Ep. 17. The Dead Rock Stars sci-fi novel authors: Jay Watson and Kyle Wiltshire

 Welcome and thank you for joining us today on the Heroes and Icons podcast. I'm your host Greg Randolph. Please find me on the X @gregheroesicons also known as the Heroes and Icons podcast, to get updates for great shows like this and others. I'm also a featured podcaster   Heroes and Icons with Greg Randolph (houstoncitybeat.com) on We are Storytellers of Houston (houstoncitybeat.com) And that's a cool local website for happenings and local businesses here in the Houston, Texas area.  So, please check them out as well. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with a friend and I appreciate you so much for doing that.  I'm very pleased to present my guests today.

If you're a music and a pop culture fan, this interview will surely pique your interest. My guests today are the authors of The Dead Rock Stars, a thrilling sci-fi novel about dead rock stars who are tasked with becoming the unforeseen guardians of humanity, and preventing the collapse of civilization as we know it. Authors Jay Watson and Kyle Wiltshire are my guests today.

We discuss the theme of the book, what it takes to write a novel, the publishing process, and what can happen when you stay persistent to make your dreams come true.

You can order an autographed copy of this great book, and get more information at:

The Birth of The Dead Rock Stars — The Dead Rock Stars (deadrockstarsbook.com)

Please follow check out my new website:  Legends of Yesterday and Today- Heroes and Icons Podcast; as well as my other podcasts: Heroes and Icons podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thank you for listening. God Bless! 


Photo credit: DeadRockStarsBook.com 

Transcript

  Welcome and thank you for joining us today on the heroes and icons podcast. I'm your host greg randolph Please find me on the x at greg heroes icons also known as the heroes and icons podcast Get updates for great shows like this and others. I'm also a featured podcaster on houstoncitybeat. com And that's a cool local website for happenings and local businesses here in the houston area So, please check them out as well If you're enjoying the show, please share it with a friend and I appreciate you so much for doing that  I'm very pleased to present my guest today.

If you're a music and a pop culture fan, this interview will surely pique your interest. My guests today are the authors of Dead Rock Stars, a novel about dead rock stars who are tasked with becoming the unforeseen guardians of humanity and preventing the collapse of civilization as we know it. Authors Jay Watson and Kyle Wiltshire are my guests today. 

How are you guys doing? Thank you so much for joining us  and doing great. Great. Thanks for having us. And we're really excited to be here. Yeah, this is going to be fun. It's gonna be a good day. Sunshine and out here in Nashville, Tennessee. So we're ready to go, man. Nice. I like it. I like it. Well, let me start with, with a couple of fun, personal questions, and we'll obviously get into the book at a J this one's for you.

What was the, uh, what was the Garth Brooks concert in 1993? Like, and then what is your favorite 80s movie?  Okay. 1993 Garth in the 80s movie. Okay. I can, I can work on that. Um, I, uh, I, I was blown away by Garth Brooks. I, at that point, 93, you know, he was kind of famous for friends in low places and the dance fairly traditional kind of thing.

Uh, 90s country music. And it was excellent, but that standing outside the fire tour was kind of the, I don't want to say apex, but it was close to the peak of him at his power. And you went to a show and like this guy, this country singer with a cowboy hat was like running and jumping across the stage, out into the audience with this, This ladder that you didn't even see was there.

And he was popping out of the bottom of the stage with fire shooting off. It was like, uh, George straight meets kiss. You know what I'm saying? Like it was a crazy kind of connection and it blew my mind for a country artist to do that. And in some ways, you know, Garth is the, uh, the precursor to some of the stuff we've got today. 

Well, he was, he, he is actually a big kiss fan. So that's, that was his influence. I think for a lot of the stage. Presentation and everything that was the coolest man, an 80s movie, man. I could go all kinds of different ways with this.  Uh, I'll tell you the first thing that popped up to my head, like a quintessential.

80s movie for me. I was, uh, you know,  I was age four to age, you know, 14 or so as far as the 80s ago. And, uh, the movie, the Goonies, uh, was probably one of those that, uh, is when I think about 80s movies, it pops up straight to my head. The, the scene where chunk. Is explaining all the bad things he's done in his life to these, uh, these bad guys.

And he starts talking about the movie theater and the fake throw up and all that. I can still remember, you know, my dad just choking almost to death, laughing about that, and that was just a, that's a great fond memory for me. And that's just a great kids movie, you know, great teen movie coming of age.

Braces getting stuck together and whatnot. That's a good one.  Those are some, uh, some unpleasant memories. Thank, thank you so much for that. I appreciate it.  Um, you know, the eighties was just kind of a, kind of a crazy thing. I mean, I, I enjoyed, um, you know, the, um,  the John Cusack flicks and then, uh, and then say anything. 

That's right. That's right. Um, when a fast times at Ridgemont High, all that good stuff. Yeah. Yeah.  It's kind of the birth of Cameron Crowe. Right. And that kind of where that started there, Kyle. Yeah. Yeah. Faster times Ridgemont High was based on a thing, a novel that he wrote, uh, Uh, he was a reporter for, uh, Rolling Stone magazine, but he was really baby faced.

And so in a man in his early twenties could go back to high school and, you know, uh, pretend as if he was a student and he wrote, uh, you know, wrote this book, this book about the experience he had. And that's the, the movie was based off that. Yeah. That's pretty, pretty cool. Does it, does it say anything has to, or am I making that up?

I'm Googling. I think that was his first directorial.  Isn't that the scene where the last scene on that movie is where they're on the plane? Yeah, it is. That's where he's holding the boombox up. You know, yeah. Boombox. Yeah. Outside her, outside her window trying to woo her back. Yeah. Yeah.  Nice. Hey, so Kyle, this one's for you.

What is, what is your favorite 1980s movie? And then what is, uh, what is the, the concert experience of a, of a U2 show like? What Yeah, man, I'm like Jay. I could go in any number of ways. I mean, just to be true to myself, my absolute favorite movie of all time is Return of the Jedi, which came out in 83. So it's clearly an 80s movie, um, big Star Wars fan.

Um, so I will say that, but at the same time, man, I have a deep affection for Top Gun and Back to the Future , any number of those. Like classics. Yeah. Indiana Jones films in the eighties, they stopped being good after the eighties, I think. Um, but the three that came out in the eighties, when did the last crusade, like 89 or something like that?

Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that was so good. Um, so yeah, there's a bunch of them, but now for, for you too.  They are best appreciated live. I mean, , their stuff, you know, their albums are fantastic. Um, but it's like, they, they keep it in fourth gear in the album and then you, you go to the show and that's when they go into overdrive, you know, that's when they get, they, they get it in the high gear as high as they can go.

And it's something, man, they are, they are really good. I'll tell you,  My very first U2 show was 1997 for the Pop Mart tour, which was not their most famous tour, or it was kind of infamous in a lot of ways. But, um, That was around, I was college freshmen and I grew up at that time, lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and they never really came to our neck of the woods.

Um, but they decided to, for that tour. And so me and my friends, uh, we managed to get second row seats. I mean, it was just a miracle. So I got to see you two from the second row for YouTube show. It was like, You know, it was like, if your first football game was the Superbowl, you know, or your first baseball game was game seven of the world series or something, you know, like how's it ever going to get better than that?

You know? So, uh, it was awesome. The lemon was pop bar. Yeah. Yeah. Big giant had like half of a McDonald's arch and a, and a big giant lemon that they would come out of. It would open up and a stairwell would come out and they'd walk out to, you know, like the middle of the, uh, of the, uh, Stadium, you know, where they were playing and they'd do some songs from the middle of the, you know, had a stage in the middle of the stadium.

It was just really cool. But at the same time, it was a little bit, YouTube's one of those band u two's, one of those bands where, you're right Kyle, they, it's not just that they, they put it in fifth gear when they're live, but they have  more opportunities to use different senses for the experience. Right.

Yeah. It's visual, it's all the things. They're, they're gifted, uh, artists when it comes to the whole package. Yeah. Yeah. They try to, they, they play those huge stadiums or arenas and, you know, and they're like, how do we. How do we get the person who has the seat as far away from the, you know, from the stage as can be, how can it make it feel closer for them?

So that's why they have all the accoutrement, you know, like the, the extras, the screens and the props and all this sort of things kind of should draw the audience in and make it a little closer. Very cool. Very cool, man. I need to go see them sometime. , so let's have one more tour left in them.

So, yeah, you better go quick. Yeah, that's all. That's true. , let me ask and I'll let either one of you take this one. Um, but how did, how did the concept of the book ultimately come about?   Well, Jay and I have been friends since 1996 when we were in college together.

We met in college and we have always bonded over pop culture, movies, books, stories, TV, all, you know, all forms of entertainment.  And, you know, we just continue to stay connected and stay friends from college to graduate school to, you know, early in our careers,  and we would constantly call one another on the phone.

Just, you know, what are you watching? What do you enjoy? And what's going on? Especially, you know, once we move to different cities.  And we just, you know, stayed in touch. And so there'd be times we'd kind of, you know, in a fun sort of nerdy kind of way, we'd pitch one of their stories. Hey, what do you think about this?

What do you think about that? You know, and, and there was always, I think, a desire within us to tell our own story, to do our own thing. You know, we've, we've watched so many movies, we've critiqued so many movies. We've been so like.  Man, that was terrible. We could do better. , we felt that way so often.

They were like, okay, finally, we're going to put our money where our mouth is. And so just, I had this idea back in my head, I'd thought about it for years. And finally, I pitched it to Jay. I said, Jay, what about this idea of, you know, what if all these famous rock stars who tragically passed too soon, You know, what if they didn't really die?

What if they fake their deaths to become secret agents and they've been protecting the world from the shadows for decades? You know, he kind of paused and, you know, Jay, what did you say? What was your, what was your, your response? Yeah. Made you nervous. Didn't you? Didn't I want to pause like you were like, Oh, he's going to hate it.

And that was like, Oh no, this is a bad idea. He didn't like it.  I just kind of took it all in and I was like, Kyle, I don't, I don't think that's a million dollar idea. I think that's a billion dollar universe. I think that is the coolest thing you've ever brought up. And it actually kind of captured me a little bit.

Kyle, uh, Kyle's always had great ideas and, uh,  That one, for whatever reason, wouldn't leave me for a couple of weeks. And I ended up kind of pitching him the idea to let me write the first couple of chapters and just see what happens. And then if he likes it, he can write a couple of chapters and we'll see where it goes from there.

And so that was kind of the birth of the dead rock stars universe.  , how did you guys decide,  I don't know how many dead rock stars, but how did you decide, did you take the ones that were, , the most well known with, , Elvis, Hendrix, Joplin, Lennon, , and so on?

Is that kind of how you decided  on which characters  that you were going to use for the book?  Yeah, I think we, I think we kind of started with that infamous 27 club idea. You know, there's so many of the, uh, you know, iconic rock stars who passed away at 27, um, you know, that's, that's Joplin, that's, that's Jim Morrison, that's Hendrix, you know, so many, uh, Kurt Cobain in the 90s.

Um, and, and so I think we kind of wanted to start to start there. And then we started thinking, you know, Well, gosh, if we, if we said it in the current day, which we started writing in 2018, you know, a lot of these that are the most legendary, you know, uh, would be well too advanced in age to be, you know, secret agents where they've got a hand to hand combat or they've got, you know, whatever it is they got to do, sprint through a city, you know, To stop Obama or whatever it is they've got to do that, you know, someone in their eighties, probably not gonna be able to pull that off real well.

Um, except for maybe Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, he could still do it, but all that to say,  we wanted to kind of, you know, hone in on those that are the most, you know, heroic, iconic, you know, like the title of your podcast, those that are the ones that are the most, the most famous. Uh, and then we decided, well, because of their age, we need to set the story in a different time period than our current day.

So we set the story in In 1999. Uh, so some of them are in their fifties, early sixties, but, you know, as you can see from, you know, a lot of our, a lot of our movie stars, Tom Cruise is 60 years old. That guy still got it, you know? So a 62 year old Elvis Presley. No big deal, man. He, he, he'd still, he'd still be able to, to fight anyone.

He can still karate chop. We also, um, we also had a little fun imagining,  you know, our intent was not to make them ridiculous characters and make fun of them. It was really to celebrate them. We wanted to celebrate these people that are beloved across the world. And so to give them kind of a second life, a second chance, a little bit of a interesting redemption story.

That's, it's silly and fun. And we took that idea with the notion of.  We want to create a super team. So every good super, let's take the 18. If we don't talk about the eighties, you know, you got, you got Hannibal, you got face, you got, um, howling, mad Murdoch, and then you got to be a Baracus and they all have their things, right?

Face man could talk anybody to anything. Uh, Hannibal was kind of the mastermind howling, mad Murdoch. He's your wild card. Right. And, uh, you know, BA Baracus, he's the jewelry man. That's how that works. And so, uh, you know, um, we started thinking about all these super teams and so you start to go, okay.  If this rockstar were to be a secret agent.

What would their thing be? And so we did some research. We spent some time truly trying to understand the person and then think a little bit about like what they'd be like in 1999 and what their gifting and their skill set was. And, you know, uh, also Kyle and I are, uh, certified movie nerds. And so we wrote a book because we didn't know how to make a movie.

And. We, we made the, the, the book in such a way where we thought about a lot, like who would play the actors and what, what, you know, who would play the characters and what actors would play the characters and what would they be like, and then what would their skillset be. And so, uh, it was surprising as some, some of the DRS showed up, uh, And maybe ways that we didn't think that was going to be the case initially.

And so it got wider and wider as the story went on. And the good news is there's still a lot of, uh, famous rock stars that passed away too soon that we'll get to get to address and maybe use in future sequels as the, uh, as the universe expands.  This one's for Kyle. , how did you guys split up  that creative control , on things?

So you're saying , like you wrote two chapters, Jay and Kyle, you wrote a couple and like,  how did you kind of have a, a meeting of the, of the minds, like if you had.  , Jay, if you had a vision of, of what these characters were going to do,  then Kyle, you had maybe an idea,  how did you guys meld that  to make the story happen? 

Yeah, I have described it before as a creative marriage, you know, um, where, where neither, you know, in a marriage, neither person can always have their way. You've got to compromise, you know, you've got to, you've got to work together. And sometimes you got to go with what they want to do. Sometimes you got to go with what the other wants to do.

And, you know, and so I think when we were,  I don't think we could have even tackled this if we didn't trust one another. We didn't trust one another's tastes. We didn't have similar. Uh, ideas or mindset. And so what we did was real early on, after Jay wrote the first two chapters, I wrote the second two chapters.

We were like, okay, we've got it. We've got a we've got a blueprint here for the beginning. And where do we want to take this? So we sort of had a very Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  you know, kind of general ending. This is where we want to end the story. So how do we get from a to B, you know? And so what we would do is we'd kind of in, in, in bite sized pieces, we didn't map out the entire book, you know, start to finish.

We, we mapped out maybe four to six, I think, max eight chapters at a time. Made assignments. You write this chapter, you write this chapter. And a lot of times it would, you know, if, if, if he had one chapter and I had the one after it, I've needed to wait until he finished before I could write, um,  But that's just kind of how it, you know, how it started.

We'd make assignments and then we would read one another's chapter. We would, uh, we did a lot of it on Google docs, you know? And so if we'd love something, we'd highlight it in green. If we were like, I'm not so sure about this, we'd highlight it in yellow. If we hated something, we'd highlight in red. We're like, no, I hate this, you know?

And then that would mean there'd be a discussion. We'd have to, we'd have to talk about it. But I think to answer your question, most succinctly, you know, You know, we had a very basic idea of where we wanted to go. We did it in bite sized pieces and we made assignments along the way that built on the story, built on one another to get to an end goal.

And, you know, and again, we just trusted one another and it was really fun. I loved when Jay would, would email me a chapter or we'd meet in, in, in person. Uh, and, and, you know, we'd read chapters just to see, man, where did his creative juices take him? You know, where, where did he take the story? What? What funny, you know, element did he add or that sort of thing?

So, yeah, it was, it was a process and it took, it took us three years to write it, um, at least, um, maybe even into the fourth, but, uh, it was, it was a good long process, but it was great. It was so much fun.  Well, I'd like to, if I could add on that a little bit, Greg, I think. All right. Everything that Kyle said is completely accurate.

I think the other things that worked for our advantage is when, you know, you've watched as much movies, you've read as many fiction fantasy books as we have, you kind of know how some of the heroes journey goes or how some of the discovering into the world goes. And so we knew a rough idea of how the story would tell, but then there were natural giftings between the two of us that really compliment each other.

Add to that, um, we picked up on the tone. The purpose and the tone of our book pretty early. And I think that really helped, um, kind of navigate what kind of story it was going to be. And the best part about all of this, it's fiction. We were just making stuff up. And so if we enjoyed it, we felt good about it.

And that was kind of the number one goal is we've got to be proud of what we're doing.  So how did, so let me throw, I'll throw this one back to Kyle.  So did you guys have specific assignments as far as like, , maybe one of you was a bigger fan of, elvis Hendrix or somebody , Lennon or Morrison 

so how did you guys, how did you guys tackle the assignment part of it?  Yeah, we wanted to, um, we wanted to hit the right tone for, for these people, these, you know, truly famous people, um, who, who were real people who had real personalities, real, uh, speech, vocal patterns, who had real lives and real experiences.

And so, um, We just, we just tackled it through, through a lot of research. Jay read a lot of books. He read a lot of biographies. Um, I listened to a lot of YouTube interviews, you know, to sort of, what word do they use a lot?   What is  his speech patterns like, you know, to sort of just kind of mimic that.

Um, but there wasn't, there wasn't like a you write all Lennon's lines or you write all Elvis's lines. It was more so, Let's try to hit the target of who these people were so that somebody who is a huge fan of one of these artists and one of these, you know, famous rock stars, if they read our book, they'd go, Oh, yeah, they kind of get it.

They kind of are, you know, they understand who they were. Um, so let's try to hit the target. But at the same time, let's, let's understand that it's fiction. Like Jay said, it's fun. And you know, this  is an alternate sort of history. So like if they had not died, but they had faked their deaths and become secret agents, you know, that they would be different from, from the person they were when they were, you know, alive and a rock star.

Um, so we got to also take their character in a, in a slightly way that we wanted to do it. Um, but it was more so just, what does the story dictate? Where are we taking the story? Who needs to be in this chapter and why and those sort of things and yeah, and it just sort of It wasn't a whole lot of planning or you know Uh assignment so to speak apart from like you write this chapter.

I write that chapter We exchange chapters we rewrite where we need to you know, so that when it's all said and done Um, you know every chapter he wrote i've you know, not totally rewritten, but I've, I've worked through and I feel great about every chapter I wrote. He did the same thing. He rewrote things that needed to be rewritten.

So that is totally our, our book. Uh, and, and, and, you know, I, we've talked to enough people who said, yeah, I can't tell that two people wrote it. So it's really, it's pretty cool how it's all shaped and come together.  Very good. Very good. , I'll throw this one  back to Jay. Did, you guys have , any issues with  any type of legal thing  where there was somebody's, , name and likeness and all that, with the theme of the overall theme of the book, , were there any issues with that? 

We, uh, we spent a lot of time talking about that early on. In fact, we were pretty convinced that we would be sued very quickly. And, uh, that'd be a fun, it'd be a fun experience. Be nice to be noticed. You know what I mean?  But, uh, the, the more research we looked into everything, um, fiction is fiction. I mean, some dude wrote a book about, uh, Barack Obama and Joe Biden being private detectives.

Like while they were in the office, uh, you know, we spent a lot of time. Thinking about Quentin Tarantino's once upon a time in Hollywood, that is a story of, um, alternative history where the Manson murders took place and where, you know, this time it's got Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio. And it was, uh, very interesting to think about. 

how they use the characters and what it means when somebody passes away. Um, so you've got a lot of freedom. If somebody has passed away to kind of do what you want, add to that fiction. I mean, you can go wherever you want to go. The only thing that we had to be really careful, the very first version of our story that we wrote that, that we didn't publish, that we didn't put out there.

It had a ton of music quotes, and you can get into a lot of trouble using music quotes. And so we talked about songs. We talked about the intention, but we tried to stay very clear from any kind of a musical quote.  Well, if I could add, yeah, we, we did talk to a lot of attorneys, uh, and, and said, you know, what, what can we, what can we get away with here?

And I don't mean that in a, in like a, you know, trying to steal, that's not at all what I mean. Uh, but what can we do within the bounds of, uh, of legalities? We can't use their images. So if you notice on the cover of our book, there's no Elvis, there's no, you know, there's no like clear, uh, likeness. to someone.

There's some Easter eggs toward who people might be in the cover of our book, but not, you know, like a clear picture of Elvis. Um, and yeah, we learned that when, when someone, when someone dies, you can't, you know, not that we wanted to do this, but you can't defame the character of a dead person because To have character, you must be alive.

 So, you know, there's probably loopholes and those sort of things that, you know, the estate  could dig into if they wanted to. But like Jay said earlier, our intention is not to, you know, um, Profiteer or whatever is more like, um, Hey, we want to tell this story. We love these people.

We love their contribution to the world. And we just think it'd be fun to have them as characters, you know, and almost to, in a sense, uh, bring them back from the dead and, and, and let us enjoy them. A different angle from a different perspective, uh, and have fun with, with, with who they were, you know, even, even, even though they're, they're gone for real.

Our, uh, our dedication on the first page of the book, uh, reads to everyone we've lost, but still love.  Nice. . , I'm really glad to hear that. So in  a scenario like this, which is different, , you have , a lot of creative license then  with what you're able to do  and present things in, in, in a certain way, , , but you're not defaming them  , or anything else.

It's , an appreciation.  Yeah. I, and, and, you know, we won't spoil the book, but people may quibble or readers may, you know, uh, not like every choice we decided to do with the characters, you know, but again, we, we, uh, we started with the idea of these were real people, but we've developed them into, you know, into characters for the sake of the story.

Um, you know, someone may, may not like, you know, how someone's dialogue is, or some choices that someone makes in the story. That's again, where we say. Hey, man, this is, this is fiction. It's a story. And again, going back to what Jay said with once upon a time in Hollywood, there's the famous scene in that movie where Brad Pitt's character fights with Bruce Lee.

And Bruce Lee's not really shown in the best light in that, in that, that moment in the movie. Um, and because it's, you know, it's just fun. It's fiction. It's not intended to say anything about who Bruce Lee was as a person. It's more about, you know, What does this scene require? What does it say about Brad Pitt as a character?

And those sort of things, , and so , that's kind of how we approached using real people, , in a story, in a fictional story. Nice.  I'll let Jay take this one.  So if this were in fact a movie, if you had written a movie script, who would play these roles? 

 Kyle and I've spent a lot of time talking about this. I don't know that we've got any new ideas on stuff, but, uh, we had a lot of fun talking about Elvis. Uh, for me, I think I started off with Kurt Russell being Elvis because that was one of the first roles that he played. And then I got to thinking that George Clooney would probably have a lot of fun in this role because there's some things that are a little ocean 11s, like, you know, oceans 11, like, and then Kyle had an idea that I thought was pretty genius.

For Elvis. Yeah, you know, I noticed, uh, I started thinking about Robert Downey Jr. And if you notice, that guy loves to do an accent. And in the roles that he plays, he's doing a British accent, or he's, you know, he's just putting on some type of, uh, speaking in a different voice than his normal voice. And I thought, and he's so good at it.

It's like, man, he's got the Iron Man, you know, he's, he can fight and all this stuff, but he could do the voice and it wouldn't sound like a, You know, like, like, like making fun of Elvis's voice, he could do it in a really, uh, authentic way. Uh, and, and man, he'd be great, you know, put the sideburns on him, man, he'd look, he'd look awesome.

So Robbie Dyer Jr. was, was one that I thought for Elvis. We thought about for Jimi Hendrix, uh, we thought about Jamie Foxx because he's so musically talented. But then Kyle had another suggestion because he'd already played them in another movie in the last eight or 10 years. It was, uh, Andre 3000 of outcast.

He had played, uh, Jimmy and, uh, they have a lot of similarities, a little, little gray going on in Andre's hair these days. And that'd be a good pickup. Uh, uh, who'd we say for linen?  I've always thought Jude Law would be the great, great cast for, for Lennon. And then for, um, did we say Holly Hunter for Janice Joplin?

Holly Hunter or Renee Zellweger. Renee Zellweger, I feel like has been attached to Janice Joplin biopics forever and has never been able to, they've never been able to get across the finish line. And so I think she, I think she, to fulfill that lifelong dream, this might be her only chance. I think we're also, um,  We're movie lovers and most of these characters have been played by people in the movies.

And so for us, when it came to Jim Morrison,  Kyle made some creative choices there that I thought were really interesting purely because of our love for the nineties and particularly one actor. And so Kyle, talk about that if you want to. Yeah. Uh, so in, in the early nineties, they made a movie about the doors and Jim Morrison was played by Val Kilmer, who, you know, was in Top Gun, uh, you know, real genius,  Tombstone, man.

He's, he's just one of the saints.  Yeah, one of the iconic, you know, 80s, 90s actors, one of, one of my personal favorites. Um, but Val Kilmer had, um, in, I think 2014 was diagnosed with throat cancer. And so he, he now can't speak. He's very labored in his speech. Um, and so we thought if, if Val could play Jim Morrison again, you know, which he did in, in the Doors movie, for him, All these years later, let's write the story in such a way where he didn't have to speak.

So in our, in our story, Jim Morrison has taken a vow of silence. And so he he's, he's in the book, he's a super important character, but he says one word in the whole, in the whole book. So it's a bit of an Easter egg, you know, to, to pay homage to one of our favorite actors. But also if, if, if, you know, my, my mouth to God's ear, you know, if this became a movie, you know, and someone could actually play the role, he could do it.

He could play it again. We wrote it in a way that, that made it him able to play it again.  Are you guys, I'm gonna, I'm gonna digress here for just a second because you said, you said Kurt Russell and that made me think of something. Are you guys baseball fans at all?  Yeah, yeah, I mean not, not humongous, but uh, but definitely.

I grew up loving baseball for sure. He, he did a documentary called The Battered Bastards of Baseball. It is a great documentary. So I would highly recommend that. That you put on your, on your watch list.  Yeah, absolutely. Didn't he play minor league ball? Like, didn't he have like a pretty successful career as a, as a baseball player? 

He did. And his dad, his dad owned that team. I want to say it was in, um, I want to say it was in Seattle is where it was, but that, but it's based on a, it's based on a, on a minor league team and, and um,  And how they go about making it through the season and all the trials and tribulations that, uh, that minor league teams, uh, certainly have.

So, so, but anyway, it's a, it's a great watch. If you, if you get a minute, I just thought of it. So I was a bat, I was a bat boy for a triple a team here in Nashville and a double a team. So I got to see some cool players roll through  the Nashville sounds. Is that right? The sounds. And then for a little while, it was the Nashville express.

They were the twins double a affiliate for a while. Okay.  I think that I think they were Oakland for a long time too. Right. Yeah. Is that right? Okay. Oakland, um, Chicago, I feel like, uh,  maybe the white socks for a while too. I don't know. They changed the sounds changed a lot.  Absolutely. I think they're Milwaukee right now.

I think that's who they are right now. They just, they, they, they jump around so often and the agreements change and all that stuff. But, um,  anyway, I just, I thought you guys would like that. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Uh, I hear we're a finalist for potential expansion team for the MLB.

I think I hear Nashville may be one of the cities that's getting a, getting a potential team in the next few years. That'd be, that'd be pretty cool to have a MLB  team here and here in town. So Look after that.  That'd be great, man. Let me ask you this. So,  if someone wanted , to write  , as you guys did their first novel , from scratch,  what advice would you have for them , for writing the book , and then going about finding a publisher?

I think the biggest thing. For us, because we had full time jobs and obviously,  you can really, really not get rich writing books. I mean, that's,  you make,  I don't know, what have we made like 80 bucks at this point, 

I don't, I don't think we broke even tens and tens of dollars. Yes. We've made tens and tens of dollars. And, uh, So I think when you think about something that you love, I think the biggest suggestion that I would make was just is the old, how you eat elephant kind of thing, uh, thinking about writing a hundred thousand words or doing anything like that seems impossible.

You just chip away at it. You take your time, you write, you, you, you let it flow out of you. You go back and let it sit for a little while and read it and reread it. And you just start putting things together. A whiteboard was a really great thing for us. We took. Posted notes and put it on the whiteboard and kind of laid out our chapters.

And we were able to say, all right,  this is a chapter that I, I think will be fun to write. So I'll, I'll take first run at it. And, and we take turns kind of picking chapters, like we were having a, like we were having a draft and, uh, It, it, uh, helped us quite a bit, but, but it was just, it was never a thing where we thought we have to do this by this time, it was more of a thing where we just said, all right, let's, let's take a couple of weeks.

We made fake deadlines that helped us a lot. Um, we go, okay, you need to write this chapter in the next two weeks and we'll reach out in the next two weeks. And so for, for some of those things that were time sensitive, a deadline really worked for us, some kind of a fake deadline. Yeah. Um,  There were times where man, it flowed.

I mean, it just, and as we got more into it, as we've got more into it, like those chapters wrote themselves in some ways, like we, as we put the pieces together, the chapters just, just came flying out, but there are other times where we couldn't quite figure it out. We didn't know what we were doing. So we'd write something and we'd sit, let it sit and we'd go back and do other things.

And then, you know, Colin and I also, we, um,  Read and reread and talked about it. And we made lots of story edits before we got to a separate content editor, really helped us clarify, you know, some, some dialogue and where we're going and then a grammar editor, and then we still sat down and read it just to make sure that we liked what we had and what we were doing.

And at the end of it, we were really, really proud. And there was no elephant left. One of the things that , I've learned in the last year or two, just personal development stuff, is, you have to marry the process and divorce the outcome.

And it sounds like that's exactly what you guys did. Yeah, I would say it a little bit differently when it comes to art. Rick Rubin talks about this quite a bit. A famous producer, uh, from the BC boys to David brothers all over the place, famous, famous guy. He talks about the importance of making art, not for an audience, but for you.

So you make the things that you love and if you love it.  it. But like you won't be disappointed with the outcome. If you produce something that you love, that's the only, that's the only thing that should matter. Uh, it sounds really great for somebody who's, you know, probably made millions and millions and millions of dollars.

Cause he can say that, you know,  but for us, I think it was important that what we did. And it made us laugh. We enjoyed it. And we were kind of able to create something that we're really proud of.  So I'm going to throw this one to Kyle. So, , how did you guys go about finding a specific publisher?

And did you, did you have any thoughts about, um, about doing a self publish or did you have a lit agent or anything like that? Or how'd you guys go about that?  We tried all that. We, we, we had an agent for like, you know, uh, two days and then that kind of, that was an exciting two days  that, that just didn't come together.

Uh, and I don't think it was meant to be, but you know, so we, we thought we'd, we'd go that route. Uh, we, we reached out to a few others. We, you know, we didn't ever really find a connection point there. So we started thinking about, uh, Do we self publish this? And that's an option, uh, that, that people can take.

Um, but we really wanted someone else to publish it. We really wanted to find a publisher. And so the, the approach is just to, just to, to ask, you know, the old adage, you know, The answer is no, unless you ask, you know, and so you just got to ask, you got to send letters. You got to, we, we had a professionally edited and, you know, we had someone who knows what they're doing come alongside us to create the full book proposal.

And we mailed that out to a lot of people. We emailed it to a lot of people and we got a lot of no's. We got a lot of people who like, that's a great idea, but I'm not really interested. You know, we, we, we heard a lot of people You know, tell us no. And then sort of just providentially, we met the, um, through a friend of a friend, we met  the president and CEO of Morgan James, um, publishing, who is who we, who we ended up publishing with here in Nashville, Tennessee.

He was in our town where we live at a conference and we just sort of our, our paths crossed. We, he was going to be there. So we, we, we went to where he was, we were able to have, you know, a few minutes with him and we, we did the whole elevator pitch, you know, and And when it was all said and done, he was like, guys, this is a great story.

Let's, let's get the ball rolling. And so we went through their whole process. They had an approval process. They had a, they passed our manuscript through an AI, um, you know, sort of data interpreter, you know, is this, does this story, uh, according to whatever AI considers a good story, is this story a good story and, you know, kind of click some boxes for us.

And so, yeah, they, they agreed to publish us. It was really pretty exciting. But the, the, the real. The real truth is you just, you gotta be persistent. You gotta keep going. Uh, met, uh, uh, someone who was, uh, um, a friend of mine from, from many, many years ago. She has just recently published a book and she asked us how many no's did you get?

And I think she told us she was on her 48th, 48 publishers that she, that she sought after before she finally got a yes. And now her book's coming out, you know, uh, maybe, maybe like Tuesday, I think it's really soon. So anyway, all that to say, Yeah. You're going to get a lot of notes. You're going to get a lot of notes.

You just got to keep going. I also think it was important for us. I had self published a book and done it through Amazon and it was a great experience. Um, but  what we, what I found out was I can sell as many books to people that I know. And after that, it's just a little bit of a reach and it's a, it's a long tail.

And, uh, for us, we had two goals when we started one was talking about breaking even and the other one was to get published because we believe that this story is extremely. Uh, pop culture, uh, commercial, and that a lot of people would really enjoy it. It would speak to them. And so we wanted to partner with someone that could get it in bookstores, uh, across the, across the country.

And in some parts, different pieces of the world, and Morgan James is, is kind of great for that. Um, it's a small boutique publisher. They do a lot of trade books. And they do a few fiction books every year. And so we went through their process. They, they ran it through AI. I think Kyle talked about that, but, uh, um, came back and it felt like a really good fit and so we're, we're excited to be able to work with them.

We're excited to retain a little bit of our. Vision and direction of what the book is about. Uh, they were really great about that, letting us do our thing. And, uh, we got published. So we can now, you know, at dinner parties say that we're published authors. Were you guys disappointed that it had to go through an AI process , that  There wasn't a, an, an individual , or a team , that accepted it?

Or were you at a point where it was like, Hey, we don't care how it gets done , it's done. , I'll clarify a little bit. Um,  I don't know how every publisher's process is because we've only done one, but from Morgan James, they have a group of 12 people that sit together in a room and they look at the synopsis and they look at everything and they talk about kind of this stuff.

And we, we submit. three chapters. I think we even turned in our whole manuscripts. I mean, they had the whole manuscript for almost a month. So I don't pretend to think that no one read the book. Um, I do think that they used AI as a tool to be able to compare it to all the other books, you know, written in this particular genre, this particular style.

And so they, they could tell, you know, that they had things that, that, Very quickly in just a matter of moments, they could come back and say, you know, here's your story arc. And here's the, the, the percentage of dialogue versus action, or this is the percentage of, you know, who, what characters say what, and how do the characters differentiate and what are their voice tones.

And then they would say. Here's how your book stacks up on a graph compared to the best sellers. And so they were able to show us kind of 20 something pages of data that obviously is not at all a reason, um, to, to publish, but it's just information that people that, you know, publish books are able to use, uh, and speed the process up quite a bit.

And so, um, we were fascinated by the AI report more than just kind of like. Um, grossed out by it. I think it was an interesting way to use a tool that helped them do their job. Better. Um, and again, uh, Kyle and I both spent a lot of time with AI and as writers, as creators, we do not believe that AI can, can make a great story.

I think they can replicate things really well, but there's no replacement for the human spark and creativity. I 100 percent agree. And I'll, I'll throw this part to Kyle. Was there , any brushback for lack of a better term  once you got that report,  did you guys feel the need to, to change a whole lot?

 This person is only, , Elvis is only,  20% action and  Hendrix is 80%, well, that's outta balance or whatever. Did you guys feel the need to change , the scope of the, story and what those guys were doing once you got that report? , our, , experience with Morgan James is really unique in that, uh, their desire as a publisher is to publish the book that you wrote within, within guardrails, you know, um,  David, um, David Hancock, the founder of the, of the, uh, of the publisher, he talks about, you know, he published a book and when he got it, he hated the cover and, and the, the, it was changed so much and he didn't feel like it was his book.

And so when he started his publisher, he was like, I want, I want to give people the chance to write what they want to write. Within, you know, within reason. Um, and so when we got that report back, the one thing that I think it, that I remember, Jay, you may have more memories, but, uh, it, it said we were maybe a little too heavy on dialogue that we needed to add a little bit more description.

I think we were like 60, 40, and they said most books are more like 70, 30, uh, dialogue to, to description. , they asked us in, in the editorial process to try to, peel that back just a little bit. Yeah. Um, but it wasn't a mandate. It wasn't a you have to do this. It was more so. Um, we, we know from research that this is what readers are drawn to.

We know from research that, that readers want, um, books that are around, uh, under 100, 000 words. So that's something that, you know, we, we had to, we had to trim just a little bit, not a lot, just a little bit to get it under that mark. Um,  You know, and just there was just a few little touch points like we'd like for you to do this, uh, to sort of meet our criteria, but it wasn't anything that we felt in any way compromised our story or our vision or, you know, what we wanted to, to, to do, um, you know, and  the story we wanted to tell.

So we were really pleased with that process. And so we can genuinely honestly say. You know, when, when someone buys our book, when someone reads it, like that's our story, 100%, you know, uh, there was no one that said, you know, Oh, you gotta, you gotta change this. We don't like this story arc, you know, we don't like this, uh, whatever, you know, the way this is, this is, this has taken place.

So, I mean, it's really, it's really kind of cool to be able to say that, uh, and be with confidence. Absolutely.  So there's no ghostwriter and all that stuff. And , it's 100 percent you, obviously, both of you. And we did have an editor. Let's let me make, make that clear. We did have an editor  who helped us tremendously, a couple of editors who helped us tremendously, but at no point was there like, you know, we don't like this.

You hear about movies, you know, people get notes from the producers. Hey, we, we wanted to change the ending or we want to do this or that. We got none of that, none of that at all. So yeah, it's totally ours. And that, like you said, Jay, that the tone is us a hundred percent. Yeah. Uh, the grant, the content editor, we worked with a guy named David Webb and  he was a kindred spirit and he got really excited about our universe.

And so because of that, we could tell he believed in what we were doing. And so we trusted him a little bit more. I think he shaved about 8, 000 words out of our book, which is, you know, it's two chapters that, that he, you know, here and there. And it's not that he did anything to change the intent of our sentences.

He just. He shortened them up a bit where they need to be shortened. He made them more precise. And so some of that, uh, 8, 000 words, it'll shave off quite a bit of dialogue, which gets you a little bit closer to that number. And some of it too, like, this is my personality and Kyle's personality. Kyle gave you the details of what Morgan James and the AI said.

I just read it, skipped to the end and was like, they loved it. So I was, uh, I was like, they didn't hate it. We let's go. And so, uh, uh, yeah, no, it was, uh, uh, It was a very positive process in order to kind of keep our vision and we're really excited and proud of what came out at the end. Excellent. Well, you guys did a great job with this and I've really enjoyed talking to.

to both of you today. Um, where can the, where can we send the listeners to support the book and how can they follow you guys on on social media?  Yeah, we have a website dead rock stars book dot com. Um, you can get autograph copies of our book directly from us, which is really helpful. Um, uh,  When you buy it from a bookstore, which we'd love for you to buy from Amazon or from Barnes and Noble or wherever you get a book.

If you have a local bookstore that you like to support, they can order it and have it, have it shipped. So it's available everywhere books are sold, but the, you know, you want to get the book from us. Yeah, we've got merch, we've got shirts, we've got posters, you know, uh, so there's a lot of things that you can get directly from our website that you can't get anywhere else.

Bye. You can find it, um, on, you know, Amazon or Barnes and Noble, anywhere books are sold. Your favorite, favorite bookstore as well. Yeah. Uh, and you can find us on, uh, just about every, uh, every platform of social media, Facebook. It's the dead rock stars book on Facebook. Um, the DRS book on Instagram and DRS book on Twitter or X, um, I guess is what it's called now, but yeah, we're pretty active on there.

We'd love to interact with readers or people who have, who have, uh, who have thoughts and it's been great. It's been pretty fun when people tag us who, you know, like, like Jay said, we've told everyone we know about this book and everyone we know knows that we have written this book and maybe they haven't bought it, but they know that we want them to buy it.

But it's really cool when people we don't know have no connection to will tag us on social and say, Hey, got your book, really loved it. So it was really cool that when we have those experiences, Are there any, are there any plans for an audio book or anything like that?  Yeah, that's something that, uh, yeah, go ahead, Jay. 

We've, uh, we spent a lot of time thinking about that and there's a couple of different ways you can go, um, Apple created some AI that'll read the book for you and it's pretty lifelike. And I think Amazon's doing some similar things. Um, you can, you can, we've thought a lot about just recording it our own and being able to put it out there.

That just takes time. And we're not professionals, just like we weren't professionals when we began the book journey. And so, uh, but we've, we've thought about doing it our own as well. And, um, the book came out November the 14th. Is that right? Cool. Yeah. And so it hasn't been, it's been about enough time that you start pushing an audio book.

Uh, we're, we're also thinking about doing our own podcast. Maybe you could give us some, some pointers, Greg, but you know, some podcasts will take a book and, and they'll read chapters, certain chapters again, and get some, some people interested in it. And so we've, we've thought about doing some of that as well.

Um, we've, we've  part of doing a book is also being your own marketer. Um, the publishing company helps and they're great, but like, you've got to hustle. And so our current hustle right now is, uh, is being on great podcast and, and with great hosts and just like you allowing us to be on there has been huge for us.

And, uh, you know, we're excited for people to read the book. We're excited for people to share. And one of the things that can help us is if you buy the book and you read the book and you like it, go online. And give us a review on Amazon or on Barnes and Noble or on Goodreads. And as Kyle, Kyle kind of has a famous saying when it comes to this. 

Yeah, you, you can be honest with us. You can tell us the truth about what you thought about the book, but man, you got to lie to the world. Five stars, greatest book I've ever read. You got to tell everyone that it's the best thing you've ever read.  What do you guys want the readers to get out of the book , and take away from the book.

It's like a, like when you, like, when you get to the end of, , of Top Gun or something,  how do you want the reader,, to feel after they've,  read the book. This is probably a good both of us question. I'll answer and then I'll let you, you kind of add to it.

I think there's any good art has multiple layers and there are things that you can pick up on it. I think the number one thing we wanted was for people to have fun. Um, we finished this in the middle of the pandemic. And it informed a lot of our kind of attitude when it came to that, just simply because, man, the world can be so dark and to be able to have something that you enjoy, something that you laugh, something that, you know, you celebrate, we wanted to do that.

That was kind of our main goal. I think there's some other kind of, um, you know, hidden, uh, not quite, Uh, hidden, but like, uh, just, just  important themes that we talk about. One of them is family, uh, very mildly we touch on recovery and, uh, some of it's just kind of, uh, um, doing the things you are meant to do.

Anything you'd add to that, Kyle?  Yeah, I think I think fun is is number one man. We it's it's a fun book It's a fast read, you know, we've had so many people say man, you know,  I couldn't put it down Yeah, and and where they got to the end like I didn't want to end when's the sequel coming? You know, we've heard that so much but also would I also would hope that Um, maybe maybe this is just me But man, I walk in a bookstore and I look at those books on the on the shelf and I go  How could someone do that?

You know, you asked us about this earlier. How could anybody do that? It's so it's so hard to do here's here's the thing Jay and I are just dudes who had a dream and wanted to write a book and we chased it We chased it down and we didn't give up and I think anyone who wants to do that Can do it now, you know, it takes a lot you get it takes a lot of help A lot of people to come alongside you and help you and support you, you know, and which we have needed at every turn, but you can do it.

So that's what I hope. I hope people have fun and I hope they walk away going. I could fulfill my dream as well. If I, if I just work at it. Yeah. If the, if these schmoes can do it, I can too.  I think, um, I think maybe Matt Damon at Ben Affleck had. Had the, um, had maybe the same, the same thought or attitude, like, like we're just a couple of regular dudes and they wrote Goodwill hunting and it was the greatest thing.

So, so I, I, I assume that's kind of kind of how you guys feel too. Yeah, we definitely like them apples. We like them apples. Yeah.  Great flick.  Well, guys, guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate both of you. And I, uh, I apologize for all the, all the confusion and, and back and forth on, on my side with trying to, I'm trying to get it set up, but I appreciate you hanging with me. 

Oh man, no problem. It was awesome to be with you. I know we're a little bit out of your normal, normal lane, but we, uh, we, we, we iconic folks. And so, yeah, I think it ultimately does fit right in line with the vision of your podcast. Absolutely. Well, give me a couple of weeks or so to, to get the editing done and I'll, I'm kind of a one man show over here.

So  I'll get it done here  in the next couple of weeks or so. And , I'll send you guys some, notes on, podcasting as well. If that's something that you're interested in doing. We'd love it. Thank you, Greg. Very helpful.  All right, everyone. Thank you again for listening to the heroes and icons podcast with your host greg randolph once more Thank you very much to our guests jay watson and kyle wilshire authors of the thrilling novel dead rock stars, which can be found on Amazon and on their website dead rock stars book.

com. Please follow the links in the show notes for the podcast Thank you again everyone for listening. Have a great night. God bless