about to give up this gig. Again, they didn't. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it just never did.

But when I got back from Europe in late May, it was far different than when I'd return to old SWR after a tour. My desk was practically on fire with emergencies and nightmares unsolvable by anyone who wasn't me. Fender had changed its entire computer system on May 3, and the implementation was, shall we say, less than flawless. It was impacting everyone in the company. A lot of the aspects of the transition that had been handled now needed to be handled all over again. Plus, we were doing this massive merchandise display and gear rollout into Guitar Center's 130 stores nationwide, and the system was fucked to the point that we didn't know what stock we had on any given day. It was a mess.

I did my usual thing, digging in my heels and working twelve to fourteen hours a day to try and get everything together. It always worked before, albeit at some personal cost, but it worked. Weeks went by and things didn't improve. The target kept moving. The information was impossible to verify. Three months later, we were still working on the whole thing, like it was some kind of sick scene in Groundhog Day. It was all I had done since May, and things were still pretty out of control. I started to think they'd never be back in control.

I was totally losing touch with my friends. Every time I did anything with Mike Keneally, I found myself tired, impatient, and not completely there. The balance had finally tipped. I really couldn't do this gig and be a musician at the same time. For the first time, I considered the possibility of setting a date for my departure, driven not by events, but just by me.

I wanted it to be done right, though. It would have to involve some kind of milestone. Maybe when I hit a certain number in my savings account. Or maybe when the Guitar Center rollout was finally complete. It looked like it would fall in November. If I gave my notice around then, I might be done by the end of the year, and then I could finally regain control of my life.

On October 31, 2004, the person to whom I was closest, The Webmistress Katy Towell, had everything she owned stolen from her. She was loath to ask for it, but she needed my help. Quitting my job was suddenly not such an attractive option.

Meanwhile, work continued to rage unabated. The tension was increasing by the week about the state of SWR. I traveled to Texas, New England, and Maryland inside of five weeks to visit dealers. When I was home, Katy and I were in court, fighting it out with an apartment management company we viewed as negligent in the handling of their master keys. Next thing I knew, it was December, and Mike Keneally wanted to know if I could do a gig with him on a Wednesday night in San Diego. I had to decline, which hurt deeply, but the pain was dulled in knowing that my friend Wes Wehmiller would be covering for me, and that the gig wouldn't have to be cancelled.

The year finally ended, mercifully, with Katy deeply wounded but back on her feet with a new job and new apartment. I wanted to get back to figuring out what to do about my job, but NAMM was coming up in mid-January, and there was no way I could bail on Fender before then. It would guarantee a bad taste in their mouths whenever they spoke my name, and I was determined to avoid that. Matter of fact, considering what Katy and I had just been through, I began to wonder if quitting was such a good idea after all.

* * * * *

While I worked my seventh NAMM show for SWR, I started devising scenarios in which I could keep some steady stream of income while detaching myself from the day-to-day responsibility of running a ten million dollar division of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. The closer I got to the thought of leaving, the more nervous I got about money. I had some savings, but I remembered what it was like back in 1996, when I'd just lost the Steve Vai audition against only one other bassist, and Mike Keneally was going away on tour with Steve for a year and a half. I was deep in debt with no source of income, and exhausted from the stress of trying to land freelance work, and tired of not having control of my own life. So I got a job as an amp tester for eight dollars an hour.

I thought to myself, as I prepared to give a twenty-five page Power Point presentation to a conference room packed with international dealers and distributors, how the hell did this happen?

I had to do something, but was it really necessary to be so draconian with myself? I was so closely identified with SWR that working at another bass amp company in the industry was unacceptable from an integrity standpoint. I didn't know anything about selling and making guitars, or keyboards, or anything like that. What would I do without a job? Do wedding gigs in between Mike Keneally tours? Wait for Steve Vai to call again? I was so far out of the music scene loop that I didn't even get called anymore. That had stopped years ago.

When NAMM ended, I was prepared to start writing outlines and lists and scenarios that might be acceptable to Fender. Once again, I wanted to bridge the gap, to have it both ways, to retain some stability while reducing the level of responsibility.

Before I had a chance to work up anything resembling a plan, I became extremely ill. A flu knocked me down for a week. Bedridden and without an appetite, I lost five more pounds, bringing me down under 185 for the first time in years. That much was going well.

I'd been waiting for a morning like Sunday, January 30, 2005, for a long time. I woke up early and spoke to my father. We came up with a few good ideas. I fleshed them out on paper in a three-page outline. They all preserved some kind of income stream. I was just starting to feel satisfied with it when the phone rang. It was Colin Keenan. Something terrible had happened to a close friend.

* * * * *

A week later, my father and I spoke again. We were in agreement on the new plan.

Two days later I was in Scottsdale. It was an unscheduled trip. If there was one thing everyone knew about me at Fender, it was that I didn't come in to the office unless it was scheduled or absolutely necessary. The administrative assistant knew something was up, which meant that others besides her probably knew as well.

I sat in front of my immediate superior, an extremely cool and laid-back guy for someone with as much responsibility as he had. In many ways, he was the "me" of Fender. He was a professional guitarist once, and a really good one. He toured the country several times over. But when he joined Fender over ten years ago, working the phone bank in the parts department, he made a clear decision: I am not playing guitar anymore. His resolve in this was legendary throughout the company; you couldn't even get him to pick up a guitar unless it was to evaluate a prototype. Now he was a Senior Vice President.

"Oh, man." His shoulders sank as he sighed. "Are you sure?"

Yes, I told him. Absolutely. It was just time.

"Is there anything we can do to change your mind?" Business practicalities were discussed.

No, I said, and thanks for asking, really. It's just about changing my life, something I need to do.

"I could tell when you got here that you weren't done," he said. I knew what he was referring to. He didn't have to say what it was.

I only had one request, I told him. I wanted to speak to the Executive Vice-President before anyone else found out. He was fine with that. We shook hands, then hugged.

I found the EVP outside in the smoking area. He smiled as I approached.

Dood, what is up with your scene, man?

I told him.

No, no fucking way, dood. Really? Are you serious?

Yes, I was.

Is this about money or title or some other fucking bullshit? Can we talk about this?

I smiled. No, it wasn't. Then I told him a little of what it was about. He took a step back, sucked a long drag off of his Marlboro, and exhaled.

You just want to lose the fucking straightjacket, don't you, dood?

Yes, I laughed. That was exactly it. If I really wanted to be a musician again, I seriously needed to unfuck myself.

* * * * *

I'd shared the news with a few people, but not everyone. Eventually I would need approval for a public statement from Fender, and I'd send it out to my mailing list, and then everyone would know. In the meantime, I'd given them unlimited notice so as to properly train my successor, with the caveat that I had some out-of-town work coming up with Mike Keneally in April, and Steve Vai again in May. They seemed very pleased with that, and there were no hard feelings to be found anywhere. I certainly didn't have any towards them. They gave me everything I ever asked for, and I asked for a lot.

One person I did share it all with was Kira Small, the singer/songwriter from Nashville who'd flown out to sing in the celebration of Wes' life. I knew her socially as a vibrant, extremely outgoing, fun-loving girl who loved to kick back beers with the boys while making sure she had all their attention. But when I shared the plan with her before leaving for Scottsdale, she responded by showing me another side of herself. She sent me a card, which I received when I got home. Inside the card was a folded piece of paper, containing several paragraphs of text from "The Parable Of The Trapeze" by Danaan Perry. It moved me to tears for the second time inside of a week.

* * * * *

Late on Sunday night, April 17th, 2005, I returned to the Chaparral Suites hotel for the last time. The following day would be my last day in Scottsdale as an official employee in the service of SWR. Five days later I'd be visiting my family for a solid week for the first time in years, and after that it was time to hit the road with Mike Keneally for the start of the Guitar Therapy tour. But first, I had to do this routine again. One last time.

I walked with the assistance of a cane, a necessary by-product of the arthroscopic knee surgery I'd been putting off for three years. I was careful not to bend down to pick up my bag, so as not to aggravate the back injury sustained in a bad car accident I'd had two months before. It was a good thing I was only carrying around 180 pounds, I thought.

Hello again, Mr. Beller.

Over the past eighteen months, I had earned the title of Most Frequent Guest in a hotel with hundreds of rooms. As I hobbled towards the desk to check in, the clerk looked concerned.

Are you OK, Mr. Beller?

 "Yes," I said, smiling broadly. "I'm doing great."