June 2014
Chris Harrison has just published 'Toten Herzen Malandanti,' his second book in the Totenseries about the vampire rock band Toten Herzen:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toten-Herzen-Malandanti-Chris-Harrison-ebook/dp/B00L29O7MK/
1. Was your childhood happy?
One third of it was. One third was spent at school, which I loathed, one third
spent asleep, and the final third I was free. When I remember that bit, the
final third, I only remember day trips and castles and beaches, amusement
arcades at the seaside, games like Subbuteo and Top Trumps, music and
television. Every evening was a warm summer evening, every holiday was a
heatwave, every winter hummed with the expectation of Christmas. If you take
away school my childhood was virtually idyllic. My brain must have some kind of
filter that has completely blanked out my schoolday memories, thankfully none
of them stain the images of childhood.
2. Are you an only child?
No, the youngest of two. I have an older sister. My mum and dad come from large
families. If I added up all the cousins, uncles, aunts and their kith and kin
they'd fill Wembley stadium a hundred times. And I would only recognise about
three of them.
3. Do you play a musical instrument?
Every instrument you can name, I can play it*. I've been making music for about
ten years now. I started with electronica (hamfisted attempts at trance), right
up to the present day recording the music for Toten Herzen. The only thing I
don't do is sing. I was out walking alongside the River Ribble a couple of
years ago, in a very isolated location, and tried a few lines of a song I'd
written. I was tempted to take out an injunction against myself prohibiting me
from singing.
*All the instruments are virtual, recorded on computer! I can't actually play a
real instrument and can't read or write music. Someone on Youtube once heard a
song of mine and said it was refreshing to hear people use real instruments. I
had to confess and break the awful truth to her.
4. You say on your Smashwords interview that 'Toten
Herzen's backstory came out virtually complete as though somebody had
transplanted it overnight.' George Frederick Handel said he was 'visited by the
angels' and wrote The Messiah in one week. Like Handel, would you also say that
you had experienced a paranormal occurrence?
I'm not sure paranormal is the right word, but sometimes the human mind works
in a supernatural way. Some stories are contrived in that the author sits down
with a blank sheet of paper and invents a set of obstacles to be overcome by an
invented set of characters. Very rarely does an idea form by itself, but when
it does you have to stand back and let the various sediments settle.
I think it helped in that I've been interested in rock music for thirty five
years, so the way bands come and go, rise and fall, get together and break up
was already deeply embedded in my subconscious. It was like finding a very rich
seam waiting to be mined. All I had to do was follow it and add the
vampire/hoax spin on the story and out came Toten Herzen. But how I came to
discover the mine in the first place is still a mystery.
5. Tell me a bit about your second book 'Toten Herzen
Malandanti'.
It was originally called The Lost Valley. Toten Herzen follow up their comeback
tour with the comeback album and Rob Wallet, the band's publicist, arranges for
them to record at an isolated privately owned studio in the Lake District. He
has ulterior motives for doing this and it isn't long before word gets out
where they are and the band ends up on the radar of a corrupt network of covens
centred on Bamberg in Germany: the Malandanti. It all kicks off when vampirism
goes head to fangs with witchcraft and black magic, throw in an outrageous bit
of opportunistic litigation from an American diva and you get another typical
year in the life of Toten Herzen.
The theme of the second novel is loss and searching. Everyone is looking for
something in this novel: childhood happiness, legendary status, privacy, world
domination, a purpose in life, escape from reality. From an emotional point of
view this was a very difficult book to write and in spite of the humour it's a
very dark novel. I think the third novel will be a lot lighter, more riotous.
6. We aspiring writers have to find a way to deal with
rejection. Does a rejection letter send you into a deep depression, or do you
chalk it up to experience and move on?
I've come to see rejection as the default setting, so a rejection is expected.
There are a million and one reasons for rejection, there's no point getting
upset about it. That's the nature of the business, especially when you have the
equivalent of a million people applying for one job vacancy. In the 1990s I had
a manuscript 'called in' by one literary agent. She rejected that one, but
asked to read the next novel I wrote, which I rushed and blew the opportunity.
It's as much a numbers game as anything. Writing is an offshoot of the
entertainment industry and we know how fickle that is at letting people through
the door.
7. What makes you stay in (in your words) 'the heat and
bedlam of a suburban housing estate; the kind of necropolis where souls come to
die?'
In a word money. The value of this house means if I sold it I could only buy a
similar house on a similar housing estate or move to a cheaper area like
Mogadishu or Chernobyl. Suburban housing estates started out as an idealist
solution to a post-war housing crisis. Now they're nothing more than internment
camps. They're empty soul destroying places and if anyone disagrees ask
yourself this question: if you had the money to live anywhere would a suburban
housing estate be your first choice?
8. Do you enjoy your job, or would you like a change?
A few years ago I had a near-perfect job. It was creative, it got me outdoors,
I had a degree of autonomy managing my workload and the employer was very good.
I work freelance at the moment, which is tolerable, but a bit fragmented.
There's satisfaction when a project is finished, but at the moment it's a bit
'isolated.' There needs to be a greater sense of accomplishment in the long
term.
9. When you're not working or writing, how do you spend
your time?
Making music, walking around the Lake District or parts of Lancashire like the
Trough of Bowland or Pendle (Pendle witch country). During the winter months I
go watching Fylde rugby union and stand on the terraces with a group of old
nutters: ex-RAF, ex army, ex-this that and the other with dodgy knees and
failing memories. At 48 I'm the baby of the gang.
10. What is your favourite film?
Do you know I was out walking along the Kent Estuary last week and asked myself
this very question. I think it would be a tie between Amadeus and Brotherhood
of the Wolf. Amadeus for its sheer quality of production, script, photography,
acting (F. Murray Abraham is one of my favourite actors) and of course the
music. Brotherhood of the Wolf is epic storytelling and the final ten minutes
are probably a demonstration in how to conclude a story of that scale and
depth. Fascinating, captivating, eerie and magical in equal measure.
11. What is your favourite song?
Crikey, the answer changes with the weather. At the moment it's a song called
Weil du da Bist by a German singer songwriter called Das Gezeichnete Ich. I
have what I call a 'nostalgia list' of songs I listen to when I'm writing or
designing. There are a few songs on there by Burt Bacharach (The Look of Love,
for example) and a couple by the Carpenters (Goodbye to Love is one). But I
could also mention Destinazione Paradiso by Laura Pausini, The Bull by Jake
Thackray, Shine (Club Mix) by Talla 2XLC or Ghost Love Score by Nightwish. I
have very wide ranging tastes, which means I can't pin down one song and say
that's the best thing ever written. And a song can be transformed when
performed live. Metallica's Seek and Destroy live in Seattle (1989) would put
that song on the list.
12. What is number one on your bucket list?
That would have to be a visit to Everest. I don't have the ambition to climb
it, but to maybe reach a point where you can see it. Mountains for me are the
most important elements of the earth and I'd like to see the highest one.
13. Do you feel part of an in-crowd, or do you prefer to
stand on the outside and observe?
I don't like the idea of in-crowds, it suggests a superiority or arrogance, and
usually manifests in a sheep-like mentality where everyone waits to see what
everyone else is doing. In-crowds breed subservience and not answering back,
but they're too idiotic to see beyond their own vanity to realise they're being
conned by a smirking trend setter somewhere.
14. If you could change one thing in your life, what would
it be?
I'd become a Swiss goat herder. Live a subsistence lifestyle in the Alps.
That's if such things exist. Goat herding has probably been digitised now.
15. Which of your possessions means the most to you?
I've been thinking about this question since I read it. The things that mean
most to me are an accumulation of seemingly trivial things. My vinyl record
collection, which I never play; my camera, which records all the things that
become aide-memoires, and my car, which is like a horse in that it goes
everywhere I go and shares the experiences I have. I don't like selling cars
because it feels like I'm selling a friend. Anything that connects me to the
past is important.
16. Has your acerbic wit ever landed you in trouble?
No. I don't think I've ever landed in trouble because of something I said or
wrote. Maybe it's time to change and go all Katie Hopkins. Become a
professional arsehole; they seem to get on in life better than the rest of us.
In my first job I nearly got sacked for missing a deadline after arguing all
afternoon about religion, but I don't remember the argument involving acerbic
wit.
17. Where in the world do you prefer to spend your
holidays?
The Lake District in Cumbria. Prague was also extraordinary when I was there in
2001. Anywhere other-worldly or fantastical will do for me.
18. Are you religious?
A few years ago I read an interview by Shashi Tharoor, an Under-Secretary
General of the UN. He said 'even an atheist can be a Hindu,' which I thought
was curious, so I looked into Hinduism and found the concept of Brahman very
close to what I believed at the time. That we're all just fundamental bits of a
universal entity, fluctuating and flowing. I don't buy Wainwright's line about
heaven looking like the Lake District with folk floating about on cumulus
clouds. I think we go back to being a collection of superstrings drifting
through a superstring universe.
19. Have you ever visited Dove Cottage, taken photos, and
looked for Wordsworth's ghost in one of the pictures afterwards?
I'm more likely to photograph Dove Cottage and Photoshop a ghost into the
picture. I'd like to organise a hoax one day! Get people wondering about the
reality around them.
20. What is your biggest regret?
Going to university. Listening to advice to 'get an education.' Gets you
nowhere unless you have a double-barrelled surname and a pack of labradors. I
should have got meself a white van and a trade. If a young person asked me for
advice I'd tell them to ignore all advice!
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Thanks Chris for agreeing to be interviewed, and for providing such entertaining answers to my questions.