The Undercover Soundtrack – Josh Malerman

October 26, 2016October 29, 2016 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris3 Comments

The Undercover Soundtrack is a series where I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week my guest is contemporary horror/thriller author and songwriter Josh Malerman @joshmalerman

Soundtrack by Richard Band, White Lies, Between Music, Allison Laako

You ever seen the 1986 movie Troll? There’s a bonkers scene in which Sonny Bono (the very same) gets touched by the troll and turns into a forest. This scene scared the living piss out of my brothers and I growing up; watching the poor guy morph into an apartment full of plants (and the pain on his face, man o man) had me asking Mom if he was going to be okay. She said yes, he was gonna be fine, and then she laughed because, of course, she was thinking about Sonny and Cher, not “the poor plant man”.

Now, years later, I think about that conversation with Mom and I wonder if horror has a way of freezing time, trapping moments in amber. The Troll soundtrack came out on vinyl recently and I listened to it quite a bit while writing A House at the Bottom of a Lake, not because the music sounds like it’s underwater (that’ll come later here), but because Richard Band’s music has both the innocent freak and the wonder of youth. Cantos Profane best encapsulates this on the album. It’s the song most of us Troll-lovers remember the most from the film. (Recently I had a documentary crew at my house, filming a short about my first book, and I had Troll playing and when Cantos came on, he stepped out from behind the camera and said: “TROLL!”)

First date

A House at the Bottom of a Lake is about two 17-year-olds, Amelia and James, on a first date. It sounds perfect: canoeing across a chain of lakes, sandwiches and beer in the cooler. But the pair discover something below the water’s surface that changes their lives forever. It’s a house at the bottom of the lake.

Although most of the music informed the writing of the book was without lyrics… soundtracks… ambient noise (my cats included), there was a dollop of rock n roll. And nothing seemed to fit the mood I spotted between Amelia and James better than White Lies’s Death from the soundtrack to the movie A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. I suggest you strip down to a t-shirt and underwear and dance alone like alone to this one.

Now freak

Because A House at the Bottom of a Lake is a first date story, a teenage love song, I gravitated toward movie soundtracks that do both the freak out and the wonder. Because that’s what teenage life is. (That’s what life is like now, too, but let’s focus on the past for a second here, eh?) The whole ‘gravitating’ thing becomes clear after the fact; I can’t imagine lining up a series of albums with a mind that this or that is going to influence the story because really why not listen to something that feels the opposite of your book idea and see what comes of it? But in this case, and in hindsight, it’s clear to me that I was thinking of teenagers in love and the horror of “firsts”: first kiss, first sex, first love. And, in a skewed way here, first home, too. So Troll worked because it came out about the time I was experiencing some firsts of my own. But about halfway through writing the book, my girl Allison discovered a band that changed the whole process.

Yes. They’re under water

Now, before I introduce Between Music and their project AquaSonic, I feel it’s necessary to say that if I were making a movie, I wouldn’t be the type to play a song whose lyrics matched up perfectly with the scene. Too literal. Too cheesy. It just doesn’t feel right to play Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter if a character of mine is named Mrs Brown and she actually does have a lovely daughter. But when Allison showed me a youtube clip of Between Music I said screw my own rules.

The band has an entire under water show. All their instruments are underwater, recorded under water, played underwater. Hell they even sing underwater. While working on the book I knew the setting was a naturally horrifying place: it’s dark, wet, distorted, cold, and claustrophobic. The only details of the house you see are by the end of your submerged flashlight beams, and that’s through the prism of your facemask. About 60 percent of the book takes place in the submerged house. So to discover a band who has shown us what music sounds like below the waves was, for me, a step deeper than kismet.

It was magic.

Here’s another clip (it’s too good for just one).

Courtship song

Lastly, I wish I had a clip of Allison performing the song she wrote based on A House at the Bottom of a Lake. “The Courtship of Amelia” is a gorgeous, freaky, hit and you’ll have to believe me when I say it’s an earworm. A worm that, I discovered, can live long under water.

Josh Malerman is the author of Bird Box and the forthcoming Black Mad Wheel (May, 2017, ECCO/HarperCollins.) Along with a half dozen published short stories, Malerman is also the songwriter for the rock band the High Strung. He lives with Allison Laakko and their pets (including a brilliant weimeraner named Valo) in Michigan. Find him on Twitter as @joshmalerman and on Facebook.

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Undercover Soundtrack

The Undercover Soundtrack – Kerry Drewery

July 28, 2015 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris2 Comments

‘The planes, the explosions, the dust, the calm’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week’s guest is award-winning YA author and creative writing tutor Kerry Drewery @KerryDrewery

Soundtrack by Radiohead, The Streets, The White Stripes

Music has always been an important part of my life. Growing up the television was never on until after teatime, yet the radio always was. Born in the ’70s, I remember singing along to my parent’s new Blondie album, going to Radio One roadshows in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, and listening to chart run-downs on hurried Tuesday lunch-times in school (as it was then).

My brother’s music choices of heavy metal would pound through the house, and perhaps had some influence on my turn from a Buck’s Fizz and Duran Duran fan to teenage goth listening to bands such as The Cure, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cult – I listened for the lyrics, but even more so the mood.

Long time ago

My goth years are waaay behind me now and I’ll listen to any genre, yet it’s still the feel and the mood of the music that’s more important to me rather than the lyrics, and that’s mostly how it affects and ties in with my writing.

Unfortunately I’m not one of those writers who can listen to music as they work (I wish I was!) because I find my brain latches onto the lyrics and instead of thinking about what’s happening in my novel, I start singing along, much to the disgust of anyone in earshot.

However, when I leave the computer at the end of the day, when I go for a run, when I’m in the car or reluctantly doing housework, or even when I’m planning, the music will go on and the volume will go up. If I’m listening on my iPod, I’ll find myself skipping through tracks to find the ‘right’ one – ‘right’ being whatever provides the correct mood.

I was doing this when writing A Brighter Fear, and latched onto Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees. It reminded me of the novel; it made me feel the mood of it. The track begins very quietly, Thom Yorke’s voice lilting with some melancholy accompanied by acoustic guitar, yet as it progresses a crescendo builds, his voice more forceful, higher and with electric guitar, before fading away again.

For me this mirrors the bombing scenes in the novel – the quiet and calm beforehand, slowly building as fear spreads throughout the communities, then the sounds of planes overhead, followed by the bombs exploding around them sending rubble, bricks, homes to pieces, before finally the dust settles, the planes disappear and calm, quiet, returns.

It was never the lyrics, but on listening now, I’m aware of the repetition of a phrase talking about being worn out by what’s happening, which is exactly the mood of my character struggling to survive this.

Two people

Another song that helped me to write A Brighter Fear, but in a different way, was The Streets, Dry Your Eyes. Although this again gives the perfect mood and places me as a writer in exactly the right frame of mind, it’s far more about the lyrics – and for a very particular scene where two characters who’ve become supportive friends, are forced to part.
The whole song is a story of a girl breaking up with a boy, and the lyrics are very directional, telling how he moves his hands towards her to touch her face, or how she turns away but takes one last look back, and this allow you, the listener, to see exactly the scene the writer intended. I encourage you to listen, to close your eyes and let the picture form in your head of precisely what’s happening between this distraught couple. That’s what I wanted to do with the scene I was writing – I wanted my reader to see it as I saw it in my head; this showed me how effectively it can be done.

I could bleat on all day about tracks that have affected, helped and supported me as a writer, but I think they’d fall under the same category as these – putting my head in the right mood, or showing me how well something can be done. To finish on one that is different, though, and takes me to my second novel – A Dream of Lights…

This novel saw my character going through some tough times in North Korea, and there were days when the research got to me (I discovered some truly shocking things), and there were times when stepping away at the end of the day and leaving it in my office rather than letting those things stay in my head, was difficult. This track though, with the volume high and my eyes closed, would melt all that away on its guitar; it helped me smile at the end of the day or face the next chapter afresh. I love it…The White Stripes, Ball and Biscuit.

Kerry Drewery is a YA writer of the novels A Brighter Fear and A Dream of Lights (published by HarperCollins). A Brighter Fear is about a teen growing up in Baghdad when war breaks out in 2003, and was short-listed for the Leeds Book Award. A Dream of Lights follows a teenage girl in North Korea as she discovers the truth about her country and struggles to survive with her family. It was awarded Highly Commended at the North East Teen Book Awards and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Kerry lives between the countryside and the sea in the north of England in a house full of books, films and dogs. She’s a Patron of Reading, creative writing tutor and co-organiser of UKYAX. She’s currently walking around with tape over her mouth as she has news of her new novel but isn’t supposed to tell yet… She’s repped by Jane Willis at United Agents. Find her on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter @KerryDrewery

Undercover Soundtrack

‘Grime meets classical’ – Polly Courtney

September 30, 2013 Roz Morris @Roz_MorrisLeave a comment

My guest this week grew up on classical music. Childhood piano lessons inspired her latest novel, Feral Youth, about the relationship between a troubled teenager and a piano teacher. One pivotal scene came while she was listening to Wagner; the surging music seemed to insist she create a dramatic bonding moment between her two principals. She herself is no stranger to drama; she made her name with a semi-autobiographical novel about life in London’s Square Mile, then famously went indie because her publisher, HarperCollins, tried to brand her books as chick-lit. She is Polly Courtney and she’ll be here on Wednesday with her Undercover Soundtrack.

Undercover Soundtrack

The Undercover Soundtrack – Caroline Smailes

May 15, 2013 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris36 Comments

‘True love is a sense of returning home’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to tap into a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week’s post is by Caroline Smailes @Caroline_S

Soundtrack by Gaspard Royant, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

When writing my first four novels, my creative process didn’t involve music. Children shouting, laughing, crying and even dogs barking, then yes I could write. But the minute I played any kind of music I become distracted, lost in the music, unable to commit a word to paper.

Writing The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

Then came the creative process of writing The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. To my surprise music became part of the writing method. The difference seemed to be that the book was about music. It was a novel that had music at its very core, it looked at how music could lure, I even found myself considering how music sounded when being played under water.

The novel has a soundtrack through it, a whistle and a singing nymph, thus for me to populate that mysterious place I had to bring background music into the creative equation.

In one of the first scenes I wrote, Arthur Braxton is fleeing with his pants around his ankles from a group of teenagers. He’d been promised sexual fulfilment by the girl of his dreams. However, it was a trick and he found himself exposed, ambushed by a barrage of flashing mobile phones which instantly uploaded embarrassing images of him to Facebook. The scene ended with him running away, with suicidal thoughts smothering him.

That was the start, it was also when music, for the first time, began to influence the story I was writing.

Have you ever heard a single lyric that inspired you, stopped you in your tracks, and made you catch your breath?

There’s a single line is Gaspard Royant’s Yours: ‘I’ve got a whole world where you’ll never find me’. This was the line that changed The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. It sneaked into my thought processes as I wrote. I wondered what it would be like if a place existed that could keep a chosen few safe, a place that not everyone could find.

That’s when I started writing about the derelict swimming baths called The Oracle. In the novel, for 16 years, the vast building has been closed. From the signs stuck to the erected fences around The Oracle, it is clear that there is a looming threat. Although it is a listed building, the council has sold it to an American company who are planning to demolish and rebuild. As Arthur is contemplating suicide, he finds himself outside The Oracle and that’s when he hears music – a girl’s voice, singing, the most beautiful singing he has ever heard.

Later, the reader discovers that the singing is from Madora, and later again it is revealed that she lives below the surface of the swimming baths in ‘the otherworld’. A secret world where humans don’t go, a whole other world where people cannot be found.

Would I have ever allowed my creative mind to escape into that other world without Gaspard’s lyric? I honestly don’t know.

First love

I guess that one idea led to me thinking about the concept of home and Arthur Braxton’s lack of home, indeed his need for a home.

When these ideas were forming, I heard Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. I watched a YouTube video of a performance; it was when the two singers were still in a relationship. The way they interacted, that feeling that no one else in the room mattered, that absorbing of each other, inspired me. I wanted to take that feeling and apply it to a first love, the redemptive magic of that first love. It allowed for a deeper understanding of my characters.

And Home is a happy song, bouncy and full of energy. I like that about it. So, pulling on their lyrics and that overwhelming sense of home being wherever the two people were together, I let the music play and tried to explore the sense of true love being a returning home, a familiarity and safety.

Yet these were the only songs that I could listen to whilst writing.

There was no place in my creative experience for another song. I had compartmentalised these songs into being acceptable, into them being a tool to create. They played on a loop, almost echoes within the room.

So is this a new way of writing, is music my muse?

Sadly not.

My next novel is about The Beatles, I’ve already tried writing to their songs and can’t. Perhaps The Drowning of Arthur Braxton will be my only novel that allows music to aid the creative process. I’ll let you know.

Caroline Smailes lives in the North West of England with her husband and three children. The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is her fifth novel. It is published by The Friday Project and is available in paperback and eBook. She can be found at her website and on Twitter as @Caroline_S.

Gaspard Royant lyric quoted with permission.

GIVEAWAY Caroline is excited to give away a print copy of The Drowning of Arthur Braxton to one commenter here. Extra entries if you share this post on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or G+ – but be sure to leave a note here to let us know that you have!