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| J-Maddz |
I haven’t blogged in over two hundred years, so this post may
come as a shock to you. What have I been doing since James Madison was
president? So glad you asked.
I wrote a thing. Then I submitted it and somebody put it in
a book. Um, how cool is that?!
I’m talking about the Faces of the Crying Girl anthology. The
basis of this project is Alex Nader’s (website, Twitter) short story “The
Crying Girl” where a girl is seen crying at a metal concert right before heads literally
start exploding. In our anthology, thirteen authors give their take on who this
mystery girl is and why she’s crying.
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| Xavier knows what's going on. |
But, of course, it wasn’t just me in this glorious anthology.
We have a really great crew of authors who took part in this awesome adventure.
Check out the interviews below for a chance to get to know the authors a little
better. Want to internet stalk them? (It’s ok. We understand.) There’s this handy
little Twitter list where you’ll find us.
Many thanks for Alex for putting together these interviews!
Also, if your eyes are sensitive to the majestic glow of cursing, avert thine
eyes.
Ken Mooney
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
As if my taste in music
didn't do it, the piercings, the tattoos (Thomas Pynchon, X-Men, Nine Inch
Nails & my own work), the love of the word "fuck." I'm also
(probably) one of the few published authors who has had a waking craniotomy
which really helped to get out a significant number of the amount of fucks I
give.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (i.e. the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
A little bit of everything,
but some of it was location. I spent a lot of my teenage years and early 20s at
concerts and gigs, and here in Dublin, a lot of those venues are old converted
theatres, places with a real sense of history and decadence. Seriously, have
yourself a google of the Ambassador or the Olympia (ad a Dublin to the end of
that image search) and you'll see where I see this stuff playing out in my
head.
Ashley Davis
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
The love of my music life is
TOOL.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (ie the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
The idea of Audiophilia is
what got my wheels turning. I liked the idea of a drug that blurred the line
between a high and reality, so I ran with that.
Bart Van Goethem
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
I’ve seen KISS, Metallica,
Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Joe Satriani and many other metal and hard rock
bands live in concert more times than you can imagine. I won’t even bring up my
metal record and cd collection.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (ie the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
The girl. Who was she? How
did she end up at the concert? In my eyes she was innocent.
Jessica West
What
makes me metal as fuck?
My voice (the writing one and
the actual one). It's deep and loud and clear when I don't hold back, and can
be incredibly harsh or surprisingly pleasant depending on which way the switch
is flipped. Like metal, my voice is typically visceral, brutally honest,
gritty, and, on rare occasions, insightful and eloquent. Kind of like Slipknot,
I guess.
What
aspect of the original story inspired me the most?
The story was great, but it
wasn't the story itself that drew me in, it was the first three writers who
really brought it to life that did it for me. Alex Nader, Chris (Joriah Wood),
and Jon (J. Edward Paul a.k.a. Eddy a.k.a. The Sexy Mailman) formed a natural
collaboration and it worked out so well, I really wanted to be a part of that.
Thanks for making that happen.
Rachel Ortego
What
makes me metal as fuck?
The metal mod on my amp.
Especially when I crank that bitch up.
What
aspect of the original story inspired me the most?
The idea that music is
powerful enough to have a lasting impression on people (even if it does kill
them) has always been fascinating to me. What is it about music that transcends
cultures and language barriers and all that stuff? When I read the original
story the idea for my story just kind of came to me and I had to write it.
T.R. Orchulek
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
I spent five years in a metal
band, playing shows and worshipping at the altar of bands like Tool, Metallica,
Faith No More, Mastadon, Pantera, and the Deftones. I know that mindset. I know
that life. I still listen to it everyday. It's in my blood. Now, I channel
those same feelings and urges through my writing. So, naturally, there's a lot
of chaos and violence and rage, but also beatuy, love and hope.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (ie the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
The mystery of the thing. The
girl - who is she? What's her story? What happened to her before that fateful
night? What is Audiophilia, and where can I get some? What would a Throat Slit
Six song sound like?
Katsyarina
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
I’m pretty far away from this
music genre usually but after watching "Deadman Wonderland" for
me it’s one song – “One Reason” by Fade that was opening there – a story of
bloody metal reality I loved. So, yeah, it makes me feel that way every time I
hear it.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (ie the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
For me it was this mad desire
of Johnny to have his show (this special moment for him) no matter what – it
made me wonder about the price he’d pay for it and this girl definitely had
something to do with it.
Edward Paul
Why
I'm metal as fuck:
I am NOT metal in the slightest. No tattoos (terrified of needles), no extreme
sports (allergic to pavement burns), and no musical talent to speak of (tone
deaf). I've never even broken a bone. Closest I get was having hair down to my
ass in highschool. Does that count? Then 1/100th metal as fuck.
What
inspired me from the original story:
It was the girl for everyone, wasn't it? How could it not be? The supernatural
quality of a still, suffering beauty in a sea of discord. It's an image that
begs exploration.
Chris Forshner
Metalness:
My mom was scared to send me
to Kindergarden when I was proudly declaring Alice Cooper as my favourite and
singing along. I grew up in a house of rock, and threw everything else in along
the way. It's impossible to write without a song to distract the brain into
focus.
Story:
Blood always captures my
attention. Why is it there? What effect will its leaving have? Growing up in a
pile of horror novels, it's always a sign of something.
Rachel O’Neill (ME!)
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
I didn't choose the metal
life. The metal life chose me. Just joking! I'm definitely not metal in
any way, but music speaks to me. With metal you have to go all in -
full blast, leaving nothing behind. I love that passion. It makes me want
to put more passion into life.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (e.g. the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
The power of music is so
important to me and I felt The Crying Girl was a really cool interpretation of
that. Music is what gets me through the day, so seeing music be such a
heavy part of violence made me want to dig in and know more.
///Tangentially, on the power
of music, in the "unpleasantness" between North and South Korea this
week, South Korea blasted K-pop songs at the border (including one of my fav
songs lol). North Korea was like "Um, Dude. That's gonna have to stop.
Like, RFN." This concludes story time with Rachel.///
Daniel Cotton
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
Musical taste more than
anything else - first gig was Rammstein, seen Slipknot, In Flames, RATM
amongst others since.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (e.g. the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
Personally, the single
most powerful aspect of the original story was the image of the crowd and
the crying girl captivated by the live
music. It encapsulated the spine-tingling connection
between a spectator and the artist, which somehow means that
everything outside of that connection becomes diminished and
non-existent during the live music experience - and this particularly
resonated with me given that I have seen a host of awesome metal bands live.
Chris Smith
What
makes you metal (as fuck)?
Ultimately, what makes me
metal as fuck is not caring if people think I'm metal as fuck. I know what I
like, I know what moves me, and I put my energy into the things that are most
fulfilling. It's not that I don't like people, or want them to like me--quite
the contrary. I try not to be a jerk about it, I want to get along, but if you
don't like what I do? It's cool. I don't mind. We can all be ourselves.
As far as the trappings
though--I have a sweet metal goatee, examine my playlist and you're gonna find
about 85% of it is the tightest metal you've ever heard, and the biggest problem
with "11" is that it's never loud enough.
What
aspect of the original story inspired you the most? (ie the music, the blood,
the supernatural, the drugs?)
First, the atmosphere. I
could feel the crowd's energy, and the band members standing on that precipice
between nerves and release.
The funniest part of the
whole thing is that I somehow missed the drugs the first time I read it
through. In fact, I missed the drugs totally until *after* my story was
written. Would that have affected the route I took? Most definitely. I think I
worked them into a later draft, but my own sloppy reading skills changed the
whole course and direction of my story.
Really, though? The image of
a girl crying at a metal concert...if you've seen it, you know why cameras cut
to them. Music is an emotional experience to begin with, and when someone is
crying at a concert, you know that they're totally captured by something.
There's an emotional purity there that is going to be hard to find anywhere
else.
And when those tears turn to blood?
Come on...who doesn't want to know what happened there?
Andrew Moore
Metal:
I hitchhiked across the Kavango region in northern Namibia,
spent the night with a stranger in the regional capital, then walked 4 miles to
a hospital in the morning with a bag strapped to my back: I did all of this
with blood poisoning working its way from my right thumb to my heart. I was out
of the hospital in an hour and continued to my thing.
The story:
Having complete control of
creating this girls life story while trying to make it fit within the general
theme of the original plot. It was a good exercise and a lot of fun.
Alexander Nader
Well, fuck. I just sat down
to organize this post and read through everyone’s answers for the first time.
Immediately, I am humbled that these excellent story tellers took cue from
something I wrote. Second, all of their answers kicked ass, what in the hell is
left to say?
What
makes me metal (as fuck)?
Ummm, shit. I once bit the
head off a bat. No, wait, that wasn’t me. Okay, this one time I totally…no,
wait, that was Danzig. Okay, okay, fine. I listen to my music like really,
REALLY loud. Okay? Maybe?
And as far as the story
inspiring me, it’s funny. The original story was all about the guitarist for
me. The girl was an afterthought of sorts. Then Chris was like, ‘Dude, I have
to tell her story,’ and I was all, ‘Go ahead, bruh’, and then Jon jumped in
like, ‘Hey, guys, can I play too,’ and I told that fucker no, but he showed up
anyway, and then Jess got all on Twitter like, ‘Hey, you guys should make an
anthology,’ and just like that Faces of the Crying Girl was born.
The book is awesome and it’s
free for a few days. I promise it’s worth at least ten times that much.
Thanks for joining us! I hope you enjoyed hearing from the great Faces of the Crying Girl crew. Get this FREE anthology HERE.
