Lobo's Den - The Comeback

“We’re back,” Diego Lobo said. “Talking with Cassie Goth about twenty-five years of music.”

“So, Cassie,” Diego continued. “After your famous… and heart breaking… break-up with Don Lothario, you dropped out of sight for several years.”

“Yes, I did,” Cassie said. “Ten years, in fact. So, really, it’s more like fifteen years of music and ten years of raising chickens and being a mom… but that’s not as catchy.

“Anyway,” Cassie continued. “After uni, Gwen had inherited a lot of money and a farm in the country. When Don and I split up, she offered me a place to stay ‘while I sorted myself out.’ I didn’t realize at the time that that was her way of saying ‘for the rest of our lives,’ but you know how it goes.

“The first thing that happened was I discovered I was pregnant,” Cassie said. “That was actually a pretty big shock. I knew that it meant I needed to make some big changes in my life. The biggest was that I stopped drinking. Thanks to Don, I’d already started working on that so it wasn’t as hard as it might have been. It was still very, very hard but it was what I needed to do for my daughter. I am now twenty-one years, seven months and… what’s today, Friday? … three days sober.

“So, like I said, I spent the next ten years working on a farm, raising chickens and a beautiful daughter,” Cassie said. “I didn’t do much gardening. Actually, after my first few tries, Gwen rather pointedly asked me to look after the chickens. Gwen and I got married, shortly after they made it legal. The first lesbian couple, and only the second same sex couple, to do so in the town’s old church. I also wrote music. I spent ten years writing music… because that’s how I express myself. Some people keep a diary. I write songs.

“Then, one day, I ran into an old friend,” Cassie smiled. “Octavia Moon was visiting the Finchwich Fair. I forget why… but we started talking.”

“Now, you know me and gossip,” Diego interjected. “There were some rumors about you and Octavia while you were with Don…”

“Let’s just say that Don and I and Octavia and Thorne, back before we three all hit it big, were neighbors, and became very good friends, and leave it at that,” Cassie said with a sly grin.

“So, Octavia and I started talking and kept talking,” Cassie continued. “I’ll admit, that show-biz bug had started nipping at me again and, with Octavia’s, and fairly quickly Thorne’s, support and encouragement, I got in touch with their producer. Which eventually led to Brookside, my comeback album.”

“And what a comeback,” Diego said. “Top of the charts, record-breaking sales…”

“Well, here’s the secret about taking ten years off and spending it writing songs,” Cassie smiled. “When you start deciding what to put in the new album, you get to pick the fifteen or sixteen best out of a couple of hundred.”

“Well, that’s a point,” Diego laughed.

“Honestly though, I was shocked,” Cassie said. “My fans are amazing. I mean, the fact that after ten years I still had fans amazed me. They have been so supportive… through my musical growth, through the ups and downs of my crazy life. They’re fantastic.” Turning to the audience, “You’re fantastic!”

The applause dwarfed the earlier boos directed toward the memory of Don Lothario.

“Alright, alright,” Diego said, calming the audience. “You’re all wonderful… now let the lady talk. So, Cassie… You were back in the spotlight.”

“I’d missed it,” Cassie said with a grin. “I really had. I mean, it’s madness. It’s music tours and hotels and promotions and recording sessions… but there’s that moment, when you’re on stage and the music is playing and the crowd is cheering. That’s magic, Diego. That’s pure magic.

“So, Brookside was a hit,” Diego said. “Not just a hit but a mega-hit… and after Brookside…”

“After Brookside was Firelight,” Cassie said, “which followed the same theme of healing, and growing and self-discovery. And yes, before you ask, because you always do… some of Firelight, but not all, was taken from those ten years of songwriting.”

“Now, you’re right I’ve asked you that before,” Diego conceded, “but let me ask you this - Ten years of songwriting. Are there songs we’ve never heard? What about them?”

“Well, some of them aren’t very good,” Cassie laughed. “But yes, there are songs from that era that never got recorded. Maybe they will someday. Maybe not. I keep saying, my music reflects my life. Those years were important to me… but that’s not where I am today. Not who I am today. I’m about moving forward, not back.”

“Alright, so, moving forward,” Diego said. “Forgotten Dreams, which was again a bit of departure from the two albums before it, though not in the same way as Haunted.”

“Forgotten Dreams,” Cassie said after a moment’s pause. “Forgotten Dreams is about a lot of what I was just talking about… that magic of being back on stage, back on tour, back in the spotlight… the good and the bad and the ugly of it. So, yeah, it’s different… where Brookside and Firelight are quieter, Forgotten Dreams has more energy. It’s Cassie the Raven Witch, instead of Cassie who bakes cookies for her daughter’s school bake sale.”

“You’ve said that your daughter Miranda keeps your grounded,” Diego put in.

“I’ve said Miranda keeps me humble,” Cassie corrected with a smile, “and she does. No matter how many albums I make or awards I win. No matter how loud the fans scream my name, I can always count on Miranda to roll her eyes and tell me how embarrassing I am.”

“That’s a good person to have around,” Diego said sincerely.

“The best,” Cassie smiled.

“Stay with us folks,” Diego said to the audience. “We’ll be back with more Cassie, after this…”

Lobo's Den - Haunted & The Lothario Incident

“We’re back with the Raven Witch herself, Cassie Goth,” Diego Lobo said. “Talking about twenty-five years of music.”

“Though really, we’ve only covered the first three so far,” Cassie put in. “So, we’d better get going.”

“So true, but…” Diego paused seriously. “Can we talk about Haunted?”

“I guess we have to,” Cassie said, a touch ruefully.

“Your third album, and definitely your most controversial,” Diego said. “I know fans are still very divided about Haunted. It was a real departure in tone from your first albums… critics have called it darker, more mature…”

“Let’s call it what it is,” Cassie said seriously. “It was much darker. It was more overtly sexual, and not always in positive ways… and I say that with the benefit of hindsight, and a lot of therapy… but I still think it’s very important.”

“I’ve said my music reflects my life,” Cassie continued. “Haunted reflects a time in my life that started in a very dark place. My last year of uni, I was in a very bad place emotionally. I drank too much. I had a series of flings with frat guys who were more than happy to tell their all buddies they’d ‘done it’ with the Raven Witch. I ended up losing almost all of my friends, except the ones who enabled me… and Gwen, who just would not be pushed out no matter how hard I tried… and I tried.”

“She stuck by you,” Diego said sympathetically.

“She did. She really did, for a long time,” Cassie said, misty eyed. “But she couldn’t save me. She said to me once, years later, that she knew couldn’t save me until I was ready to save myself, but she knew she had to be there for me, no matter how much it hurt her.

“Anyway, I managed to graduate, barely,” Cassie continued. “I moved to San My and worked on my music. When I wasn’t drinking myself half to death, that is. Then, I met a man who would change my life.”

“That would be Don Lothario,” Diego said. 

At the sound of Don Lothario’s name, the audience booed so loudly the host, and his guest, were forced into silence.

“Hey, hey, hey! Quiet down,” Cassie finally shouted, her singer’s voice cutting through the noise of the angry audience. “Don gets a bad rap, OK? He was a good guy.”

“Well, he did famously cheat on you, publicly and repeatedly,” Diego pointed out. “He used your fame to promote himself, and he, in fact, left you at the altar, while you were pregnant with his child.”

“Well, when you say it that way, it sounds bad,” Cassie admitted. “We can’t talk about Haunted, or my later music… my later life... if we don’t talk about Don. 

“I met him at a party, thrown by my producer for some of my more disreputable musical associates,” Cassie continued. “I remember, I was with my friend, Jess, and we were both working on getting drunk enough to go into a back room where these guys said someone had brought some ‘really good stuff’ that they said would ‘blow my mind.’

“So, just before I was about to go try seriously hard drugs for the first time… which probably would have killed me, if not that night, then soon… this guy comes up and steals my drink,” Cassie laughed. “Lifted it right out of my hand and drank it in front of me. Then he thanks me, looks me up and down and asks me if I want to dance.

“So, instead of OD’ing, I spent the night dancing with Don Lothario.” Cassie shook her head. “Of course, I think… what the hell, he looks pretty good. I’ll give him what he wants… what every man wanted. So, I suggest we go upstairs… and he said to me something that, at that time in my life, no man had ever… ever… said to me.”

“Will we have to bleep this out?” Diego laughed.

“He said ‘no,’” Cassie grinned. “He turned me down. Flat. Me! I was shocked. He said I was way too drunk and when… not if, mind you, when… we slept together, he wanted me to remember it. I admit it. That was it. I was hooked… but let me tell you, when we did… well, I remember it.

“So, I ended up with Don,” Cassie continued. “We started going out regularly, and eventually I moved in with him.”

“Ok, I have to ask, because people always ask, where was Gwen during this?” Diego put in.

“We separated,” Cassie said. “Gwen's… Well, when I told her I was moving in with Don, that I was leaving, she wasn’t upset. She didn’t argue. She said that she understood this was what I needed. Looking back, I realize that she knew… absolutely knew… that we would be together in the end. She was willing to wait for me to figure it out.  Anyway, she moved to the country. She still came into the City from time to time, and we’d see each other, but mostly she stepped away. It was as if she knew that Don would be there for me when she wasn’t, and in a way she couldn’t be… and she was right.

“The thing about Don,” Cassie sighed. “Yeah, he was shamelessly self-promoting. Yes, he thought monogamy was when you embroider your initials on your clothes… and, let’s face it, he wasn’t the brightest bulb. But he started me on the road out of that dark place I was in. He got me to drink less. He got me focused on my music and my career again. More importantly, he got me to start seeing myself as worthy again.

“With Don, I redefined my relationships with men, with sex and my own sexuality, and with my music,” Cassie said with sad smile. “I found my self-esteem, again, thanks to him. When he left me at the altar, yes, it broke my heart… but I think it needed to be broken to really heal. That’s what Haunted is really about… being haunted by the pain of the past and laying those ghosts to rest in order to heal.

“Also, let’s not forget, Don gave me the greatest gift of all… our beautiful daughter, Miranda.” Cassie’s smile brightened. “Who is getting married soon, if you can believe that.”

“Oh, don’t remind me of how quickly they grow up,” Diego groaned. “We’ll be right back, folks.”