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Episode 494: Co-Writing a Memoir, Becoming a Publisher, and Finding the Passion with Jeremy X. Wagner
0 Playsin 11 hours
"As a reader, if I were a fan reading this book, I want the good, the bad and the ugly. I want you to rip the band aid off and tell the truth. Because, from my from my experience, I've read a lot of memoirs that are super boring and just fluff," says Jeremy X. Wagner, co-author of Curtis Duffy's Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef (Dead Sky Publishing).
We have Jeremy X. Wagner on the show today. This dude is a stone-cold badass and the co-author/ghost writer of Fireproof: Memoir of a Chef (Dead Sky Publishing). Jeremy, man, he’s a heavy metal musician and founder of the death metal band Broken Hope.
He’s the author of the novels Rabid Heart, which was nominated for the best horror novel at the 2019 Splatterpunk Awards, and the novel The Armageddon Chord. He has a new novel coming out in January titled Wretch, so stay clued into jeremyxwagner.com for more info on that.
He’s the CEO of the TV/film company Aphotic Media and the indie publishing company Dead Sky Publishing. He has a very varied creative life which I find inspiring and really fucking cool.
In this conversation we talk about:
- How he became an accidental publisher
- Playing guitar
- Being turned on to Ride the Lightning
- Passion and imagination as a driver
- Learning the business inside and out
- Competition
- Trust
- And how he translated Curtis’s voice onto the page
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Upcoming Events and Submissions
00:00:01
Speaker
OAC and Evers, I'll be at Dudley's Bookshop Cafe in Bend, Oregon on Sunday, October 19th. Time to be determined, but it's likely early afternoon. And if you're in Eugene, the fourth live podcast recording will take place Sunday, October 26th, 1 p.m. at Gratitude Brewing.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'll be interviewing Jason Brown, author of the memoir, Character witness. Stay plugged into the newsletters and brendanomber.com. Oh, hey, in the call for submissions, we got two more.
00:00:34
Speaker
Well, no, that was the last time I read it. We've had zero since the last time we had two more. The audio magazine is back, and codes is the theme. The Mandalorian and his guy live by a simple code, always punctuated by saying this is the way.
00:00:46
Speaker
What codes do you live by? has a code led you right or wrong? Essay should be no longer than 2,000 words. That's about a 15-minute read. Bear in mind that these essays, in the end, are audio essays. Write accordingly.
00:01:02
Speaker
Email submissions with quotes in the subject line to creativenonfictionpodcast.gmail.com. Originally, previously unpublished work only. Please, deadline is October 31st.
00:01:14
Speaker
Are we going to extend? we going to keep it? I don't know. You tell me. There is cash on the line from the O'Mara Grant, so send me your best fully formed pieces and consider becoming a patron to help put money in the coffers that helps put burrito money in the pockets of writers.
00:01:31
Speaker
That's how I wanted to kick it off, just as a kind of like a hard, you know, slap in your face, like, hey, pay attention. You're in for a hell of a ride.
00:01:48
Speaker
and Ever, just the Creative Non-Fiction Podcast, a show where i speak to tellers of true tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Meara, and my life coach says I shouldn't put myself down as much as I do.
Self-Reflection and Guest Introduction
00:01:59
Speaker
But isn't there an expectation for it now? Like, would you even recognize me? Isn't my insufferable negativity and self-loathing part of my appeal?
00:02:07
Speaker
Stupid fuck. Damn it. Old habits. We have Jeremy X. Wagner on the show today. The dude is a stone cold badass and the co-author, ghostwriter, of Fireproof, memoir of a chef published by Dead Sky Publishing. Jeremy, man, he's a heavy metal musician, founder of the death metal band Broken Hope.
00:02:29
Speaker
He's friends with Kirk Hammett, so now I'm like one degree of separation from the lead guitarist of my favorite band. But this is about Jeremy. Jeremy. He's the author of the novels, Rabid Heart, which was nominated for the best horror novel at the 2019 Splatterpunk Awards and the novel, The Armageddon Chord.
00:02:46
Speaker
He has a new novel coming out in January titled Wretch.
Jeremy X. Wagner's New Novel and Collaboration
00:02:50
Speaker
So stay clued into jeremyxwagner.com for more information on that. Show notes of this episode more at brendanomero.com.
00:02:59
Speaker
Hey, hey. There you can peruse for hot blogs, tasteful nudes, and sign up for my two very important newsletters, the flagship Rage Against the Algorithm and Pitch Club. Issue 5 with Justin Heckert went up.
00:03:11
Speaker
It's bit of a curveball. Go check it out.
00:03:15
Speaker
Also, if you care to support the podcast with a few dollar bills, you can always go to patreon.com slash cnfpod. There are some rad perks, but most are just happy to throw a few bucks into my guitar case. Okay, so a little more about Jeremy. He's the CEO of the TV film company, Aphotic Media, and the indie publishing company, Dead Sky Publishing.
00:03:35
Speaker
He has a very, very creative life, which I find inspiring and really fucking cool. In this conversation, we talk about how he became an accidental publisher, playing guitar, being turned on by Ride the Lightning, passion and imagination as a driver, learning the business inside and out, competition, trust, and how he translated Chef Curtis Duffy's voice onto the page.
00:04:00
Speaker
And Chef Curtis Duffy has had a life, man. Pretty inspiring figure. And he's a Michelin star rated chef based out of Chicago. And he and Jeremy really hit it off. they got ah They got a good relationship founded on heavy metal music when they met in Chicago for Lollapalooza a few years ago when Metallica was headlining and they went to dinner at his restaurant. I don't know, they just vibed.
00:04:27
Speaker
Sometimes you just vibe with people. parting shot on learning the biz but for now let's give it up for jeremy x wagner a true riff master listen to his debut album from broken hope called swamped and gore and tell me this guy doesn't know how to write the shit out of a riff so here we go riff
00:04:57
Speaker
I go three days without writing, I feel fucked up and depressed. I like to write books that sound more like someone telling a story over a campfire. Then you gotta keep moving on because tick tick, you know, tick tock. This is gonna have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
00:05:21
Speaker
Here you are, you to write novels, you write short stories, now you co-authoring non-fiction here with with Curtis, and you're also a you know musician too.
00:05:32
Speaker
um But just where did the love of stories and storytelling really take hold for you?
Storytelling and Creative Passion
00:05:38
Speaker
Oh, started when i was really young, grade school. just remember being a really...
00:05:44
Speaker
avid reader for one i just love books and yeah i'd say as started probably reading book after book like really in the books at age three three three and four and i was reading lot of kids books of course and then um my mom had a has always had a a great library so she was into mysteries and dark fiction and stuff like that. So she had all these Agatha Christie books, and Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and stuff like that. And I'd start going through her books because I was drawn to the cover, the book covers, I was like, What's this about? You know, that was always kind of a horror kid.
00:06:31
Speaker
i was always in the piece stuff, you know, and um I remember tackling my first adult novel, I guess you would call it would be Jaws by Peter Benchley.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I read that like 1975, 76, it would have been, ah again, in grade school, you know, age five or six, I read that book, and i started making up my own stories, my own little short stories. And ah The first thing I ever wrote, I still have it here. I've got this kind of like a ah journal, if you will.
00:07:12
Speaker
and My grandmother gave that to me in grade school. And this is like a hardcover, like a hardcover book that looks like ah it's made of denim, like a pair of jeans. There's like a pocket on it, right?
00:07:26
Speaker
And it says my book. And inside are lined pages. My grandma gave that to me. He was like, ah you can write your own stories in here if you want. Because I'd be making up stories and telling my aunts and uncles and parents, grandparents stuff off the top of my head. So I took that journal book and started writing stories ah based on things that I saw on TV. There's a super cheesy movie called The Last Dinosaur.
00:07:59
Speaker
from the seventies and it's like, it was on TV. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. I was really into dinosaurs. I'm still into dinosaurs. i have an uncle who's a paleontologist and I was always really into dinosaurs. So anyway, I saw this made for TV movie and off the top of my head,
00:08:20
Speaker
I adapted that, you know, wrote wrote wrote what I remembered of of that. It was like, kind of like my my own ah book adaptation of a movie, if you will. So I started there and then i just started making up other stories and even dark poetry and stuff. So it all started and in grade school. So I was always ah writer, a writer before I ever became a musician, for sure.
00:08:47
Speaker
And I never stopped writing since I was a kid, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. ah So often a lot of kids have that creative fire early on that tends to get snuffed out.
00:09:00
Speaker
ah Tragically, you get snuffed out by a lot of kids. You go know, you got to focus on something more serious, ah blah, blah, blah. How did you keep that flame alive? It just was a passion, really.
00:09:12
Speaker
I had this ah passion to use my imagination. And think part of my my growing up was also ah some great adults in my life who encouraged me to read. I had a school librarian who are ah really encouraged my writing and my creativity. Also, the way i I was brought up, I lived in rural central Wisconsin. My family's from Chicago, but when I was a little kid, we moved up to central Wisconsin and i lived out in the country.
00:09:48
Speaker
So we didn't have like cable TV or satellite or anything like that. We had books, three channels that we could get in with rabbit ear antennas on a black and white TV.
00:10:00
Speaker
And other than that, man, it was like using my imagination. exploring the woods, hey you know, and fields and, you know, pretending I was like in a, you know, Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien book, like the stick for a sword and stuff like that. So I, you know, I'd be doing like but that. My imagination was always going and I had these great adults that encouraged me to write and, and same with books, just my passion for reading.
00:10:30
Speaker
was a constant. And my mom was very encouraging with that as well. Passion really is the one thing, the one fire inside me that's just never gone away. And as I got older, i would write ah lengthier short stories, you know, and eventually those became novels. And in my band, i always wrote the lyrics. i'm I'm not a singer by any means, but I would write the lyrics for all our songs for Broken Hope and um yeah it's just all about all about passion you know yeah anything you do uh someone who works with wood like a wood a woodsman or someone who likes baking cookies hey you know it's like if you love what you do there's a passion there right so yeah until it grows up you're tired of it or something you move on that's never gone away for me you know
00:11:25
Speaker
So how did you start locking into musician in heavy metal music?
00:11:33
Speaker
Oh, I'd say probably when I was around age 12, you know, I was starting to get into, I was always into music as a kid. So we always had albums at our house and ah tons of vinyl and and stuff. And my dad and and his friends were into all kinds of rock, you know? So I grew up listening music, just cranking in the house constantly.
00:11:58
Speaker
And ah there's bands that, i really liked, you know, as a kid in the 70s, and it was probably around age 12, started discovering heavier bands. So I remember discovering heavy metal bands like Judas Priest and the album Screaming for Vengeance specifically, and then um just buying all these metal albums. And it's kind of like, when I go to a music store, it's kind of like going to a bookstore and look at all the album covers. And this is before you could, you know, we had like heavy metal, you know, radio stations and stuff. So I just, yeah I would just pick stuff up based on either the album cover look cool, or I saw them in some heavy metal magazine, right.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I'd say I started getting interested in guitar right around age 14, age 15. And that's when I discovered, but my tastes in metal also were getting and into heavier and heavier music. And that's where I discovered Metallica's Ride the Lightning came out.
00:13:12
Speaker
And that became, that was my life changing album. That's when I'm like, I want to do that. I want to play guitar and do what they're doing. Right. And That's how it all started. I got my first guitar.
00:13:25
Speaker
Technically, I got my first guitar at age 12. My mom got me an acoustic guitar, Gibson Epiphone, but and I begged for a guitar. But then once I got it, I didn't do anything with it.
00:13:36
Speaker
And then later when I got into metal, And that Metallica album, ride the Lightning, um and one of the Play Model, I traded that acoustic guitar in and got my first electric guitar.
00:13:48
Speaker
And then from there, I took lessons and formed bands and never looked back. I think I got fined right out of high school. I already had Broken Hope formed by senior year in high school. And soon after graduation, we were signed and...
00:14:04
Speaker
did our first album and everything. So but it just all started with my love of metal and and an album change in my life. And like, oh that's amazing. That's amazing. How are they play in that you know what i mean it was like oh yeah blew my mind yeah exactly i have that that album and puppets and justice just memorized and uh yeah it's it's and it's incredible and you what they were able to do and how they're how something you know what they were so are so particularly great at is that you can write
00:14:37
Speaker
You can write heavy, but it can also be melodic and could be musical, even though it's heavy to to an untrained ear. It might sound like noise. ah But when you know, it's like, oh, wow, this stuff is it can really translate across media, as we've seen with S&M and. m and ah the way Apocalyptica adapts their work. And then you when you hear it with, say, an orchestra or see marching bands, you're like, oh this is really musical. it's just really It can be really loud and really distorted and just amazing.
00:15:08
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yep, exactly. i was You sound like me when I was a teenager trying to educate my... parents or other older people on metal like that what is that that they're screaming and that's really fast music it's like you you don't understand the level of musicianship these guys have that takes some skill to play you know that at that speed and those melodies that they weave in there yeah it's like so like legit top level musicianship you know yeah yeah yeah i love catching some uh some old old videos from like the the puppets and lightning era of you'll see like the way how fast hetfield can play but he can he's singing over how fast he's playing and everything it's just
00:15:56
Speaker
blows blows my i'm not a musician but it's just like i see that i'm like oh my god the degree of coordination that you can detach it like the muscle memory to be able to play that quick and sing i mean it's something you can speak to just through your skills but it's just like mike you it must blow you away in a way like yeah i'm i'm blown away by anyone that can play a guitar or an instrument and sing at the same time because i i can't I can't one I can't sing right.
00:16:23
Speaker
and I can't even do like proper backups or anything. Like when I try to even talk while playing guitar, I can't do both at once. So yeah, hope people say I can't walk and chew gum at the same time. It's like that for me. If I were to talk to you and we're at band practice and I was playing guitar as soon as i start talking,
00:16:47
Speaker
my hands wouldn't be playing what i I'm supposed to be playing. I start, like, my hands start moving in syllables, like the way I'm talking, like, hey, Brandon, so about that thing, my hands are, like, going, hey, Brandon, what about, know what mean? Like, i can't I can't focus on both. It's a weird weird thing. I guess it takes practice, you know, but i mean I'm in awe of people that can do that, you know?
00:17:11
Speaker
And when you picked up the guitar, there are there is always inherent growing pains and the frustrations of learning a new skill and the hours you have to put in until you get some
Journey to Music and Publishing
00:17:21
Speaker
proficiency. The same can be true for any artistic discipline. But what were those growing pains like for you as you were learning yeah learning your instrument?
00:17:31
Speaker
When i when i first started taking lessons, I... i had a my first teacher wasn't really the best teacher uh he was older guy down the street had a music store and i went to him for lessons and uh He, you know, I wanted to learn some music theory, how to read music and, you know, elements of of music and whatnot. And I also wanted to learn heavy metal techniques like power chords and things like that. And that first teacher I had, he, like I said, he was an older guy. When I say older, i mean, he was like,
00:18:10
Speaker
like my grandpa's age at the time when I was 16, old Italian guy. he he I remember he'd make jokes like, I can't ah can't teach you heavy metal. The doctor says it's bad for my back.
00:18:26
Speaker
I'd be like, what? You corny old man. you know like ah want he it I'm like, this this guy doesn't get it. Anyway, it was funny. But I wanted to teach you. I really knew that stuff. I got really lucky.
00:18:38
Speaker
i After that, I found a music store where there was this great teacher, ah Tom, who I'm friends with to this day. And he... was in college for ah music theory and guitar.
00:18:54
Speaker
And he was I think he's going for like a master's or something and in in music, right. And he was a guitar teacher at a guitar shop. And the thing was, he was also in in a thrash band.
00:19:07
Speaker
So he was everything I could have hoped for. So he taught me all these really technical things on guitar. i wanted to learn like arpeggios and modes and speed runs and scales and all this stuff and how to read ah music.
00:19:23
Speaker
ah and And then he also taught me these elements of heavy metal guitar, you know, power chorus, picking techniques, things like that. And there were riffs I wanted to learn too, just to get an idea of how some of my heroes, if you will, played certain riffs. I wanted to learn i wanted to learn those songs to get that idea. So I would ask them to transcribe like certain Metallica songs, ah Slayer, Dark Angel, stuff like that. And I'd play these riffs and I'd get down and out of these techniques. And then right right when I was doing that, I'd say within a year,
00:20:05
Speaker
I just practiced and practiced and practiced. It's live for. And ah when i by the time I was 17, was already writing my own music.
00:20:17
Speaker
And I didn't even have a band yet. I was writing full songs on guitar. And then, ah yeah, I started forming my own bands, you know, and it went from there. But it was just, I think part of my my acceleration, I guess, at getting proficient at guitar had a lot to do with just hunkering down and and practicing so much. I was a living for it.
00:20:39
Speaker
And that's ah passion, too, you know. I was just so passionate about guitar and learning it inside out and And then I was really into making my own songs, you know, so, and I was never in a cover band or anything.
00:20:55
Speaker
um Despite wanting to learn techniques and some riffs of other bands early on, I never wanted to be in a cover band and play nothing but covers. You know, a lot of guys I went to school with were always in cover bands and stuff and I was in the stuff.
00:21:10
Speaker
doing my own thing you know writing thrash and death metal stuff like that you know and and different songs that aren't necessarily metal but yeah i just loved it that's awesome i love hearing you talk about kind of the the rigor of it i've heard like you know zach wilde interviews he's always a great interview like hearing him talk about just like the way to sort of to make it in in guitar or and you know in music or certainly anything it's like you you have to have such a drive and a burning fire to sit there with your instrument and being the computer and writing and just tapping out words or with your guitar for, you know, just hours and hours on end. Like, you know, he talks about doing it for like eight hours a day. Like few people can afford that degree of time, but you do need to put in the work and you got to get really, you got to work through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. And it seems like that's a lesson you really learned early on. It's like, you can just, you got to be bad first and you got to be okay with that.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And no distractions either. You know, kind of like when I was telling you about how I grew up as as a kid out in the country, the time I was playing guitar, was living back in the Chicagoland area.
00:22:24
Speaker
oh And I lived with my dad and ah kind of like Wisconsin, we we had a cheap TV. didn't i didn't We didn't have cable TV.
00:22:37
Speaker
We could have cable, we just couldn't afford it. We were like poor. So I just had a guitar. I didn't have distractions. I wasn't in front of the TV all day. And i was still I was always reading a lot of books and I had my guitar.
00:22:52
Speaker
And that's all I cared about was playing that guitar, you know. So I think that one part, that dedication and applying yourself because you're so into something is one thing.
00:23:02
Speaker
and and And part of that demands a lot of focus and and not distractions, you know. yeah Looking back, I mean, I... ah sound like old man Wagner here telling me this, but like, you know, no smartphones, no apps, nothing that, you know, takes takes your, your, your attention away from, from stuff, you know? Oh my God. Yeah. yeah Your app was your guitar. Like you just leaning into that. Yeah. like yeah
00:23:34
Speaker
Were there any, uh, any books that informed your music and maybe music that informed the pros writing you would do? When I was younger, was really into Stephen King, especially my, and my mom too. And I really loved his ah short fiction.
00:23:57
Speaker
And before I ever wrote a novel, I was always writing short stories. So Stephen King's short fiction, I think I didn't exactly write lyrics based on certain, you know, author stories, like say, if you look at Anthrax, right, they've got Among the Living, which is ah influenced by The Stand.
00:24:22
Speaker
For me, um I think the only thing that influenced my story writing was ah just the element of dark fiction, you know, because my short stories were always dark, either horror, you know, scary stuff like that, you know, there might be some kind of influence there. But you know, that I think that would be about it.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah. At what point does the inspiration strike to have your own publishing imprint with with Dead Sky Publishing? Oh, gosh. Well, that that being a publisher was kind of an accident, actually. i had this guy who had a small press called Deskhead Press,
00:25:08
Speaker
And he was doing really great stuff. And he he was in the music as well, like me, like bands I liked and stuff. So there's this ah photographer here in Chicago named Gene Ambo.
00:25:22
Speaker
He's been shooting for 45 years or something. and I told them, hey, ah you should do a book because you've got pictures like with so many bands and pictures no one's seen. So like back to Metallica, he was on the road with Metallica early on in their career.
00:25:42
Speaker
First three albums, he was shooting that a lot. And same with... ah doing um just shows everywhere, tours everywhere. um he ah He's more of a rock metal guy, Gene Ampo, but he's he's shot everyone, you know Madonna to Lady Gaga to you know BB King and on and on. He shot everybody, but he really loves metal and in rock. So came up with this idea to do a book of photos for a venue called the Metro in Chicago.
00:26:17
Speaker
And Gene had been shooting shows at Metro for 40 years. And a lot of huge bands came to the Metro before, our, the first time they ever played Chicago was at the Metro, I should say. So like when Metallica first came to Chicago, they played the Metro, uh, Slayer, uh, anthrax, Saltic Frost to Nirvana, garbage, smashing pumpkins on and on.
00:26:47
Speaker
And had all these great photos. So came up with this idea for a book called heavy Metro. and um that guy this guy who ran dusthead press i'm like hey why you broaden your horizons put out this photo book it's real really great it's a great project and he was into it but his partner wasn't so that guy i pitched it he was like um I want to do more stuff like this.
00:27:18
Speaker
My partner doesn't. Why don't you and I do a publishing house together? And I and i was like, ah I'm not really interested in being a publisher. ah It's kind of like being in a band. I don't want to own a record label.
00:27:32
Speaker
I want to be on the creative side. you know yeah I don't want to be in the trenches and ah oh trying to build this thing. But Lo and behold, I got talked into it because ah the the guy partnered with, he's like, I'll do all the managing and I'll take care of all the business stuff.
00:27:52
Speaker
um And you can acquire ah books that, you know, you want to see published. And there there's a lot of the books and things and authors that I really am into that wanted to see published. So that's how it started. were called Stygian Sky Media at first.
00:28:13
Speaker
And that Death's Head Press imprint, I ended up buying out ah that guy's partner from that. So we had Death's Head Press imprint, Stygian Sky Media.
00:28:24
Speaker
And then what happened is we started growing in the first year, we decided to do a comic book graphic novel line. And we called that Dead Sky Publishing, the comic book graphic novel line.
00:28:38
Speaker
And that took off and that was, ah ran by a new, a guy we brought on board named Steve Wands and Steve Wands ended up within that first year of doing comic books and graphic novels. He became my main partner.
00:28:56
Speaker
My other main partner exited, Steve became my main partner. And, um, the comic book graphic novel line really took off. We kept signing more and more authors as well for Death's Head Press. We rebranded as Dead Sky Publishing too, got rid of Stygian Sky Media.
00:29:15
Speaker
And since then, um it just kind of exploded. It got really, really big quick. you know I would say we're the indie publisher with major publisher muscle.
00:29:28
Speaker
We've got the best distribution We're in every bookstore now. um It's just phenomenal. It's crazy airport bookstores. I share stuff in and, um and we got a great staff as well. We've got employees that work full time and, um and, and my, I got my wish, which is I don't have to be.
00:29:52
Speaker
the face of the company or in the front lines, you know, trying to just do my thing, which is right full time. That's basically my job. So just write my own stuff. And once in a while, I'll acquire something I'm into, but my, my team, they do a great job at that, you know?
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool. And you know hearing you say a lot of those other other bands, like you know be it Pumpkin's Nirvana, you Metallica, obviously, in Garbage, all these yeah these you know sort of big headlining type acts.
00:30:27
Speaker
And and i think of that in writing, too. There are certain names, and be it in fiction or nonfiction, who are those sort of marquee names. And then, of course, they're your peers, too. And I'm always I've been one to look over my shoulder and compare myself to others. And it just always made me feel pretty rotten.
00:30:44
Speaker
ah ah But I wonder if just for you over the course of the arc of your career, being in music or writing, you know, what have you how have you metabolized that that comparison trap that we so often as creative people find ourselves getting into?
00:30:59
Speaker
As far as comparisons to ah what exactly like, I guess, you know, maybe seeing, you know, maybe where, say where you are and a on your path and then you look over your shoulder and you see other people and they seem to be on like maybe a different kind of rocket ship. and they're like, you know, you you just kind of feel a little maybe envious or jealous. And oh you know what I mean? Like that, that kind of thing.
00:31:23
Speaker
And it's just like, I know that's just something I wrestle with. I've wrestled with it more in the past, but I've kind of matured, somewhat matured out of it. ah But it does kind of rot you from the inside if you're not able to metabolize it in a productive way. Right. Yeah.
00:31:37
Speaker
There is, um, when I was younger, I, you know, being in a band, being an author, um, there's um sort of like, ah like Broken Hope I always felt were sort of like underdogs, if you will, like the year we came out, our form was 1988.
00:31:57
Speaker
And ah early 90s, there was a big a wave of death metal bands that were getting signed. And we when we got signed, um,
00:32:10
Speaker
we had formed that year we had formed there, there number of, uh, legend, not legendary death metal bands that are super huge. And like, I think we kind of missed the boat on, uh, between 1990 and 1991, our debut album didn't come out until 91, 1990 bands that are, I grew up with that were like peers of mine.
00:32:35
Speaker
really took off really got a head start but when we came out we were very prolific we just kept pumping out albums and whatnot but there's this funny just this funny kind of thing where it's like i think we missed this uh 12 month gap of this big wave of stuff coming out then we came out and we never quite got to that level of say like uh Cannibal Corpse or an obituary. We were more of like I think, underdogs, if you will. yeah you know But we ah you know it was
00:33:11
Speaker
kind of like one part when I was younger, maybe a little maybe a little envious, you know? Because i all wanted to do is tour and become a household name and all that stuff. But at the same time, lot of those bands are friends mine, so I happy for their success, you know? But there was that pinch of like,
00:33:33
Speaker
Like, why didn't, why aren't we on that tour? Or why didn't, why didn't we get that opportunity? You know, what, what, what's going on even with our agents? Like, but can you make something happen? But, you know, I just learned to to roll with it. And the same with writing books. ah ah Part of it,
00:33:51
Speaker
is you got to learn what the business is like too, you know, the music business and the publishing business, what reality is. And the ah guess with me, um I'm really about...
00:34:06
Speaker
I've learned to be more celebratory for people's achievements and proud of people's success, if you will. You know what I mean? And it's ah both both those arts, music and writing, you have to learn to have a thick skin.
00:34:24
Speaker
One, it really all starts with, why are you doing this? And remember that passion I talked about earlier? yeah I do it because I love it. I'm passionate about it. So,
00:34:36
Speaker
I'm of the realization of but if I don't become a household name, that's fine. As long as I'm writing ah books ah and music, you know, i'm always I do it for myself anyway.
00:34:49
Speaker
i'd I'd still be doing it, you know, if I didn't have a record deal or a publishing deal. It's just what I love to do. And it's a great thing to find that out in life that you... something youre you have a passion for gives you joy, if you will, you know? ah but the other thing is, ah ah being realistic about where you're at in the world. Like, it's not a contest, you know, like, I think I say this with a lot of writers.
00:35:18
Speaker
I think there's like competition with like writers. yeah You know, and it's like, it's not a contest, you know, to be like, who's more popular, or whatever. It's like, ah you should lift other people up, you know, be happy for people who got success and just keep doing what you do, you know, and if you get big, and successful, more power to you. And if not, you're still gonna do it, ah because you're passionate about it.
00:35:49
Speaker
That's the way I look at it, you know, Yeah, that's a brilliant way of looking at it, Jeremy. I really like hearing you say that. it's ah I think it's good for people to hear, too. like if As long as you can stay in the game and keep doing it because you because you love it. you know if you If you hit it the if you become get on the rocket ship and you become Metallica, great. Or yeah maybe you're testing maybe your Testament, who is an amazing band, but they didn't get quite on the same rocket ship. right But they're still great and they're still touring and they're still making a living. And, ah that you know, that unto itself is like a victory to see, you know, two metal bands from the 80s who came out in the same year. Yeah. got On different different paths.
00:36:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great analogy. And. If you look at ah Testament, like i'm I'm really good friends with Chuck Billy, eight actually. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, I'll be seeing him this week. He's coming to my stepson's wedding.
00:36:42
Speaker
That's amazing. Yeah, and when you see Chuck and Testament, you're right. They never got to Metallica level, but they're a hell of a band. They still... are pumping out their best music yet. It's like, it's incredible.
00:36:58
Speaker
You know, they just never stop. and And when you see them live, you see them have enjoying themselves, having a great time. They have made a name for themselves and they're still doing it And that's that's passion right there, my friend.
00:37:13
Speaker
you know They're still passionate about doing it. you know And that to me is inspiring too, because those guys are ah a little bit older than me you know by yeah several years.
00:37:25
Speaker
it's funny when I talk about age, because when I was so into Metallica as a teenager and I try to see ah how old they they were in magazine articles, you know, before Wikipedia, when you could go and find out how old someone is.
00:37:41
Speaker
And I'd be like, wow, these guys are in their twenty s When I'm their age, I hope I'm doing doing that. I remember thinking that way as a teenager, like setting goals based on age. yeah Then when I got older, I realized, you know, age doesn't matter. It's about, you know, just do what you do, you know, do do you, you do you let them do them and and make make your own mark or or whatever, you know, just do what you want to do.
00:38:09
Speaker
Exactly. yeah Yeah. Trying to lock in your groove and running your own race that comes with time. But it's it's hard to to to not, you know, peek over your shoulder and and have those things. I'm glad that's so great to hear you speak it speak ah to it that way.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah. and And Curtis is someone who is definitively run his own race and
Writing Chef Curtis Duffy's Memoir
00:38:29
Speaker
and everything. So how did you two how did you two get to know each other so that that would eventually set the table for for this project, for this book?
00:38:37
Speaker
Well, um it all started when um i think it was um
00:38:47
Speaker
ah here in Chicago, Lollapalooza was, is gosh, 20-something, 15, 16, something like that maybe. um k Curtis had a restaurant called Grace.
00:39:04
Speaker
Lollapalooza was in was that summer in Chicago ah as it is in Chicago every year. And it was the first time Metallica headline Lollapalooza.
00:39:17
Speaker
So ah I'm friends with Kirk Hammett, Metallica, and he were they were the band was in town for a few days and to set up production and rehearse and do things. So he wanted to I want to take him out the to dinner.
00:39:35
Speaker
And he had a guy ah ah working for He's a good friend of mine ah who suggested two different restaurants in Chicago. One's called Alinea, which is still around. One's called Grace, which was Curtis's first big restaurant.
00:39:55
Speaker
Now, where he was the main guy, the restaurant was built around him and all that. and it was a three Michelin star restaurant. So we ended up going to Grace to check it out.
00:40:06
Speaker
And then I met Curtis and ah found out he was a huge metalhead. He was like really happy to have Kirk there and um gave us a private dining area and um was just really great to us. And him and I just hit it off and clicked and we kept in touch right after that dinner, became really great friends.
00:40:30
Speaker
And then um ah some couple years went by and Grace ended up imploding. they They went out of business. Curtis left the restaurant after a falling out with the investor ah who actually owned the restaurant.
00:40:46
Speaker
It was right around that time when Curtis hit me up, said, hey, I want to talk to you about something important. And I'm like, all right, ah come on by.
00:40:57
Speaker
Let's talk. So I didn't know what what he wanted to talk about. You know, this was down in Miami. His wife is from Miami and my wife and I spend half the year in Miami Beach.
00:41:09
Speaker
So we do like the snowbird thing. We yeah were born in the wrong climate. We never did well with ice and snow. So we go we go to Miami Beach. So Curtis is down there seeing his wife.
00:41:20
Speaker
I was down there for the season. He came over, you know, I thought, oh, he wants to go, maybe he wants to go jet skiing or something, hey you know, get out of the house. And lo and behold, he's like, I want you to write my memoir.
00:41:34
Speaker
And I'm like, really? And I tell this story to everybody, but it it never gets old because it's kind of funny because I'm like, why why do you want to write a memoir?
00:41:46
Speaker
You're a young guy. You know, why don't you wait till you're older? Like, I always think of Keith Richards, you know, why you went to your, Richard's age, write a memoir of your whole life.
00:41:57
Speaker
He's like, well, ah the documentary that came out about me only scraps the surface of my wife's life. They just glossed over things. And I'm like, how so? but Tell me something I don't know about you that's not in the documentary or any interview I read.
00:42:15
Speaker
and ah and by the And I knew him really well by this time, but he told me stuff that's in the book i I had no idea. Like the way he grew up in that crazy biker household. And I'm like, holy cow. um I'm like, that's...
00:42:32
Speaker
um like dad that's got me totally floored right now. I'm totally hooked on on what you're telling me. And I said, well, why why why me?
00:42:44
Speaker
Why would you want me to write it? And he's like, well, I read your other two novels that came out ah at that time um before that. I really like your writing. I really trust you.
00:42:55
Speaker
Like you're one guy I trusted to do this right and do my story right. So on my end, I'm like very honored that he held me in that regard and one trusted me that much.
00:43:10
Speaker
But as a writer, i only write what i I'm into. you know I have the luxury of just writing for myself, right writing things that interest me, fascinate me. i i Aside from novels, I also...
00:43:25
Speaker
do screenwriting and scripts. So I've been paid to create TV shows and um the like a 10 episode bio series that I did too for another production company.
00:43:38
Speaker
And, but those were, those gigs were only, i did them because I was really into the subject matter, you know? Yeah, it wasn't for the money. So I said, Curtis, I'm into this. I mean, I really want to write this.
00:43:53
Speaker
i But you got to do me a favor. If I take this on, you have to be brutally honest, because what you're telling me, is so compelling and it has my interest, I wanna write about it.
00:44:05
Speaker
But as a reader, if I were a fan, you know reading this book, um I want you know the good, the bad and the ugly, I want you to rip the band-aid off, you know rip the scabs off and tell the tell tell the truth. Because for my from my experience, I've read a lot of memoirs that are super boring.
00:44:25
Speaker
and just fluff like man there this this has no interesting uh value whatsoever this guy is not saying anything right yeah curtis is like i'll tell i'll be brutally honest that's part of me wanting to do the book so right then and there We agreed to be ah partners on the book and that's that's how it all started.
00:44:51
Speaker
And we we signed a partnership agreement between us and the arrangement was he I was going to interview him.
00:45:03
Speaker
and did about 60 hours of interviews with him, transcribe them, and then build a book from there. So I wanted to retain Curtis's voice and use all that info that he gave me that came out of his mouth, convey that, but also being a ah novelist for so long.
00:45:26
Speaker
I wanted to come at this um and with a creative level with my own brand of of writing, if you will. So when you read, ah for example, what I want to do is immerse readers in Curtis's shoes at that moment in time.
00:45:43
Speaker
So whether he's in grade school, you're the reader, you hear him talking about it, but you also feel those sensory things, you know, whether it's joy, pain, whatever's going on in that environment at that time, again, in grade school, high school, you know, his twenty s on everything, I wanted to really bring things in to make it really more personable to the to the reader too so you have his uncut unflinching ah life story that he's telling you and then you have me taking that and using my skills is to carry that story in a
00:46:28
Speaker
trying to in a unique way, you know, so I heard his voice and then one part, my brand of writing, putting it together. You know what I mean? For sure. And in bringing up voice, you bring up a topic or a thread I wanted to pull on that, you know, as someone is a co-writer or a ghostwriter, know, you're, you know, you have your own style, your own voice as a lyricist and a writer of your own work.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah. ah But this is Curtis's story. And so you need to kind of translate his voice onto the page and kind of get yourself out of it. So what's the challenge of writing his in his voice when you're doing like, you the heavy lifting of the actual prose?
00:47:11
Speaker
The only challenge I had was, I think I retained his his voice, just knowing him so well too helps. you know yeah The recordings I did, there's the things he said were verbatim. So you're getting what Curtis...
00:47:28
Speaker
what Curtis said, but then there's also like even way he talks ah inflection and whatnot. An early first draft of the book, it was so long and it was like a thousand manuscript pages I had to work through once all that all those transcriptions were done.
00:47:48
Speaker
And there's parts of the book where you know we're so comfy around each other it's like two two bros you know hanging out having a coffee or a beer or something and loosening up and just the record buttons on and we're just going but um what when i was when i had that first draft that monster of a first draft i had to clean up a lot of stuff because there's um you know uh repetition if you will sometimes you you do so many hours of recording sometimes the same thing gets said again right and also that comfort level uh kerstoff is a super refined super focused three michelin fine dining chef but when you talk him i told you he's he's he's a metal guy he's really down to earth just a regular cool
00:48:44
Speaker
great dude and he drops so many f-bombs that like you think he was a drunken sailor sometimes you know or truck driver so i had to go through and like clean up the the the parts where it's like two bros talking he's saying important things But the way he's saying them is like, okay, you know I gotta clean up the some of the the the language or you know get get get a ah good get the story in his voice on track where where he's hitting home, getting rid of redundancies, you know that kind of thing. So the challenge was not so much,
00:49:30
Speaker
Retaining his voice, if you will, and and, you know, making sure that came through to readers was more of the structure. How am I going to structure this book, clean it up and really, you know, tell a story in in a unique way? Where do I where do I start and whatnot?
00:49:47
Speaker
um Again, keeping his voice and and carrying that through wasn't as difficult oh as, you know, it could be, you know, depending on. know, I would imagine.
00:49:59
Speaker
i Because I haven't written written a memoir for anyone before. So I imagine there's ghostwriters who get hired to write a book, say for a celebrity or someone.
00:50:10
Speaker
They don't really know that person. So what, you know, the comfort level might not be there in those situations. And they might not be spending the the amount of quality time like I did with Curtis to really yeah grasp it, if you know if you know what I mean.
00:50:26
Speaker
Oh, for sure. And, you know, speaking of the structure, I was struck by the nonlinear nature of some of it. yeah It wasn't like a straight chronology. You know, you do kind of jump from, you know, theme to theme or vignette to vignette from teenager to professional and back and forth again. So ah when did that strike you as ah the thumb you're putting on the scale of this or the way you're thinking of shaping it?
00:50:53
Speaker
When i got when it came to structure, i had a ah really i had my own ideas, but I also um wanted to work with... There's an editor I really wanted to work with named Helen Rogan, and she was ah fantastic she's She's really great at structure.
00:51:12
Speaker
And in one of the earlier drafts, I had this idea of ah being, I wanted to be super original and tell the story ah each chapter in third person to set it up.
00:51:24
Speaker
where I'm really using my imagination to recreate ah things Curtis had told me about where he'd grown up, say, or things that happened, and setting that up at the beginning of the chapter and then bringing Curtis first person.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I was looking at doing it that way. And I did kind of start a little bit in a chronological fashion. And then what happened is wasn't really happy with that in that structure and Helen helped me by taking parts of his life and saying, suggesting, don't you try, you know, ah doing this and putting this here.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I tried that. That's where I started doing things on a nonlinear way. And also, During the course of interviewing him, I knew that based on his popularity as a chef, there's gonna be people who are gonna wanna know about the food stuff.
00:52:28
Speaker
And the food stuff is woven through there. You know, if you're foodies or fans of Curtis's food and and some people are just obsessed with cooking and whatnot, and and I get it, that's important. He had an important personal story to tell as well as how he got to where he is as a three Michelin star chef.
00:52:50
Speaker
After living with that, book, you know, after the first couple of drafts going back and forth with ideas, that's when I decided I really want to kick things off for a reader to know what they're in store for. Because Curtis came from a really brutal place and survived things that most people would have just thrown the towel in and not made it through the other side.
00:53:17
Speaker
And so that first chapter spoiler alert for anyone watching this or listening to this is when the scene with the detectives and he's looking at the autopsy photos of his parents that to me was such a heartbreaking thing uh to hear in person for one it was just like when he's telling me that it was like uh oh this is i can't this happened you i mean i can't believe it and
00:53:49
Speaker
we We cried a lot. There were a lot of tears when we were doing that interview process. And that was yeah really hard. And I remember that just hitting me in the gut, and you know being forced as a teenager to look at those photos because those detectives were so twisted.
00:54:06
Speaker
So that's what I wanted that to be the first thing people read to make a reader go, what the hell is happening here? Curtis is a teenager and these detectives are doing this to him. And that's how I wanted to kick it off just as a...
00:54:23
Speaker
kind of like a hard, you know, slap in your face, like, Hey, pay attention. You're in for a hell of a ride. And then the next chapter starts with, uh, I love funnel and he gets cooking, you know, and funnel and food and stuff in the kitchen. So I wanted to weave it all together Those the worlds of Curtis Duffy's upbringing and his culinary journey and trajectory with ah his his culinary journey and trajectory. You know, they I look at it as two different things, the personal life and that that cooking life.
00:54:59
Speaker
They got tied in together, you know, from an early age of Curtis. And oh I just just worked my tail off to pull it off that way, you know, to make it to make it work and have it all in there. You know what I mean?
00:55:14
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And so critical to Curtis's development as ah and certainly as a chef, but definitely as someone who needed some ballast in his life was ah Ruth Snyder, a very important teacher for him. And also I'm blanking on his name. His last name was Saunders, but he was a history teacher. John Saunders.
00:55:34
Speaker
John Saunders, who who also moonlighted as ah as a waiter or sommelier or something, and and as a waiter, I think, and really gave Curtis, ah and both of them ah turned a light on for him. And I think that that's so integral to his story.
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah, John Saunders' wife white wife, not wife, I'm sorry, John Saunders' daughter just sent Curtis a two-page letter that he texted to me. And it was the...
00:56:02
Speaker
sweetest, most heartfelt letter, man. She was like, you, I always thought my father was this amazing man that I held on a pedestal. And what I read about what you wrote about my father and what he meant you reminded me of what a great father my dad was. John soers Saunders had passed away some years ago.
00:56:25
Speaker
And, um, That was incredible to read, ah because she said the the book and what Curtis had to say about him just you know moved her tremendously. And that was amazing. And to that end, people like John Saunders and Ruth Snyder as you know from reading, Fireproof made all the difference in the world. And and young people who are in a bad place at home with family or in life, it's important that they have life preservers like that.
00:56:58
Speaker
you know Like Curtis says, There's a line where he says something like, some a while people say angels don't walk among us among us. I have two words, Ruth Snyder. you know that That's one of his his angels. So yeah, those were two very important people in his life who took him under their wing. and I think help make him the man that he is, you know, and and kept them on track. Like you can do anything in life, you know, and that's what Curtis's message is. Ultimately at the end of the book, you can do anything in life if you work at it.
00:57:32
Speaker
Oh, for sure. and Well, you get a sense and you hear this, be it on yeah cooking channels and cooking shows or hearing chefs talk about how the kitchen and kitchen culture can really save their lives and it saved so many lives. i mean It can be a very toxic and disruptive atmosphere, but in a lot of ways, it it saved probably it saves a lot of lives and it certainly saved Curtis's.
00:57:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. they There's that that saying that ah Curtis says, and I've read Anthony Bernain say when he was alive that the kitchen is the last refuge for the misfits. you know the yeah That's like the the place for the people who don't fit in.
00:58:15
Speaker
they They wind up in the kitchen, and they they but they love the craft. They love the hours and um it it it is ah to a certain degree ah a life-saving place, especially in Curtis's case. Like you said, that's where his safe harbor was. he It got him out of the house, which the the house was a hellhole, horrible place for him to be.
00:58:39
Speaker
So yeah the more he could be out of that house, and out of that toxic environment, the better. And the kitchen afforded him that. Plus he just discovered the joy he gave to people. Like he says, i can make a ah dish in minutes and see someone eat it and smile and get satisfaction.
00:59:03
Speaker
If I was a musician, It would take me months, a year to get my music recorded and out and get that reaction. You so there's an instant gratification of yeah making other people happy.
00:59:15
Speaker
And and then, yeah, just that passion for cooking and creating, you know. but There's that element of the the discipline of the kitchen when you really lean in. like When you see Curtis in public and see images um he's very put together.
00:59:30
Speaker
you know He's got the chef outfit on. You know he's and that's you know you write in the book how how he likes that degree of a very regimented and discipline, very put together.
00:59:43
Speaker
And you can tell like that because his home life and because his childhood was so frenetic without any structure and so chaotic, you can see where he would lean in to the these mentors at these very prestigious restaurants that provided that degree of order.
00:59:59
Speaker
And that must have just been so calming in a sense, even though the kitchen is chaotic unto itself, but they it's controlled chaos. Right. Yeah, exactly. And in his kitchen, ah one thing about his approach to his team is dead quiet.
01:00:17
Speaker
there's like no, you don't hear any sound outside of like maybe some cutlery and dishes being put down and whatnot. But each cook and chef at their station is is dead quiet with their tweezers and everything. There's no, there's no yelling.
01:00:35
Speaker
There's nothing. it's ah It's the craziest thing. I've been in that kitchen numerous times. I can't believe how quiet, and focused everyone is. it's It's something to behold because you watch a TV show like Hell's Kitchen hitting a Hell's Kitchen. It's like the opposite, you know?
01:00:52
Speaker
Exactly. Well, it may be like reading this book and just having been i just yeah kind of fascinated with restaurant culture and the cult of personality around celebrity chefs and what type of person becomes, ah wants to become a celebrity chef versus just a chef. Like I had a thing like You know, something just a note I had just like the rise of the celebrity chef and how this corrupts the craft and like a delineation between what it means to be a chef versus a chef brand celebrity in the cooking industrial complex.
01:01:25
Speaker
Like this got me really thinking about those terms. And. know, just as you were immersed in Curtis's life and his story, you know, in what ways have you seen, yeah, just this sort of corruption of the craft by this notion that you have to be like Emeril Lagasse or David Chang?
Celebrity Chef Culture and Business Insights
01:01:43
Speaker
I've seen it through... Curtis actually talking to him about that very subject, you know, yeah yeah it for the book. ah He's a guy who, when you read Fireproof, you'll you'll see him say it. He he doesn't care for a celebrity chefs.
01:01:59
Speaker
He'd been asked to be on so many different cooking shows over the years, and he's he's declined. ah He he's he he ah felt that um If he were to do certain things, it would be something that would affect his integrity, right? Because he didn't get into cooking to be on TV.
01:02:20
Speaker
and Now, he has been on Iron Chef. but I think that was for a good cause or raise money for something. And he went up against a chef, Dominic Crenn, I believe is her name.
01:02:33
Speaker
And she ended up winning. oh And, but his whole, angle outside of that, his whole angle was Ben. Oh, and he was a guest judge on, another, uh,
01:02:46
Speaker
cooking show big one i can't remember the name but he never got into cooking for to be on tv or even for awards for that matter you know he does it all for the craft but what he's told me is uh he gets young chefs who come through his door looking to work there at ever restaurant his new restaurant and he they're like uh you know, where do you see yourself in the next five years? it's kind of like one those things like they're like, ah got my own cooking show and I'm going to do this on TV. And his attitude when he hears that is like, you should really maybe you should go to acting school or and get an agent because they care more about being on TV than the actual craft of ah cooking, you know, and he'll tell me two he'll question them, it'll ask them
01:03:40
Speaker
to make them something just to see what their skill set is in a kitchen. a lot of them can't, don't have the skills. They just want, they got, there's like this popularity celebrity thing.
01:03:53
Speaker
It's the weirdest thing. And again, I'm just sharing that through my observations from of what Curtis told me, you know? ah And um yeah, it just seems like that's a big thing out there to young chefs and whatnot.
01:04:06
Speaker
And Curtis also, says to young chefs, before you get in this business, you know do you want do you really wanna put the hours in? Are you really dedicated to the craft? You know you want work 17 hours a day?
01:04:21
Speaker
And that's one thing, but the other thing he urges that he never got when he was younger is he urges young people wanna be chefs or restaurateurs, to go to business school as well. There's a big part of the business you wanna learn as well, aside from, of course, the bit the culinary thing that's a given.
01:04:42
Speaker
So um that was interesting to hear. And the other thing that blew me away too, since we're on the subject of young chefs who want to be celebrity TV chefs, oh there's a lot of young chefs, Curtis told me that they don't actually realize where their food comes from. Like there's some that he's he's done classes at culinary institutes and he's it and when he told me this, I go, no effing way, you're lying. it no You gotta be kidding me. But he's like, what he told me is there's, I've had students who think they're carrots
01:05:19
Speaker
come from the grocery store. They don't know carrots are in a garden and they're pulled out of the ground and throw I'm like, get out of here. He's like, I swear to God, there there's young people that don't know where their food comes from. It's the craziest thing. So, yeah oh and I think that says something about that mentality circling back to like a young person being like, Oh, I want to be like Emeril Lagasse or Gordon Ramsay. And you know, I have a cooking TV show, you know, there's, there's not a lot of worth there. That's a different type of animal, you know, versus care her to stuff he is, you know what I mean?
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, there's a moment in the book where you you're echoing it right here. He's like, you know you need to know like profit and loss, spreadsheet, budgets, scheduling, social media, and like you know he writes you write, you know you might hate that shit and only want to cook. Too bad. That ain't the world we're living in now. You have to do it all.
01:06:15
Speaker
yeah that That not only speaks to cooking, but it speaks to being an author now, too. Yeah, yep, absolutely. I'm at a place where I got my next novel,
01:06:27
Speaker
is coming out in January. And I, ah i well, and like with Fireproof, with the publicity teams that we got working the books, it's like you have to you know, have a website.
01:06:44
Speaker
They want you to do newsletters. And then, you know, social media across the board, I've got maybe three accounts that I i use, you know, primarily like ah Instagram, Facebook, and and my old Twitter, now X account.
01:07:02
Speaker
But there's so many things that they want me to use, you know, TikTok, threads, this and that. And it's like, yeah. I'm like, wow, you got to have all this to, you know, to be a writer or they want you to have this to to be a writer. You know, it's like I need time to write, you know, yeah these posts and a newsletter, you know, it takes takes time. ah There's some authors I'm amazed.
01:07:31
Speaker
they They got a regular regularly scheduled newsletter that will come out like every week. And um to me, it's like, wow, where do you find the time? You know, because just me writing a novel itself, when I'm in that zone, I'm so focused and I'm not worried about social media and and whatnot but ah you know this day and age it's like they're necessary evils if you will to you know if you want to promote your your wares be it a a new book like fireproof or a novel or even ah an album if you're in a band you know yeah you got to get stuff out there on a social platform so what curtis said is
01:08:13
Speaker
Right. and and the And you having that posed to authors, you're dead on correct. It's the same thing. you know you you You need that stuff.
01:08:25
Speaker
And it doesn't hurt to get ah education and the business of publishing too, you know? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. It's a, it echoes ah just, well, what we were saying earlier about, you know, people coming up with the wrong intentions of being a chef, like doing it to become a celebrity versus doing it for the craft.
01:08:45
Speaker
It's like, if you get good at social media or newsletter, all like that work around the work and the, but you're like a shitty writer or shitty cook or a shitty chef, Then all you're doing is promoting how bad you are. So it's like you still need to be like very good and very sound as a musician, a writer, a chef.
01:09:02
Speaker
ah And then you can leverage the other things to show how good how how good you are and get your work out there. But it's like so many people do it backwards. They get good at that, but they're not really good at the thing that they purport to want to be good at.
01:09:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. have to Very circuitous way of talking. Yeah. oh I get it, though. Yeah, I totally get it. Very nice. Well, well ah Jeremy, you've been really generous with your time, and I could really talk to you all day about Fireproof, um but I want to be mindful of your time. And as I bring these conversations down for a landing, i'm always I always love asking the guests just for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners out there. And that can just be like anything you're excited about, ah you know be it ah an album, a book, or a fanny pack, or a brand of socks.
01:09:46
Speaker
ah So I would just extend that to you. Sure. I actually um ah just finished a book, ah by S.A. Cosby oh called King of Ashes.
01:09:59
Speaker
And i I loved it. It's one of the best things I've i've read in ages. He did a read a book, a couple books back called Razorblade Tears. That was one of the best books I had read that year. So this new one, ah King of Ashes, that's the most brand new book thing book-wise that ah i i've I've read that really blew me away. And then there's a band, they're a death metal band called Sanguasugabog.
01:10:33
Speaker
They have a new album that just came out, and that that's really good. I've been jamming on that recently. And then other than that, i've been ah I go back and and binge watch old TV shows, so I'm i've binge watching in one of my old favorites, Boardwalk Empire, on on HBO right now. God damn, I love that series. So that's my... Those are... those are ah three three things that got my world rockin'. Other than that, um I just wanted to mention the ah that novel I told you about, Wretch is the name of my new novel. it'll be coming out
01:11:15
Speaker
in January. There's another novel another author has coming out think right after that I saw him promoting ah also called Wretch. Not to be confused with Jeremy Wagner's Wretch but my mine's coming out in January and that's kind of like a dark crime splatterpunk horror thing so I still write my brand of you know horror.
01:11:38
Speaker
So that's coming out. So thanks for wanting to mention that. But other than that, Brandon, thanks for having me on, bro. I really appreciate your time. And yeah, I could talk to you all day.
01:11:53
Speaker
Yes. Awesome. How great was that? That was really fun. Very cool to talk to. Talk to people with such a varied artistic life. I just really i really find inspiration from that. and He's ah just our true artist.
01:12:10
Speaker
Awesome stuff. Go to jeremyxwagner.com to learn more about Jeremy. The name of the book, again, is Fireproof, a memoir of a chef. It's great book.
01:12:21
Speaker
And you can follow the show on Instagram at Creative Nonfiction Podcast. And subscribe to the newsletters, Rage Against the Algorithm, and Pitch Club.
01:12:33
Speaker
There was a moment in this conversation where Jeremy riffed on having to know the business you're in. It's a great passage from Fireproof where Curtis talks about knowing the food business inside and out.
01:12:45
Speaker
And a few parting shots ago, I talked about a writer who I had come into contact with who was adamant that their job... was not to sell their book. It was to write books and leave it up to everyone else to sell it, to which some people were nodding and I'm just like, oh fuck, put my hand up but no one called on me.
01:13:02
Speaker
This is a recipe for bitterness, resentment, and self-sabotage, if I'm being honest. Likewise. A chef or restaurateur might just want to cook and create recipes, but that's only a fraction of it.
01:13:14
Speaker
Yes, it's the most important fraction of it, because if your craft is garbage while you get good at promoting or going on all cooking shows and being consumed with influencer culture and celebrity culture, you're just going to end up promoting how bad you are. Same goes for writing, too.
01:13:32
Speaker
Mastering your craft is imperative. Constant improvement, attention to the subtleties, experimentation. But as independent contractors, we need to know how to had a pitch, how to handle our finances.
01:13:44
Speaker
You know, skim some of that money from a check for the tax man because the tax man's always coming. There's platform building and community building. There's attending the readings and you have to study the masters of the past and also the masters of the present.
01:13:58
Speaker
So when you turn pro, there's all these things, these other elements. You have to be aware of unless you want to be invisible and wallow in obscurity. So much of doing this kind of work is not the work you signed up for.
01:14:11
Speaker
But make no mistake, it's part of the job. It's easy to get washed up or carried away by social media and confuse that with the work. Because in a way it feels like work, but it's really not.
01:14:24
Speaker
It's a sliver. But I see far too many writers wasting time on the wrong things, a failure of priority, putting second things first, third things first, as Stephen Covey once wrote.
01:14:38
Speaker
The writing in craft always comes first, but it isn't the one and only, as much as we want it to be. I'm sure there are myriad chefs who just want to cook and perhaps scoff at the chefs who have cultivated a public image, who go on all these competition shows and judge and all that stuff, and it draws them more attention, and thus a maybe a fuller dining room night after night.
01:15:02
Speaker
It's the same with writers. Unless you're in that sliver of the 1% who draw a regular salary and have institutional support that does the promotion for you, then you've got to learn about the business. You have to read the books about publishing industry.
01:15:15
Speaker
You need to know how it operates and what your options are. You need to read Jane Friedman's The Business of Being a Writer so you understand the totality of the job.
01:15:27
Speaker
Or you know visit the archive of the Writers Co-op podcast with Wu Dayan Yan and Jenny Gritters or something. like it's I think she sunsetted it, but there's a lot of conversations there, and you can very much tell she and Jenny thought about it in terms of dollars and cents.
01:15:44
Speaker
know, I'm one to give everything away in the hopes that the platform builds and then I can leverage platform for shit. um But they definitely think about charging for the extras, like worksheets and all sorts of stuff.
01:15:55
Speaker
um But that's why she's the boss, and I'm decidedly not. This business does a really good job of frustrating people into bitterness or PR or law school. As artists, it's hard to think about the things that keep the lights on.
01:16:09
Speaker
You know, I see many painters, and I'm sure you have too, who do these paint and sit nights. they might have They might have fun. I don't know if they do or not. But you know it's below them.
01:16:21
Speaker
But those classes, populated mainly by drunk white women, help keep the lights on so the artist can really ply their trade you know ah elsewhere. I'm not sure what the writer equivalent of that might be, but you you do yourself a disservice.
01:16:39
Speaker
by not learning about the totality of the industry you've adopted. And I hope listening to Jeremy talk about it with how he's thought about his creative life, and then ah yeah maybe that'll inspire you to to learn some of the other things. I know i I can stand to learn far more about those ins and outs, even though I have a pretty good idea about it.
01:17:01
Speaker
But you can always learn more. And the more you know, maybe the less frustrated we can all be. And then if we're less frustrated, we can do better work. And if we can do better work, we can lift up other people. So stay wild. See in efforts.
01:17:13
Speaker
And if you can't do interview, so