The day after that evening, everyone arrived at the airport and boarded the evening flight with Jason Bourne.
Rain streaked the tarmac in long gray strokes as the plane touched down at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It was a chilly, overcast day, and the cold air clung to Kim Gordon's coat as she stepped onto the jet bridge. Thurston Moore yawned loudly behind her, while Lee Ranaldo and Richard Edson took in the gloomy atmosphere with equal parts curiosity and skepticism.
"Seattle's got this... quiet tension, huh?" Lee murmured, watching mist drift across the car windows as Jason drove them westward.
"Yeah… like a city waiting to explode," Kim replied, peering through the drizzle at the green and gray blur outside.
The highway slowly gave way to forested coastlines and winding roads. As they entered Westport City, the town's peaceful yet eerie charm immediately struck them. It felt like an odd fusion of old-world elegance and cutting-edge ambition—a contradiction that somehow worked. Victorian-era buildings stood beside steel-and-glass offices. The streets were clean, calm, and humming with a restrained kind of energy.
"This is where Chris Cornell's fame started?" Richard asked.
Jason nodded, glancing at them through the rearview mirror. "Every demo, every rehearsal, every plan… it all began here."
They pulled up in front of Sub Pop Inc., a surprisingly sleek, two-story office flanked by pine trees. Inside, the lobby buzzed softly with typewriters and phones. Vintage concert posters lined the walls. Staff moved quickly but smiled warmly at the new arrivals.
"This is it, guys." Jason said as he led them through the building. "Don't be nervous, just relax."
He introduced them to the key staff: production coordinators, press managers, road crew planners, and the inner circle of Sub Pop's marketing team. Each department showed snapshots of past campaigns, photo stills from the Circle of Life video, and press clippings from New York and California.
Then came the main event.
Jason opened the double doors of a walnut-paneled boardroom. Inside stood Joseph Kennedy Sr., sharp in a tailored suit, looking more like a Wall Street person than a music exec.
"Gentlemen. Miss Gordon." His deep voice resonated through the room. "Welcome to Sub Pop."
They shook hands. Coffee was poured. Joseph spoke smoothly, with an intensity that demanded attention.
"We took a Seattle kid with a troubled past and turned him into a national voice in a year. We built Chris Cornell from openers at clubs to MTV dominance and multi-city tours, because we believed in him, and he gave us control and trust."
He leaned on the polished table, his eyes were focused.
"I intend to do the same for you, but based in New York. We'll give you the financial support you need, the freedom you demand, and the infrastructure you didn't know you were missing. If you sign with Sub Pop Inc., you'll no longer be scraping together press kits and venue fees. We'll handle it all. And more."
Kim raised an eyebrow. "That sounds too good to be true."
Joseph smiled knowingly. "Which is why I want you to see where it really comes from. Tonight, you'll be meeting the man who made the call to find you… and the same one who ordered Chris Cornell's first contract."
Thurston frowned slightly. "Wait… I thought that was you?"
Joseph smirked. "I work for him."
That evening, after a quiet dinner in Westport's waterfront district, the band found themselves pulling up in front of a sprawling mansion nestled behind wrought-iron gates and evergreens. The estate was massive, stone facades, a marble driveway, and warm light glowing from stained-glass windows.
"This is his house?" Richard whispered.
Jason didn't answer. He just walked them up the steps and rang the bell.
Inside, a housekeeper led them through corridors adorned with oil paintings and custom woodwork, into a sleek room packed with instruments, recording equipment, and speaker towers. The heart of the house, a studio unlike any they'd seen.
At the center of it all, seated confidently behind the studio's massive analog mixer, was an 11-year-old boy.
He smiled.
"Hey. I'm James."
The four members of Sonic Youth froze slightly. Their eyes flicked from the child to each other, then to Jason, who simply nodded in reassurance.
There was nothing cartoonish about the kid. He wasn't awkward. He wasn't trying to impress. He was just… there. In command. Like he belonged in that chair.
Kim blinked. "Wait… this is the guy?"
James grinned wider, resting his hand on a row of faders.
"I've heard your Noise Fest sets," he said. "You're raw, chaotic, brilliant, and unshaped. I think we can help each other."
The room fell silent for a beat.
The members of Sonic Youth suddenly felt like they had stepped into a scene out of a surreal movie, four experimental noise artists in a mansion on the Pacific, staring at an 11 year old who spoke like a mogul and sat like a king.
Cliché or not, one thought passed through all of their minds:
'What the hell did we just walk into?'
///////////////////////////////////NEXT SCENE///////////////////////////////////
James leaned forward in his studio chair, arms resting casually across the massive console, watching the band fidget awkwardly in the threshold of the room. Their eyes swept over the wall of guitars, the patch cables, the drum kits, the reel-to-reels, the synth racks.
It wasn't a rich kid's playground.
It was a war room.
He could see it in their faces, they were tripping. Hard. Not on drugs. Just on him.
He was eleven. He looked eleven. But behind his calm stare was a grown man from 2024. A man who had played hundreds of gigs, studied production down to its molecular structure, and had once owned every bootleg, session tape, and magazine that ever mentioned Sonic Youth.
Now here they were, still young, still raw, still on the edge of becoming who they'd be.
"You guys want water, Coke, whiskey?" James asked, a crooked grin on his face.
Kim snorted. "Jesus, kid."
"Relax," James said with a shrug, pushing his chair back. "I'm not a narc. I'm just a freak who's into noise."
Thurston smirked. "Into noise, huh?"
James stood, walked toward the open rack of tapes beside the far wall, and held up a reel labeled Confession Is Sex – DEMOS in red Sharpie.
"I didn't just hear your sound," he said, voice calm but with a pulse beneath it. "I get it. I know what you're chasing. That rush of chaos... when feedback becomes the riff. When you bury melody under six layers of distortion and it still feels right."
They exchanged looks.
"You think you know our sound better than us?" Lee asked, half-challenging.
James chuckled and raised a brow. "Nope. I think I've already made your first great record."
He slipped the reel into the machine, clicked a few switches, then hit Play.
A wall of sound erupted through the studio—distorted bass grooves, angular guitars screeching in and out like dying machines, a low crooning vocal that sounded like someone trapped in a fever dream. It was dirty. It was urgent. It felt like it was them—but not, it was like the song was what they wanted to do.
"This first one's called Shaking Hell," James said.