The Spirit of Hell has promotion on their minds. The six-piece jam band are settled on cheap folding chairs in their rehearsal space downtown, the warm fuzz of amplified nothingness filling the room. They talk too loud, nearly delving into argument-land, not because they’re angry but because they just can’t be as soft spoken as usual in the midst of ambient noise. They stroke their goatees, tap Bics against notepads. Getting their name out their to as many people as possible is the name of the game now, and Rock Band seems to be the solution they’ve waited 3 years to come upon.

“It’s the whole reason Paramore is Paramore. It’s absolutely, 100% because they had a song on Rock Band,” says Luther, the bands big idea man and a certified public accountant. “If we can get a single on there, either in the next sequel or downloadable, then it’s really only a matter of time before we start playing arenas.”

“I don’t see how this…” Tim begins. He shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair. “It’s just as hard as getting something on the radio, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s different. Because to get something the radio, it has to be catchy and have all these hooks.”

There’s a pregnant pause as Spirit of Hell collectively reflects on their back catalog. To be fair, they were still learning their respective instruments when they recorded and self-released their first album, Tony the Tyrant. Some would have suggested – as their first saxophonist did – that less time should have been spent on promotion and more on making sure that they had a product worth promoting, but this is a band of business-minded go-getters, the type of people who are thinking down the line instead of where there are on it. From their first rehearsal, it’s always been about how they can become big and make a profit… because becoming rock stars means they can finally quit their miserable jobs.

Marilyn, the bassist and an assistant editor, pipes up: “So we need to write a song that could be fun to play.”

The band let’s this sink in. Are their songs no fun to play? It’s a difficult thing to gauge — they were certainly fun to play at first discovery, when the notes sounded brand new, the lyrics raw and unrehearsed. The energy was strong back when Rick was exploring his own take on song structure, back when they wouldn’t dump a melody or a beat because it didn’t “sound like us.” Now the whole experience is like paint by numbers. Everyone plays their part, too bored to color outside the lines.

“Lets write something, then,” Marilyn says with an air of authority. She scoots off her chair, adjourning the meeting with a everyone on their feet motion.

They pick up their instruments, take bathroom breaks, slam a few cups of water, and get to work on inventing a song that will be “fun to play” on plastic instruments. There’s zero collaboration, which isn’t really out of the ordinary for them, particularly after such a demoralizing state of the union, but also because  the three of them have no idea how the game in question works don’t want to let on that they have no idea what the assignment really is, and are too proud to ask. They tinker with concentrated expressions on their faces, doing their best to match the other players in the room.

After twenty minutes of this, Tim stands up and raises his right hand, his fingers pinching a pick — the sign that he wants it quiet because has something very important to say. “This is a five star riff.”

He plays a finger-cramping lick high up on the guitar’s neck. It sounds great, but no one knows what he means.

“Five star is the hardest possible level of difficulty. All we’ve gotta do is take this five star riff, add some five star vocals, five star drums, and we’ve got ourselves a Rock Band hit.”

“I thought it needed to be fun to play?” Janice asks.

“It does,” Luther says.

“This is fun to play, because it’s hard. I mean, we can spend the rest of our lives trying to write the next Foo Fighter’s single and die old and penniless, or we can try to get ourselves in as the last level on the highest difficulty — you know, the song that only the most experienced players can beat, and only after playing it over a thousand times.”

“Sounds annoying,” Yuari notes as he sets his electric violin in it’s case.

“It’s not,” Tim replies. “Not for these types of people. They’ll play it over and over again – even if they hate the song – just to prove that they can. Then they’ll post videos of them playing it on the internet and it gets a million hits.”

“It’s like they’re making us our music videos for us?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve got a question, Say we write this really hard, really fun, really catchy song, what do we do with it to get it in the video game? Do we upload it ourselves or something?” asks Marilyn.

“That’s a good question,” Tim replies, and slides his pick in its holder. I’m going to go Wikipedia that while you guys write your really super hard parts. Luther, you think you can get your buddy at Golden Edge Sound to set us up with some studio time next week?”

“I’ll call,” Luther says. He takes out his iPhone and scrolls through a long list of names.

“I’m going to buy Rock Band and bring in a TV so we can all play it at next rehearsal,” chimes Todd, the band’s resident graphic designer. He pulls open the door, surprising his bandmates. He’s going to go buy it now?

The prospect of having a song on Rock Band sounds pretty nice to the Spirit of Hell, but it’s never going to happen. They’re going to go off in their different directions, endlessly distracted by some  amorphous golden carrot they’re dreamed up. They’re never going to put in the time to put the song together and make it a worthwhile single, and when the whole thing falls apart, they’re going to point fingers and accuse each other of doing too many drugs.

But that’s a long ways down the road – the decomposition of the band will be a slow, agonizing process. Right now, with the big idea men out of the room, all that is left are the few who really just want to play good music, and so they do, launching into an unpronounced acoustic version of What’s Going On? by Marvin Gaye.