Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sometimes reading the book isn't enough. We want to be immersed in an idea or feeling. That's why at book interrupted, we've made a playlist for each book cycle. Visit www.bookinterrupted.com to find playlists for each book cycle and member or check out our YouTube channel what's on your playlist.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Parental guidance is recommended because this episode has mature topics and strong language. Here are some moments you can look forward to during this episode of book interrupted.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: What if every rock star that died too soon, that died early, like the 27 club, what if they didn't die?
[00:00:42] Speaker D: We'll autograph it for you. We've got a special, like, first edition seal that we put on every book.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: We take none of this seriously. Like, this is total popcorn fun. This is a movie on paper and.
[00:00:53] Speaker D: We'Re trying to manifest, you know, we're trying to like, speak it into existence. That's what we're trying to do.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Okay? Is that what we're doing? It is the best sorbet that you will ever read. We promise we won't make you think too much at all.
[00:01:05] Speaker D: If you're a pop culture fan, if you're a music fan, if you love the eighties and nineties, you don't need that glossary. You've lived.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: It really is a fun book that has a little bit of those things in it, but it is the greatest.
[00:01:15] Speaker D: Book of all time.
[00:01:28] Speaker C: I wanna learn something new.
I don't wanna be disrupted.
Mind, body and soul.
Inspiration is the goal and we're gonna talk it out on book interrupt, interrupted.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Welcome to the author's spotlight. During these mini episodes, we have authors come on and tell us about their books and why we should read them. Let's listen. This episode we are talking to Jay Watson and Kyle Wiltshire, and they're talking about their book, the Dead Rock stars. So thanks for being on the show, and why don't you let us know why we should read your book?
[00:02:16] Speaker D: Well, thanks, Sarah, for having us. We're really excited to be here. I think you should read our book. If you love pop culture, if you love remembering how things were in the nineties, if you love music and musicians, particularly those who have passed away tragically and too soon, far too soon, I think you should read our book. I think you'll enjoy the blast of nostalgia, the wave of pop culture that is our story. And on top of that, it's just a really cool mystery story wrapped up in nostalgia and pop culture.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Great. So, Jay, why don't you tell us what the book is about. I think it sounds really good.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: From what I've read, Kyle and I are actually giant movie fans, and so we started watching movies together in college. We met in 96. We've been watching movies together ever since. Tv shows, any type of pop culture, that's been our thing. If you're a good nerd, you occasionally have that thought where you think to yourself, I could do this better than they can. And so we used to pitch to each other ideas for movies, and Kyle would have an idea, or I'd have an idea, and we talk about it a little bit. It'd be fine. But one day, Kyle pitched me this idea. He was like, hey, what if every rock star that died too soon, that died early, like the 27 club, what if they didn't die? What if they actually faked their deaths to become secret agents to save the world? I just paused. I stopped. Kyle was like, are you there? Like, checking to make sure I'm still connected? And, uh, I'm like, man, I I don't think that's a million dollar idea, kyle. I think that's a billion dollar universe. I love that idea. That's a movie. I want to see that. And, you know, I got so excited about it, and a couple of weeks passed, and I went back to Kyle. I was like, hey, man, you remember that idea? He's like, yeah. I was like, we should do that. He's like, what do you mean? I was like, well, we don't really know how to make a movie, but we do know how to write. What if we just wrote, what if we just wrote the story and whatever form it comes out, that's what we'll do. And because we didn't know how to make a movie, we didn't have the physical ability to film something. We did take our time, and we wrote a story that we're really proud of.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: It's amazing. So, as far as I can tell from what. What I've read, I noticed it says Elvis.
He became a suica agent. And is it centered around the Elvis character? Or you're going to find, like, I don't know, John Lennon or Cuckoo Bain? Or, like, are they all in that book? Or is this, like, the first of maybe a series of rockstar secret agents?
[00:04:36] Speaker D: So the answer to all those questions is yes.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Okay, great.
[00:04:40] Speaker D: We try to keep a little coy as to who's in the book, just so there's surprises. Just so you know, someone might be a big fan of somebody, and they pop up like, oh, cool. I didn't know they were gonna be in the book. The real main character is one of the few imaginary people that we invented that we created. A guy named Cole Denton. He's a tech genius. And our book is set in 1999. And at that point, the dead rock stars, which is actually what their group is called, or the DRS for short. The people who have faked their deaths, who they've become secret agents and they find themselves coming up against an enemy that they don't know how to defeat in a world that is rapidly changing, that they need help figuring out. And so they go to someone in a different field, in a different world for help. And that's cold in. But yeah, Elvis is in it. You know, we sort of try to make comparisons. Elvis is bit of the Dumbledore, you know, in this story. The mentor to some degree, the wise sage, but also he never does exactly what you want him to do. You're like, come on, Dumbledore, just tell Harry who he is. Elvis kind of serves in that capacity too. Like, he always sort of lets Cole figure it out, you know, those sort of things. So. Yeah, but there's a lot of rock stars, a lot of people that we love a lot, miss a lot from the seventies and eighties.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: And does that make Jimi Hendrix Hagrid? Is that what you're saying?
[00:05:55] Speaker D: Maybe a little bit. I forgot about Jimmy being 8ft tall and, you know, bushy beard, you know?
[00:06:01] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, when he plays the guitar in the fro, I mean, I think it kind of works. I see it.
[00:06:06] Speaker D: It does add some height a little bit.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: This is a world, a world that we're all familiar with. We're familiar with 1999. We're familiar with what happens at the end of 1999. But this is like an alternative kind of reality. This is a. And it's important for us to say, too, we take none of this seriously. Like, this is total popcorn fun. This is a movie on paper that is yet to be made. We get to kind of watch this world through the eyes of Cole as he's kind of discovering this men in black esque kind of universe where the things that we thought happened the way they did didn't really happen that way. And all the Elvis Presley sightings in the National Enquirer, they were actually happening. He was standing next to aliens with baby Jesus or whatever. I don't know what all those things were in the National Enquirer, but it's a fun story and we get to kind of introduce the world through coal and all of these characters that we loved and we lost too soon, we get to kind of revisit and celebrate them again.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: I love that. And I also see that it says historical events, like how they played out, and you guys kind of changed the reasons why they played out because of these agent rock stars. I don't want to have a spoiler, but can you give me an example of maybe a historical event that might be in the book?
[00:07:17] Speaker C: I'll give you a little bit of that.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:19] Speaker C: I'll give you a little bit of a backstory, then. Kyle can. I'll let Kyle see what he wants to do, because Kyle does not like to share spoilers. I'd probably tell you the last page of the book if it were up to me, but Kyle doesn't.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Like, I get that.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: I'm like, you're not gonna believe what happened, and I wrote it. But the DRS has been around for many generations, and so many of the historical things that you think happened a certain way, maybe they didn't, and maybe this organization is at a hand in helping save the world from many things that never happened. I don't know if Kyle, you want to say a little bit more than that?
[00:07:49] Speaker D: Yeah. Kind of shaped the culture, shaped the world from the shadows a little bit, you know, living in plain sight. You know, one of the fun things that we toy with, and Jay kind of mentioned this a little bit, is the fact that, in our world, dead is dead. So Elvis doesn't have to hide his identity when he goes out. He can dress up like Elvis because people look at that guy and go, that guy kind of looks like Elvis, but they don't think it's actually Elvis, you know? And so, yeah, they can hide in plain sight one of the fun elements of our story. And there's some kind of. Some hijinks that kind of go along with that, but, yeah. So they shape the world and sort of how it happened, and it happened in a way that you don't realize because they were behind the scenes doing things. There's a big one that our story is built around that they're trying to solve, trying to figure out. So we'll leave it at that.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Leave it at that.
[00:08:36] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: And you mentioned that you thought it should be a movie, so are you working on a screenplay or someone working on a screenplay for you? Like, where is that athlete?
[00:08:48] Speaker D: Oh, not yet. You know?
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Not yet. Okay.
[00:08:51] Speaker D: Well, we're trying to manifest, you know, we're trying to, like, speak it into existence. That's what we're trying to do.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: Okay. Is that what we're doing.
[00:08:58] Speaker D: That's what we're doing.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: I thought we were. We were. Right now, we're currently getting on one podcast at a time for the rest of our lives so that 75 people will actually see the book and read it and be excited about it. I think that's where we're at right now in this phase.
[00:09:10] Speaker D: We're trying to do that, too, but something can't happen unless you speak it. Unless you.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: All right.
[00:09:15] Speaker D: Unless you. You whisper it to the world.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: I didn't know we were on Doctor Osmo. That's impressive, Kyle. I'm good with that, buddy.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: We have listeners in 82 countries, so there might be a screenwriter amongst them that's going to listen to the show, read your book, and say, would make a good movie. And there you go. Screenplay made.
[00:09:33] Speaker C: Classic children of the eighties. We have a trilogy planned. We know where we're going and what we're doing. And so right now, we're currently trying to get the word out about this book. We love our story. It is a lot of fun. Like, if you want to disappear for a weekend or maybe even two days, it's not just a quick read. This is a book for you. And so as soon as we get this word out, we're gonna fire off book two and book three, and then, you know, hopefully, yeah, maybe we'll write some screenplays. That'd be kind of fun.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: No, I think. I think it makes a great book because I'm nostalgic, obviously, but the nineties. But I think, yeah, it sounds like it would be a super fun movie, having silly actors in it. It would be great. I think there's a great screenplay.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: We've done a little bit of daydreaming about that. I think one of the coolest things Kyle did to kind of make the book kind of come alive is the soundtrack. You want to talk about that?
[00:10:22] Speaker D: Sure. Yeah. I mean, we also. As much as we love movies and stuff, we love music. So as we wrote, we started thinking, what song would go with this? And how could you integrate a song into the scene without it being weird again? It's a movie on paper. I really like that phrase that Jay used there. It's a movie on paper. And so you want to be able to see it. You want to be an imagine it. But if you could add the element of hearing it as well, add another sense. So we would write scenes in. Write songs into scenes. There's some scenes where the whole scene is based around a song, you know, and how the song sort of times into what's happening. But it's all done organically so that you can hear the soundtrack. But yeah, I went through the entire book page by page, and I found every song, even song sort of hinted at, even. And I created a Spotify playlist. So as you're reading along, if you want to listen to, you know, the music as it goes. Yeah, just search the dead. Rock. Rock stars on Spotify, you know, get three or 4 hours of music. I think it's that long. Three or 4 hours of music.
[00:11:21] Speaker C: It's important to note that it's not just 1999.
[00:11:24] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:11:24] Speaker C: Every rock star that passed away from the fifties on up to 1999 is a part of the story. And so some of their music is there. Some of the music that they love is there, some of the music that they love that we think they would love in 1999 is there. And so it's a very fun, diverse soundtrack that really does. If you listen to it as you're reading the chapters, you know, as the breakdown goes, you'll see the songs, you'll catch it and it'll kind of bring back a little nostalgia to that moment. A lot of Easter eggs for you, Sarah. A lot of 1990s Easter eggs. Colin, I love a good movie quote and we're not allowed to do a whole lot of it, but we did tiptoe around all the different kind of things we could do.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: That's amazing. So book interrupted does the same thing. We do a Spotify music playlist for every book we read. So every book we all put songs in that make us think about the themes of the book. And we put a playlist together on Spotify too. Yeah, that's really, really cool. Our listeners already do that. So we will put in our show notes the link for your playlist so that the listeners can go and check out your playlist as well. And just so our listeners know, the show notes will also have their book. So you can click on the show note to go to Amazon to get their book. Or you can also go on our website, which is www.bookinterrupted.com shop. And under author spotlight you'll find a book. Yeah.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: And if you want to get one directly from us, deadrockstarsbook.com, we'll autograph it for you. We've got a special, like first edition seal that we put on every book. So those are, those are special. We'd love to get one of those to you as well.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: I'll put your website too on the show notes so that listeners can also do that and get their special book. That's great. I love that.
[00:13:09] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: We only have a couple more minutes of this episode. Is there anything else you want to add about your book that our listeners might.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: I think one of the cool things about our story is, you know, you read a book like the Game of Thrones series or Dune, which has, you know, kind of become popular again because of the movie and all that. Man, there's so much terminology. There's so many characters. You need a glossary, you know, to, like, really be able to follow it. And I feel like one of the things that our book does really well is if you're a pop culture fan, if you're a music fan, if you love the eighties and nineties, you don't need that glossary. You've lived it, you know? So when we quote dumb and dumber, you know what we're talking about. Had to explain it to my dad. He didn't quite follow, you know, some of the pop culture references, but.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, it was Weezer, wasn't it? Yes.
[00:13:54] Speaker D: He was like this buddy Holly thing. I don't understand it. I was like, okay, so there's a song by a group called Weezer called Buddy Holly, and it takes place in a happy days kind of environment, you know, so I tied it all together for him. He's like, oh, okay, I get it now.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: And Buddy Holly is actually listening to Buddy Holly. And so it's. It's a thing, you know, and now joke ruined, right? Joke ruined, yeah. And I would also just say that if you're not a pop culture fan like that, but you're interested in it, this is a great kind of introductory thing to all these different rock stars that maybe you want to learn about. And so, you know, for somebody who's maybe a little older and their kids are teenagers and they're interested in music and they haven't really taken down this, on this path yet, but it's a great way to kind of talk about some of these characters because, you know, the characters in our story are true to life, to who they were. We did quite a bit of research, but it's a, it's a what if kind of version of them. It's a very light hearted story. We deal with some serious themes as well. Most of these people battled with some sort of demon in their past, some sort of addiction, and so we lightly touch on some of that. You know, they have a very fully formed family that takes care of each other, and they even, you know, go to meetings and stuff like that in our story. And so it's a great way to kind of understand who they are, get a little history about character, but also just have fun with them, have fun with the great things that they provided to our culture and our society with their art. We get to celebrate them again by doing this. And so, you know, we honor them. We hopefully honor them. And we don't do anything that besmirches the reputation.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: No, I'm sure. I'm sure people are going to love it. I was just thinking, even if you don't know the pop culture of that era, everything always comes back. And, like, if you want some good music and you're even younger, it's great to discover some of these bands that you didn't know before.
[00:15:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: So. Oh, man, that's such a great song. That Weezer song is such a great. I actually really want to read this book. Like it makes you think because that's, we're constantly thinking on book interrupted of songs, but on these playlists, and you just forget about those songs and they immediately bring back memories for you. I think this would be a really great book for, well, any of our listeners, really.
[00:16:03] Speaker D: Yeah. And even, you know, we've kind of talked up the pop culture and the nostalgia. If you don't know any of this stuff, if you're coming in cold. Yeah. You might need a Google. So you have a picture of what, you know, Jimi Hendrix or Elvis Presley looks like or whatever, but just the storyline itself stands on its own. It's a great story. Bit of a whodunit, bit of a espionage, you know, all these things trying to solve a mystery along the way, a little bit of romance, a little bit of fun, comedy hijinks, you know, there's a lot of stuff in here. There's a little bit for everybody. And so, yeah, you don't have to have a PhD in pop culture, but it. But it does help in some ways.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: There's romance.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Yeah, there's a little romance. It's a good whodunit, and it's fun and it's light and a little bit of something for everybody. And I know we're making it sound like it's the greatest book of all time, like, with all the different things for everybody, but it really is a fun book that has a little bit of those things in it, but it.
[00:16:50] Speaker D: Is the greatest book of all time.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: But honestly, from someone who reads a lot of books, there are books that you need, like, clean your palate.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Before going on, because there's great books that are like, that are horrible endings. Or make you think, like, that's so sad. Or just make you think about history or whatever. Like, there's tons of these books out now that are excellent books that you just feel like, I just need something that isn't serious. And on all my book social medias, people are constantly asking, like, tell me a great book that's funny or tell me a great book that's light and I'll laugh. Like, I need something to clean the palette between all these heavy topics. And this sounds like a perfect book for that. I'm constantly looking for that.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: It is the. It is the best sorbet that you will ever read. And we promise we won't make you think too much at all.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Just something enjoyable, right? Like that. You're like, wow, that was so great. I wish that didn't end. Awesome. Yeah, perfect.
[00:17:51] Speaker D: That is. That is truly something. We've heard people who finished it said when it was over, I wanted it to keep going. And so that, to me, that's a pretty huge compliment. That's a big pat on the back when someone's like, I came to the last page and I wanted to turn to another one. So, yeah, that was something we've heard and we're, we're very proud of that.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: That's so great. Yeah. So for our listeners, that's the end of our author spotlight. Go to our website at www.bookinterrupted.com shop and get their book or go to their website directly and they will sign a copy for you. Yeah, check out that book. It's perfect. Just the palate cleaning sorbet that you need between your heavy books. Yeah, perfect.
Thanks, guys, for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for having us. We had a great time.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: We had a great time. Sorry for the rescheduling and all that. Things have been a little crazy on our end, so thank you.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no problem. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Book Interrupted. If you'd like to see the video highlights from this episode, please go to our YouTube channel, Book interrupted. You can also find our videos on bookinterrupted.com.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Are you a self published author? Are you looking to promote your book? We are looking for you. I personally know how hard it is to write a book, as I always seem to be writing one, but never finishing it. Get the word out to listeners in 42 countries and growing about your literary masterpiece, go to bookinterrupted.com sponsorship for more information book interrupted never forget, every child matters.
