Bill Bottrell:
It must have been '96 Michael called and asked me to come to Record Plant LA to work on new material.
I hadn't seen or heard from him since '91.
I found much activity and 3 rooms booked at R.P.
It seemed chaotic and leaderless.
M. showed me around, and especially wanted me to hear BOTDF, because he had borrowed the title from a demo I wrote during Dangerous.
Mick Gusauski was in final stages of mix in one of the rooms.
I remember I felt it didn't SOUND like an M. track, and felt it was not Mick's fault, that the tracks weren't recorded well.
I set up in a studio, with a great assistant and a song M. sang to me. I was trying to create that long un-pitched "gooooooom" sound. I didn't have many instruments.
M. got me up in his lounge, where there was a gentleman keeping his distance introduced as manager.
Michael was not well. He wanted to talk about Sheryl Crow whose famous album I wrote and produced and how she dissed him after hitting big. I gave my empathy as I knew how she could try too hard to say the ingratiating thing in the moment.
He hated my first DAT of the song, said it sounded like a circus.
We took a limo over to Larrabee W. hollywood. There the great engineer (?) was working on "Demerol" (Morphine)
I had to cheer Michael up somehow, remind him that these sessions are for HIS expression, HE needs to let loose because somehow this huge entourage had got the better of him.
I hear the track and got M. out in the big room, put up a mic and me and M. SANG the chorus at the top of our lungs. We were yelling it out. Breathing! Shout! I hoped it felt good for him.
On the ride back we talked some more.
As we came in the back door, there stood some other clients- producer Don **** and some famous musicians.
They tried to chat us up but I got M. past that, past the hot tub with a condom on the bottom, past all the studios with no sound coming out, and I said good bye.
And to this day I've wondered what I should have done better. I'm so sad.
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