"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" (4 page)

They turned out to be empty promises, but they sounded good at the time.
I thought I would be at the hospital alone, but, much to my surprise, DT, of
all people, came with me. I wonder what his real motivation was in coming
with me, whether he enjoyed seeing me in pain, or why it took me being
in pain for him to be nice to me. Anyway, I wasn’t worried while at the
emergency room, thinking that since I was Slim Shady’s bodyguard they
would take care of me. The doctor, a young guy about thirty-three years
of age, told me that from the X-rays I was lucky that I hadn’t broken my
collar bone, and if I had any less muscle mass I probably would have. He
told me that they were going to give me a shot of morphine and then pop
my shoulder back into place. It took some time for the doctor to convince
me that I wouldn’t feel any pain, and even after he gave me the shot, I still
tried to protest, but I was out of it before I could even finish my sentence.
From what I was told, it took three doctors to pop my shoulder back into
its socket, and DT also told me that when it popped back in, it made this
resounding popping sound, and I came out of it, sat up, screamed my
head off, and then fell back into unconsciousness. They gave me some
smelling salts and another shot to bring me back to, and the first thing I
said was, “Y’all got anything to eat around here?” Everybody got a kick out
of that. I was in pain for about a month and had to wear my arm in a sling
and take Vicodin. Slim got a big kick out of me taking Vicodin because
that was one of his favorite drugs. Besides, he figured with me being on
Vicodin, he could get a few free pills here and there. That time off was a
period of transition for me. I learned a lot about myself and realized what
I was putting at risk. I was jeopardizing my life and my health for a man
whom I really knew nothing about. I got into this security thing just to get
in a better position to get my own label off the ground. I quickly realized
that I needed to be getting something more out of it. I wasn’t even making
that much money. It wasn’t worth the risk.

I looked at the situation more deeply because I didn’t expect to get
hurt on the job; it just wasn’t an aspect I had considered. So I began to
feel depressed, used, and neglected because no one really had much to say
to me about it except periodically asking me if it hurt or not, but I could
tell no one really cared for the most part.The biggest topic was, “How long
is it going to take for you to heal?” and I was like, “Damn, it just happened.
It’s going take a couple of months, ” and that it did.This happened during
the first part of the Slim Shady tour, and at home I was getting a lot of
stares and people were like, “Damn, how are you going to protect Slim
while you’re hurt?” I was like, “Well, right now I can’t. ” I had to get some
other people to cover me. I felt thrown away and unappreciated. I saw
where I stood with Shady Tours. At this point in time, I didn’t have a
contract with Shady Tours. The contract was getting paid. I still believed
the empty promise that my doctor bills would be taken care of. I couldn’t
go back to work at GM with my shoulder in a sling because it would
cause too many questions to be asked about my injury. I was on leave for
something else. Besides, I was working for Shady Tours when I got hurt.
They should have been taking care of me while I was on leave. However,
Shady Tours’ response to that was, “Well, we’re going to give you $350 a
week workman’s comp. ”That couldn’t pay the bills! And it took them two
months to give me that. That was some bullshit! I was thinking about my
wife and family. I had some money put aside, but I wasn’t planning on
spending that. I was counting on them to take care of me until we went
back on the road. I see. I’m good enough to go out there and work and get
hurt, but I am not good enough for you to look out for while I am hurt.
At that point I realized that I would have to get a contract or something a
little more concrete if I was going to continue working for Slim. My wife
was a little upset because she had to change her lifestyle, and I couldn’t
really pick up our baby boy because of my shoulder. I started weighing out
the odds, with me getting hurt and not receiving adequate compensation
while I was off, so I asked them to at least give me an advance toward
the next tour. They agreed to do that, but that meant the next tour I was
basically working for free. You would think that they would have at least
considered the fact that I took a leave of absence from my job to work
for them, but that meant nothing to them. They didn’t give a fuck as long

as they bene
fited from it. This was a turning point where the business
relationship turned bitter, because I got wiser and I began to see where we
were headed together, and it wasn’t in a positive direction.

Well, it was the Fourth of July, and we headed out on the Warped
Tour with my shoulder operating at about 70 percent of its normal
performance. The Warped Tour was supposed to be an easy tour, and it
was for the most part. I was going through therapy for my shoulder, and
the tour was only scheduled for five weeks, anyway. The purpose of my
going was that I had taken out an advance on my pay. I basically worked
the first two weeks for free because I was paying back the money that I
borrowed since I had no income while I was off for my injury. By this
time, Slim’s promises to take care of me that he made while I was in the
ambulance had proven to be false. He left all the financial decisions up
to his manager, Paul, who he knew wasn’t taking care of me, but he did
nothing about it. The only thing they did was call me once a week to see
if I would be ready to go on the road for the next tour. I told them I was
going through therapy and had a pretty bad tear in my muscle tissue, and
all I could do was heal one day at a time. Their main concern wasn’t if I
needed anything or any money, it was whether or not I would be ready to
go on tour. I can say that this was a learning process for me, and I learned
from my mistakes.

The Warped Tour was more alternative than anything else, so I
didn’t have to deal with a lot of the crazed groupies like before. With
my job being pretty much laid back at this point, it allowed me a lot of
time to do some soul searching, as I had done while I was off injured. It
wasn’t easy for me to do, but I detached myself from Slim Shady and his
manager on a personal level. It was hard because we worked together day
and night, but it had to be done. I passed my time talking to Proof and DJ
Head and calling home to my wife, which resulted in a high phone bill.
On this tour, I was able to learn that I was definitely underpaid. We had a
chance to mix and mingle with the crews from the other headlining acts,
and we were all kicking around some figures on what we were getting
paid and found out that we were all making less than our counterparts
who worked for other acts who were, ironically, less successful than Slim
Shady was. We felt like fools in the eyes of our peers because they were
like, “Damn, we haven’t sold a third as many records as you guys have, and
we make more than you do!” I always felt that I should have been getting
more than $1200 a week, but it all happened so fast in the beginning, I
didn’t get a chance to ever renegotiate my pay. Every time I would bring
it to the attention of Paul Rosenberg, he would always promise that we
would talk about it at another time. Some of us felt that Slim had nothing
to do with it, but we came to find out he was the one who gave the final
approval of everyone’s pay. Slim would always try to act like he didn’t
know and blamed it on Paul and his accountants, but realistically they
didn’t make a move without his approval. They would try to be a friend in
your face but fuck you financially. The “friend” tactic worked with some
of these guys on the tour because they had grown up with Slim and Paul,
and Slim played on that when it came time to paying them insubstantially,
but that didn’t work for me.

Slim made more money than every act on that tour, so there was
no excuse. There were people who left their jobs or took leaves from their
jobs to work for Slim. DJ Head gave a fine performance every time he
spun those records to keep the crowd hype. Proof put together Slim’s
show as far as the ideas and the order of the songs, but did he get paid
what he was worth? No, he didn’t. I didn’t. DJ Head didn’t. I hate to say
this, but none of the brothers made equal pay. Slim is always talking about
how he hates racism, but he and Paul Rosenberg were the main ones
keeping us financially unequal. The soundman, Billy, made damn good
money, and he only worked like an hour a day. He made at least $1, 500 a
week. Gus Brandt, whom I consider to be a good friend of mine because
he gave me a lot of advice and information regarding the business, knew
he was making less than he should be, but he accepted it because he
figured that he could help Slim and Paul have a more successful tour with
him being a part of it. We were all upset over our pay scale. It wasn’t like
the money wasn’t there, because I knew for a fact that it was there. I knew
what went down, when, and why it went down. I never deliberately looked
for this information; it usually fell into my lap, with Slim being by my side
most of the time. Even when he wasn’t by my side, financial information
fell into my lap.

On this particular tour, Slim was making $15, 000 a day, which was
like $75, 000 a week. Over a five-week period, that was a nice bit of change.
That’s not even including his merchandising, which he never followed up
on because he left that up to Paul. So, the money was definitely there. It
hurt to find out that out of these other crews who worked for groups who
hadn’t even sold 200, 000 records, their lowest-paid member made more
money then we did, and they had bands so they definitely had more heads
to pay. Slim continued to pretend like he didn’t know what was going on,
and Paul was content as long as he was making more than everyone else.
It was sad. I determined that I made about $5 an hour working around
the clock seven days a week for $1, 200 a week. This only added to my
frustration. I decided to draw up a proposal and present it to Paul because
some changes definitely had to be made. I took some time and conferred
with Gus, the tour manager, during this process, and he told me I was
getting fucked with no Vaseline. He said that I should be making at least
$1, 500 but that most security guys were making two grand a week. He
said that since I was a 24-hour man and that I did a lot of things that I
shouldn’t have to do, I should be making more than $1, 200. He made
that coming out of high school. He said “Byron, they’re fucking you bad. ”
Gus was making a lot of sense to me, and he had more experience in this
business than everyone combined. He’s worked with everybody from the
Foo Fighters to the Stones, so he knows what he’s talking about. Gus was
not a greedy man. He was fair, and he wanted to see people treated fairly.
He didn’t start to open up until he realized that he was getting screwed
out of his money. He took a pay cut in an effort to work with Paul and Slim
and teach them about touring, but they took Gus’ kindness for weakness,
and Gus is not a weak man; he’s very smart, very intelligent. Paul and Slim
didn’t realize that at any time Gus could have stolen all of Slim’s money
and ran, but he didn’t—he stayed and did his job to the T. But did he ever
get a “Thank you” or a “Good job, Gus”? Did he get a proper bonus, or
even the proper pay? No, he didn’t.

We were getting mistreated! So, I put together a proposal for Paul
and Slim, asking them for life insurance in case of my death so my family
would be taken care of. I knew that if they barely did anything for me
while I was alive, they damn sure wouldn’t do anything for my family in
the event of my death. I asked to be paid $2, 000 a week during workweeks
and for a retainer of $1, 200 a week when we weren’t on tour. I asked for
sick days. I am a businessman, and I like things to be done in writing.
Contracts keep guidelines. I presented this proposal to Paul and Slim,
and they were intimidated that I had my own personal CPA draw up this
proposal. They didn’t really know how to deal with it, or didn’t want to
deal with it. They went back and forth about it and procrastinated for
about a month.

In New York, Paul and Slim called me into a meeting with them to
resolve this issue. They told me they liked working with me and that they
didn’t want to lose me. At this time, I was up for a promotion at my job at
GM to become shop chairman, where I could have made $100, 000 a year
easily, without the inconsistency. I was willing to stay on with Paul and
Slim because I had my own label that I was trying to get off the ground. I
was in a position to make a lot of connections in the music business, plus
possibly draw the attention of Paul and Slim to my own groups.

Paul basically told me that what I was asking for was ridiculous.
Was it ridiculous for me to ask for some sound security working for this
man for whom I had left my job, my wife and kids, my home for, whom I
was jeopardizing my health and my life for? I was being told that it was
ridiculous for me to ask for some security. He shut down on the idea of
a written contract—he didn’t want a contract. I asked him why it was
OK for him to have a written contract with Slim Shady, but I couldn’t
have a written contract ensuring that they wouldn’t move me out at the
last minute when I jeopardized a stable, good-paying job to work for
them. Was it ridiculous for me to ask for a stable environment, for life
insurance, for ample pay for me to meet my financial goals? I sacrificed
a lot. I couldn’t convince him to see that, or maybe he was threatened by
the fact that I had knowledge of self and the industry and I was close to
Slim, so therefore in his eyes I posed a possible threat to his job. He knew
that I knew how he operated, as well. I tried to convey the message to him
that I was there to do security, not to try to steal Slim Shady, but he didn’t
understand that.

The thing that drove me the most crazy was the way that Slim
played possum, acting like he didn’t know what was going on when the
whole time behind the scenes he called all the shots. An issue would be
brought to Paul, he would take it to Slim, and Slim would tell him how he
wanted it to be handled, and Paul would handle it. Afterward, Slim would
play dumb. For a long time, I honestly believed that Slim was in the dark
about these issues because he was always drunk or high or dealing with
his marital and family problems. Over time, I realized from the way things
progressed that Slim was very much aware and responsible for the way
things were handled. I don’t entirely blame Paul for the way things were,
but he definitely had a way of getting into Slim’s head and influencing
his decisions. Paul was the evil, conniving one in the picture, but Slim
couldn’t see that because he couldn’t think for himself. Everyone around
him thought for Slim Shady because he couldn’t think for himself. That’s
what we were paid to do. Proof thought of the show format; DJ Head
thought of the beats; I thought of ways to keep him safe and thought up
lies for him. We all did things we didn’t have to do for him, and none of
us were getting compensated adequately for our efforts.

They didn’t even try to honor my proposal. They didn’t even try to
meet me halfway. Realistically, I knew that they weren’t going to give me
$2, 000 a week, but I figured I would at least shoot high and maybe they’d
give me at least half of what I asked for. But all I got was an extra $100 a
week on the basis that they were saving for Slim’s retirement. I said, “You
know what? That’s great that you and his accountants are concerned about
Slim’s future, because most managers and accountants aren’t concerned
with their artists’ retirement, so that’s great that you care about him. But
don’t forget about all the people who work for him and contribute to his
success, because we have mouths to feed, as well.We have futures. ” I even
proposed a 401K or an annuity program, but they shot that down, as well.
I can’t say that right away I saw that there was racial dissension among the
Shady camp, because the camp members were very diverse. There were
Jews, whites, blacks, a Mexican, and a German, to say the least, but I can
say one thing that has not changed is the fact that the brothers were paid
less. I call that oppression, and that oppression comes through Paul, and
Slim agrees to it, even though he acts like he doesn’t know what’s going
on, and that’s the sad part.

So, with my new $100 extra a week, I realized that I was making
$185 a day, less than what I could have been making back home at GM
on straight time alone. Again I tolerated this in the hope of making
connections and gathering resources that would enable me to get my own
label, Big Willz Recordz, with my group, the Wadsquad, off the ground.
At the end of July and at the beginning of September in California, I
realized that there were a lot of paper gangsters in this business. They
couldn’t do shit to you physically, but they could beat you down on paper.
That’s what Paul and Slim were: paper gangsters. I knew they couldn’t
do shit to me physically, but behind closed doors on paper, where they
called all the shots, what could I do? They killed me on paper. I continued,
though, because I figured I could gain some things that money couldn’t
buy: networking and connections.

In my downtime, I presented them with packages, and I knew we
had some good stuff, but they always found ways to hate on it. I even
presented some packages to Paul to possibly submit for some soundtracks,
but he never even listened to them. I knew then that it was time for me to
make some things happen for myself. Slim would sleep in until like 2:00
p. m. while we were out in California recording his album, and I would
spend my free mornings taking cabs to this radio station or that radio
station, as well as various record companies. I got a few connections, but it
was reinforced to me that unless you had a referral or were talking to the
man who made the big decision, you weren’t going to get anywhere. That
put a damper on things for the moment. I decided to make the best of my
time while in LA, so I spent some time with Sarge and Rowe, Dre’s security,
who schooled me on how to adjust to the California lifestyle. They told
me about how people at Death Row can cause problems, as well as some
other people. After being in California for about two weeks, I decided to
get certified, to get my executive protection order as well as a few CCW
permits. I did this to make myself more well-rounded and hoped that by
taking my status to a more professional level, I would get more adequate
pay from Slim and Paul. I also made myself more marketable, in case I
wanted to do other forms of security or security for other artists. I took all
my classes in the mornings while Slim was asleep and still made it back
in time to take him to the studio. I learned a lot from Sarge and Roe.They
taught me a lot about appearance and conversation as security, about how
not to get caught up in the hype. They taught me a lot of survival tactics
that I didn’t know about. They helped me to take it to the next level. I
figured that anybody who could keep Dre alive through all the Death Row
drama was worth listening to. California was an educational experience
for me about security.

Another thing I learned was that California was a very expensive
place to live, and Paul took his time sending out per diems, which are
daily allowances. He gave us about $175 a week, which boiled down to
about $25 a day, but in California you need double that amount, or at least
35 bucks a day. I told Paul that it was ridiculous that I had to spend my
own money for per diems, and every time I spent my own money, I would
collect my receipts and send them in for reimbursement. This got to be a
hassle because sometimes it took three or four days just to get a response.