Rock, Reading... and Podcasts

Guest Post by S.W. Lauden

It happened in the early 80s. I was a pre-teen, heavy metal dirt bag-in-training when some forward-thinking neighborhood teens played me a few songs from "In God We Trust, Inc." by Dead Kennedys. It may not have been the exact moment when everything changed for me, but it was pivotal. Music became my identity soon after that, for better and for worse.

I continued listening to the 70s rock and glam metal my older brothers fed me, easily floating up and down the radio dial from classic country to new wave and everything in between, but punk rock really captured my imagination. It was the springboard into a universe of art, culture, and ideas that I never knew existed.

Even when my tastes evolved and I followed my ears into glam rock, alternative rock, and grunge, punk rock continued to inform my worldview. A lot of that is on display in my Greg Salem punk rock P.I. trilogy including BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION (2015), GRIZZLY SEASON (2016), and HANG TIME, which was released last week.

I've blogged about my musical background and tastes in previous posts, but I haven't explained how punk rock also led me to read for pleasure. I don't know about you, but the two are inextricably linked in my mind. Black Flag and Kurt Vonnegut go together like peanut butter and jelly. Coffee and cigarettes!

I spent countless after school hours bouncing between a fantastic used record store run by some of the same punks I read about in Flipside magazine, and a hippie-dippy bookstore a couple of blocks from the beach (with a cat in the window, duh). My mind had been blown open, creating a gaping counter-cultural wormhole that led me to writers like Jack Kerouac, Raymond Chandler, William S. Burroughs, Dashiell Hammett, and Charles Bukowski.

By the time I got to college, I discovered spoken word performances by former Black Flag frontman, Henry Rollins, and Dead Kennedys founder, Jello Biafra. I also saw writers like Spalding Gray, Jim Carroll, and Michael McClure. It blew my mind that musicians were making words and that authors could perform their works like musicians.

Rock and reading have long been two of my biggest obsessions, but I have discovered a third in the last few years—podcasts. Radio shows like Somewhere Out There with Joe Frank, This American Life, and Radiolab were my gateway drugs. Once in the podcast universe, I quickly expanded to WTF with Marc Maron, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Cracked, Re:sound, Freakonomics, and Snap Judgement. Lately, I’ve been digging Desert Oracle Radio, Kurt Vonneguys, and The Hilarious World of Depression. And you better believe I grab tickets when I hear my favorite podcasts are doing live shows around LA.

It was a discussion about our favorite podcasts that compelled Eric Beetner and me to create the monthly crime and mystery podcast, Writer Types. And now my podcast fascination has led me to a new solo project that I’m calling Books on the Bus—a five-part podcast mini-series about the intersection of rock and reading. Each episode features a musician sharing about their favorite books and authors, how books inspire their lyrics, the best rock biographies, and what they like to read on the road—in addition to some unexpected tangents. A new episode will be posted daily between January 29 and Friday, February 2 over on the Rare Bird Radio podcast platform.

To say that this project brings together all of my favorite things would be a huge understatement. My guests include:

• Jeff Whalen—Tsar
• Joey Cape—Lagwagon, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes
• Todd Pasternack—Ominous Seapods, author of LESSONS FROM THE ROAD: MUSICIANS AS BUSINESS LEADER
• Marko DeSantis—Sugarcult, Bad Astronaut
• Jim Lindberg—Pennywise, author of PUNK ROCK DAD 

I’m so excited about this project that I’ve prepared a sneak preview for you. Hope you dig it!

***

S.W. Lauden is the Anthony Award-nominated author of the Tommy & Shayna novellas, CROSSWISE and CROSSED BONES (Down & Out Books). His Greg Salem punk rock P.I. series includes BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION, GRIZZLY SEASON and HANG TIME (Rare Bird Books). He is also the co-host of the Writer Types podcast. Steve lives in Los Angeles.

The Story Behind My UNLOADED Story

Guest Post by S.W. Lauden

Here’s a question I’ve been asked by several people who’ve read my debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION: Was the police shooting of a teenager ripped directly from the headlines of the past couple of years?

It caught me off guard the first few times because I'm not an overtly political person. Sure, I follow the news and I have strong opinions about certain issues, but you won't usually see me posting tirades on Facebook or getting on my soapbox at a dinner party.

So while the answer I want to give might be a definitive “Hell yes!”—because that seems like a pretty badass thing to write about—the truth is probably something a little more complicated.

I first sat down to write “BCC” five years ago. At the time, I knew the protagonist, Greg Salem, was going to be a beach cities punk singer who had grown up to become a police officer. I also knew that he would lose his badge, but I wasn’t exactly sure how.

It was probably a year later, and deep into the first draft, when I finally decided to make his fall from grace an on-duty shooting involving a kid. This wasn’t specifically in response to anything I’d seen in the news, but because it seemed like a good metaphor for his relationship with his own troubled youth.

Sadly, police shootings are not a new phenomenon, but in this case I used it more for dramatic effect. The political implications of choosing that kind of tragic event were not lost on me, but it wasn’t the focal point. That’s just not how I approach my writing.

So I had to think about whether or not to submit a story to Eric Beetner's anthology, UNLOADED: Crime Writers Writing Without Guns. I dug the idea and I loved that the proceeds from sales would benefit a worthy cause (ceasefireusa.org). I just wasn't sure that I was the kind of writer to participate for all the reasons stated above.

My knee-jerk response was that it would be much easier to move on and put my energy into another writing project, but that didn’t sit well with me either. Then it dawned on me: Gun violence isn't really a political issue for me, it's a moral one.

Somehow that made it easier for me to wrap my head around the opportunity. From that point forward I focused on the interesting challenge of writing a compelling crime story without using guns.

The result is “Itchy Feet,” the story of a suburban family that’s hosting a yard sale while their lives fall apart. You can cut the dysfunction with a knife, but everybody is pretty much holding it together until a psychotic clown turns up. That’s when the wheels fall off the circus wagon.

“Itchy Feet” is the latest version of a short story I first started three years ago. The inspiration came to me while I hosted a yard sale of my own. I watched the strangers dig through piles of my old stuff while making up stories for them in my head—because that’s what I do.

  

Whether this anthology will make any difference in the greater debate is beside the point. For now I applaud Eric Beetner and Down & Out Books for putting this anthology together, and thank them for letting me be part of it. I know for sure that there’s a least one person that was challenged by the concept.

***

S.W. Lauden’s debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION, is available now from Rare Bird Books. The second Greg Salem novel, GRIZZLY SEASON, will be published in September 2016. His standalone novella, CROSSWISE, is available now from Down & Out Books.

Meet the Baddest Citizen - Interview with S.W. Lauden

by Holly West

By now, you've probably heard of S.W. Lauden. His debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION, dropped on November 3 and people are digging it. I dug it myself. But prior to publication of the novel, he made a name for himself around town by writing bad ass short fiction and blogging, interviewing and promoting other authors. He even interviewed me once, announcing that mine was "probably" the first historical fiction book he'd ever read.

Now it's Steve's turn to wear the princess tiara. He was kind enough to stop by the blog today to answer my insightful questions. Here we go!


HW: Your debut, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION (BCC), is fast-paced, creepy and atmospheric straight out of the gate. Greg Salem, a cop/surfer/punk rock singer, is under investigation for a shooting in the line of duty when his best friend is murdered. In the book, Greg’s past intersects with his present as he searches for the killer. The murder aside, it reminded me of the different phases of my own life over the years—how they overlap and intersect, and how they’ve contributed to who I am now. To an extent, is Greg’s story a reflection of your own life?

SWL: Thanks for having me, Holly! BCC isn't autobiographical, but it's absolutely informed by my own experiences. Like Greg, I spent the early part of my life chasing a career in music, which meant doing a lot of side hustles in order to eat and live indoors. Mostly slinging food and drinks, but I also worked as a journalist here and there.

Once I stopped pursuing music as a career (what's Einstein's definition of insanity again?), I started sifting through the ashes a little. I discovered that I hadn't been particularly successful at any one thing, but I had done some pretty interesting things—at least according to me. That kind of reckoning is really what Greg is dealing with in this book. He's haunted by his past, conflicted about choices he's made and forced to make some tough decisions about his future. It just so happens that he is surrounded by part-time punks, thugs, drug addicts and murderers. Once I had worked through those internal struggles and external influences for him, I knew that I had a book I could relate to and could get excited about writing.

HW: Having lived in South Bay for a couple of years in the early 90s, I can say you captured the feel of the area remarkably well, noting, of course, that it’s changed quite a bit in the last twenty years. What inspired you to write about this location and how did it inform the plot?

SWL: Growing up near the coast in SoCal was amazing, but my life has taken me in different directions since high school and college. After twenty years of mostly living inland I feel like a tourist whenever I visit my old stomping grounds these days. From that perspective, it allows me to compare the blue-collar beach towns of my childhood—filtered through my faulty, romantic memories—with the exclusive, high-end communities many of them have become.

Unlike me, Greg never really left his hometown so he's forced to experience those dichotomies on a daily basis. He's a SoCal native who feels like he's living behind enemy lines, but he's also a punk musician who grew up to be a cop. So I couldn't imagine setting this particular story anywhere else, although in my head The Bay Cities is a fictionalized combination of several SoCal towns including the South Bay, Santa Barbara, Venice, Silverlake and Los Feliz.

HW: BCC has been out for about a week now (two weeks when this interview posts). Tell me, is being a published author all it’s cracked up to be?

SWL: I think that my experiences in the music business—for better or worse—really prepared me for being a "published author". There's always a big difference between the dream and the reality. That said, publishing a book has been a lifelong dream and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that I actually did it. So, for the time being, it's pretty mind-blowing. Is there anything better than killing yourself for something you love so much? Ask me again in a couple of years. For now, I'm pretty stoked.

HW: You recently wrote a blog post about being surprised to learn that BCC was, in fact, a mystery, as opposed to a straight crime novel. Brings a (modified) quote from the film Withnail and I to mind: “I’ve written a mystery by mistake!”

SWL: First of all, thank you for reminding me of Withnail and I. What a fantastic movie. I don't remember that specific quote, but the first time I watched it was in a tour van as my band drove across England on a club tour. Our roadie was a really cool English dude who was blown away (gobsmacked?) that we hadn't seen it. I was really hung over that day, like most days back then, and almost threw up because I was laughing so hard. Good times!

Anyway, I knew that murder was going to be a main plot device in BCC from the beginning, but I was honestly more concerned with the character development and their motivations. What I didn't know when I started writing it was that there were so many sub genres within the greater crime/mystery world. Looking back I feel lucky because my ignorance, at least at the onset of this project, kept me from being beholden to any particular genre. More than anything, I wanted BCC to have the energy, intensity and darkness that I've always loved about my favorite punk songs.

HW: Anyway, I think that’s kind of hilarious since I’ve had a similar reaction to people assuming my books are cozies because they’re historical mysteries (which I realize is somewhat different than your situation but overall it’s about genre and our perceptions of it). It’s not that I have a problem with cozies, it’s that readers have certain expectations about the label and my books don’t meet them. I don’t want anyone to be disappointed or offended.


I personally consider mysteries crime novels in the general sense so I refer to myself as a crime fiction writer. If the conversation goes further I say I write hardboiled historical mysteries.

All this to ask: How do you really feel about the fact that you wrote a mystery and not, as you say, a crime novel? Does it even matter? Also, can you ever see yourself writing a cozy?

SWL: Genre matters to me more as a reader than as a writer. I like to have a general sense of what I'm getting into when I choose a book. Of course, it's also fun to be surprised. I thought I was digging into some literary fiction when I picked up Robin Sloan's MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE, but it ended up being one of the best mysteries I have read in the last few years.

Could I write a cozy? I honestly have to say that it looks much harder than what I currently do. I'm no expert, but anything with that many specific rules seems like it would be difficult for a writer like me. So instead of giving you a straight answer, I'll just quote Romeo Void: "Never say never."

HW: Obligatory geeky writer question: Are you a plotter or a pantser?

For BCC, I started with a plot that I quickly abandoned. My novella, CROSSWISE (coming from Down & Out Books in March, 2016), started as a short story that just didn't want to end. So...I guess I'm a "plotty pants." Is that a thing?

HW: You’ve quickly become known in writing circles as an indie publishing advocate. Is that by accident or design?

SWL: I have always been a fan of Indie music, and I think that transferred over to Indie publishing once I started exploring this world. I love the DIY aesthetic in general, and find it hard not to root for anybody who decides to go their own way instead of seeking out, or waiting around for, the approval of perceived gatekeepers. I also respect writers who take chances, push boundaries and generally make decisions that the mainstream may not fully understand or embrace. Hell, I don't always understand what they're trying to do, but I try my best to support it. Call it a punk rock hangover.

But just as with music, I'm definitely not somebody who scoffs at mainstream success. Get in my car sometime and you'll be treated to anything from Taylor Swift and The Rolling Stones to Ty Segall, Black Flag and Thao Nguyen. Likewise, I'm perfectly content reading HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY KIDNAP STRANGERS by Max Booth III and DIRTBAGS by Eryk Pruitt back-to-back with ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr and THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins.

All excellent books, by the way. And they all started out the same way, as far as I know—with somebody sitting down in front of a computer and making shit up. From there it's up to the market to decide. Mostly, I would encourage people who think they want to do it to just go ahead and do it. Start a band, write a book, create a podcast, shoot a movie, go to clown school—whatever. Get weird.

HW: You’ve written quite a few flash fiction and short pieces that are published online. Tell me your favorite, why it’s your favorite, and provide a link.

SWL: Interesting question. I think the answer would vary wildly depending on when you ask, but at this exact moment I would pick "Fix Me." It’s about a bicyclist getting chased by a muscle car through some of my favorite East LA neighborhoods. My violent little love letter to Los Angeles.

I submitted it to a contest for Criminal Element earlier this year and was thrilled when it won. Then a friend who is a director approached me about turning it into a short film. We have been going back and forth on ideas for adapting the script, which has lately allowed me to consider the story from a different perspective. I always try to picture the scenes that I am writing—taking into account the peripheral action that's indirectly influencing the outcomes—but writing for a visual medium is something else all together.

HW: What’s up next for you?

SWL: Late lunch. And maybe a mani/pedi, if I think my boss won't notice that I'm gone for two hours...

I already mentioned that my novella, CROSSWISE, is coming out next year. That one's about an ex-NYPD cop who chases his coke-addict girlfriend to her hometown in Florida. She leaves him shortly after he gets a job as head of security at a sprawling retirement community filled with a colorful cast of septuagenarian characters. He's sad, drunk and lonely until the murders start.

I'm also writing the second Greg Salem novel. BCC was always meant to be the first installment in a three-book series. I'm a little over half way through book two and I have to say it's been fun reconnecting with some of the characters again. It's sort of like a high school reunion, only with a lot more violence.

***

S.W. Lauden’s debut novel, BAD CITIZEN CORPORATION is available now from Rare Bird Books. His novella, CROSSWISE, will be published by Down & Out Books in 2016.