Faces of the Crying Girl

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.

The Faces of the Crying Girl is FREE (my favorite number) between now and 9/4/15. There is seriously no better time to check out this great indieproject. 

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.