Transcript for the conversation without the intro and outro.

0:00:01 - Josh Malerman
I fell asleep five hours ago, but, and woke up one hour ago, two hours ago, oh man.

0:00:09 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah, so it's what coming up for quarter to nine where you are, Is that? Right, yeah is it 12 hours difference? So for me it is now quarter to 11 in the evening. Um, and what is it for you, dan? Is it quarter to?

0:00:32 - Josh Malerman
two, yeah, quarter to two in the afternoon yeah, so we've got the morning, the afternoon and the evening covered oh man, I'm afraid if one of us were to sign off, that we would lose that part of the day forever. Yeah.

0:00:50 - Dan Howarth
I'm sure there's some sort of Twilight Zone style story that we can get out of this, you know.

0:00:56 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I was going to say that could perhaps form the genesis for one of your next stories. Then.

0:01:05 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, I was actually thinking about something like that. Like time as a monster, something like that, something where I don't know. That time is actually moving faster for one person than the other, that kind of thing. You know, it doesn't just seem like it is, it actually is. Um, something like that.

That would be, because that's like a scary thought, right? So I was thinking about that we were doing a book reading and for no reason I started thinking about that, I don't even. But then, yeah, I was like what if? What if this event is moving faster for me than it is for the audience? that's like oh, man that sucks, you know

0:01:39 - Michael David Wilson
well, I think one universal fear is the idea of running out of time and, of course, of death. So I I think something along those lines would be apt for a horror story yeah, yeah, same here we.

0:02:03 - Josh Malerman
I mean, yeah, we just gotta come up with a some sort of name or something for time, but we'll figure it out who knows? maybe, yeah, maybe that'll be the next one yeah like jason or freddie tommy time

0:02:10 - Dan Howarth
he sounds like a second grade 80s wrestler, the Intercontinental Champion, tommy Time.

- Michael David Wilson
Yeah, used to tag team with Koko B Ware for WWF fans. So we recorded an introduction and we've read the synopsis of bird box. But just to kick off, if, in your own words, you could bring people up to date with your career thus far.

0:03:00 - Josh Malerman
Bird Box is the first book I've had published, but I had a very sort of strange route to get there which included, over the last 10 years, writing about 20 novels and like 12 novellas other stuff. You know how it goes. And then I never really I never consciously sort of sought out an agent or a publishing house, not because writing was a hobby, not that at all, but because I don't know what it was, Maybe because I'm in a band as well and the band was touring and we were having a great time and we were just living enough off the band that I just never looked at the stack of rough drafts with desperation. I never looked at them with dollar signs or well, I gotta make this work or I'm in trouble. You know nothing like that.

And through an unbelievable series of events, a friend of mine heard that I had written all these books and he called me up and he was like hey, you know, I know a lawyer who represents authors. You mind if I send him one of your books? I was like oh, yeah, I don't. Yeah, of course. And so I gave him one called Goblin, and he sent Goblin to this lawyer. The lawyer called me and was like hey, Josh, I read this book, I'd love to represent you, and I think I know a manager that would be perfect for you. And then the rest of the thing sort of fell like dominoes from there and that resulted in an agent who shopped Bird Box to Harper Collins and was picked up Multi-book deal that came out in, I think, May, last May, and, as you know, I also released a novella, Ghastle and Yule and in terms of a public career, those are the two works that are out there, oh, plus a short story in a compilation called Shadows Over Main Street that are out there, oh, plus a short story in a compilation called Shadows Over Main Street. And so those three embody the career so far in a public way, but in a private way the career is much more varied and more expansive than that. But my fantasy is to release 19 novels tomorrow. You know, let's get them all out there. But I don't want this to turn into like hey, man, I haven't written a new thing in 10 years and I've released a new book every year. You know I don't want to turn into something like that. So somehow I got to figure out how to get those out while writing new ones and putting them out as well. We'll have to figure out some weird piggyback way of doing that or something I don't know yet, and that's it. I mean, that is the nuttiest of nutshells, but that's the career so far.

0:05:54 - Michael David Wilson
I mean, I think it's quite remarkable that this is your first novel that you've had published, but you've written about 20 novels beforehand and I think as well, this is how the misconception of labelling someone an overnight success comes about, because people see something like okay, this is your first novel. It's got a lot of critical acclaim, it's been nominated for various awards. Of course it picked up the this is Horror Novel of the Year award. It's been nominated for a Stoker, but you know almost to call it your first novel isn't painting the true picture of all the kind of labor and the heartache, the blood, sweat and tears that must have gone beforehand.

0:06:51 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, well, sometimes I almost fear that there's going to be like... I've been in a rock band with my best friends for years and sometimes I worry that people who maybe read a bio on me or whatever may think, you know, oh, here's a rocker who was like, oh, one day I'm going to put out a horror novel, let's see how it goes. You know, and it's never been like that, I've been writing since, you know, I was a kid, writing before the band, during the band, on the road. Literally on the road between cities, you know. And so, yeah, there is almost a misrepresentation about it by calling it a first novel, but at the same time, that's what it is. And other other authors wrote. You know, many authors have like four or five books and then they have one. That's their breakthrough.

But I do think that the route was different, because I think, you know, had I been shopping for novels or so and they were all rejected or whatever it was, and then Bird Box was picked up. Well, that would fit into that sort of mold or whatever, but it just wasn't like that, it was like a stack of books. I, you know, I have a team, suddenly, and I kind of, you know, talk to them about each book, and we the manager and I, even well, with his notes and my notes, I rewrote a book for about a year and a half and then we were prepared to shop that to agents and at the very buzzer there about a week before he he went ahead and did that, I said, hey, you know what I think Bird Box is better for this. And he was like, oh man, wait what?

We just went a year and a half, you know, rewriting unburied carol, what's bird box, you know? And I was like, well, I just, I just think it's a better, like intro, a better. Hey, this is a first horror novel from someone. And he's like all, and then we spent a year and a half working on that one. So, like you just said, yeah, there was like an iceberg of blood, sweat and tears, I guess. But at the same time, you guys ever see that movie Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld?

0:09:02 - Michael David Wilson
I'm afraid not.

0:09:04 - Josh Malerman
There's a great moment in it where a young comedian is like struggling to get notice and he says to Seinfeld like because he meets him, he says you know, I sacrifice so much for this, you know. And then Seinfeld's like what did you sacrifice, a day job? That's like how I feel too. It's like this is yeah, this was an unbelievable amount of work and toil and madness and insecurity and you're alone and excitement you finish a novel and delusion, like you imagine all your books on the shelf and all this. But the truth is, what sacrifice was there? A day job, I mean. I was doing, like you know, the most exciting thing I was living like, and am living, a writer's life, whether or not there was a book deal involved. So to say, blood, sweat and Tears almost also seems like a misrepresentation. It was, you know, it was a magnificent run.

0:09:52 - Michael David Wilson
so the initial book that you showed the lawyer was Goblin, yep, and now you've mentioned Unburied Carol, which is a brilliant title. So what were the specifics that led you from initially showing Goblin, then Unburied Carol and ultimately settling on Bird Box.

0:10:22 - Josh Malerman
Well, Goblin is a collection of novellas and it all takes place in the fictional Michigan city of Goblin and the lawyer, like I said, loved it. The manager liked it and we went through it and very quickly it became okay, wow, we love this book, Goblin. But so you've written you know, at the time it was like you know nine or ten novels, whatever it was at the time. Oh, you've written all these novels too. Look, can we, you know, tell me about those? I told him, and the most recent one I had written at the time was Unburied Carol.

But while, you know, through rewriting it, writing new stuff, blah, blah, blah, you know it just started to feel like after a while it felt like, you know, I love this book, you know what it is about.

Unburied Carol is that there's like a Western sort of slant to it and maybe that felt like that. If that was your intro or your first book, that may place you in the wrong field, where, like, if that was your intro or your first book, that may place you in the wrong field, like, if The Twilight Zone, if its first episode was a western, you may think you're watching a western, but by episode 11, a western. Oh, this is just the new setting for the Twilight Zone and I kind of have always looked for that episode. I've always kind of looked at the books as being some sort of episodes of one of one. You know giant program. Maybe that comes from making albums where each song was its own world but made up an album. I don't know. But I have looked at these 20 novels as if they're they're just episodes of the same same, like television show. And Bird Box felt like the right, like premiere episode.

0:12:10 - Dan Howarth
You know they're episodes of chapters of your career. Ultimately, josh, aren't they? Yeah, when you, when you kind of look back on it, when you've had multiple novels published, they're, you know, they're a product of their time. You know they, they speak in their own, their own way about the period of, you know, period of your life, that period of your career. And one thing that you raise there that I think is interesting is you know you say that you didn't want to kind of release something with a western slant on it because it might give people the wrong impression. Do you have any concern about being labeled as a horror writer? I know some people, some authors do, but I was just wondering what your take on that was.

0:12:48 - Josh Malerman
Oh my gosh, no, absolutely not. In fact, all 20 books are horror. Well, you know, if Bird Box is horror, then all 20 are horror. Um, I do have some friends that are like this isn't horror, this is thriller, you know. But I, I know it's horror, and you guys do too, and and and so, yeah, oh no, I am. You know, I have put my flag in the dirt of horror. You know, I'm here to stay and all 20 books are of that realm.

But there was something about Bird Box that worried me. I hadn't really ever thought of it as—-and this is going to sound silly to you--I hadn't ever thought of it as like an apocalyptic novel. I just never did. I thought of it as more like the Twilight Zone, like a neighborhood street, like a catastrophe on a neighborhood street. You know, because really, you know, when I think of that sort of post-apocalyptic thing, I imagine, you know, like burning landscapes and ash in the skies and people, like you know, looking for food for 90% of the novel, that kind of thing. And Burbach's just didn't strike me to have that same kind of spirit.

It seemed very small, very Rod Serling-esque. He's spoken about it 15 times already in this talk I don't know why, but and I think that, um, yeah, I think that that was something I was a little worried about was like okay, wait, I you know if I'm Barry Carroll has a little Western. Well, hey, bird Box has a little post-apocalyptic. So I mean, no matter what you kind of put out there, man, it's gonna you know, it's going to take book two to to expand what people think of you either way.

0:14:33 - Dan Howarth
I think that's interesting what you say about the, the post-apocalyptic, you know sub-genre, if you want to call it that. I mean that's not something that ever jumped out at me from reading the book. But one thing that I did think was well handled throughout was kind of the descent of the world, was almost you know background noise. There comes a point in post-ap almost you know background noise. There comes a point in post-apocalyptic fiction you know where. If you read a lot of zombie stuff, it's you know you hear the TV reports of the dead rising from their grave. Or you know the satellite re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, carrying with it, you know some virus from Jupiter or you know whatever.

I know there wasn't really that kind of landmark shift, you know whatever. There wasn't really that kind of landmark shift. You know that you get in a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction between the then and the now. You know, in terms of society descending that way, I didn't think that it kind of had that watershed moment really.

It just, you know, if the apocalypse did happen in a box, it happened kind of offstage and very quietly and I thought that was to its benefit really right, uh,

0:15:18 - Josh Malerman
Thanks, yeah, you know, in the, in the rough draft, I made a point of not mentioning once where, uh, I never mentioned food once, or bathroom or anything, and the reason why it was almost silly. It was almost like I was making some sort of silly statement or something where I was like, yes, every End Times book I've read or something, it seems they're so focused on how do they eat. So maybe if I remove that entirely, it'll sort of put a spotlight on like, okay, if I removed it entirely, versus putting a little bit in. Then it seemed like it would be obvious that the author had done that on purpose, right, like there was zero mention of that. Well, he must have meant to do that, but as it went through the agent and then the publishing house, eventually the editor was like you know, you got to mention it, man, you got to mention food.

People are going to be wondering the whole time and it's going to cause a distraction, and I sort of, for a minute, I fought for it. You know I'm like, well, that's okay, let it be a distraction, and then it'll be something to talk about like, oh, what about that book Bird Box that doesn't mention food whatsoever? For, you know, survivors right, and that to me put a spotlight on the philosophy and psychological survival instead. And, like I said, maybe that was a silly stand to make, but I was a little excited by it at the time. And and then when when she sort of, like you know, was saying, hey, you really should put something in here, I was like okay, so I can put in one sentence that says you know, we got canned goods in the basement and we're good, and she's like, yep, that's it. I'm like all right, let's do it.

0:17:08 - Dan Howarth
What a great solution.

0:17:16 - Michael David Wilson
So you mentioned the label as horror author and some of your friends, or certainly some people who have read it, have said that it isn't a horror book.

Now I know that Porter Anderson, who ran an interview with me and of course ran, an interview with you as well, was looking at it as more a literary novel. And I do find that there are people who try and suggest, rather absurdly, that you can you can have a horror novel and you can have a literary novel, as if there was never such a thing as literary horror, which is completely false.

I tend to find that the people who don't want to classify these you know, novels that they enjoy as horror are people who have a misconception as to what horror is. I can only assume that they believe that horror starts and stops at more kind of splatterpunk and zombies and vampires and monsters.

0:18:45 - Josh Malerman
Absolutely could not agree with you more. You know, when I, when I someone at the bar, when I talked to someone all in the minute, you know they're like, oh, you're a novelist, yeah. And then you're like I write horror novels with most people, there's like a dip in interest, like oh, oh so and they're imagining. You know you wrote a story where a wolf man broke through the, the, the wall and ate the family. You know which that sounds. That sounds fun right now I would love to see that right now.

But but, um, that's definitely what they're imagining, zombies, and they're probably even even make matters worse, they're probably imagining, like you know, the twilight movies, you know uh sort of like romanticized like vampire thing versus even a scary one, right?

but, um, you know, it's funny because and maybe you feel the same way I love all that stuff, I'm a horror fan, I love all of it, but I also understand that, hmm, I, I do. I don't think I have anything to add to that world, that zombie, werewolf, vampire world, unless I had just a lightning bolt of an idea, which you know, just because there's so whatever, there's so much of it. And so what happens is, I sit around, at least on my end, and I don't try too hard, but I try to come up with some more abstract monsters, all right. So, okay, I got this one book called Pest, right, where this fella, he's a real sort of enthusiastic guy and one day the people around him start saying, hey, what's wrong? What's wrong with you? Right, you seem down today, and he's like I'm not down. What do you mean? Oh, my God, he's all nervous, right. And he comes to believe that there is an entity in his apartment that is sort of zapping his lust for life, that is like stealing his enthusiasm incrementally, right? So he sets out to trap it.

Well, to me, that is unquestionably a horror story A man in his apartment that believes there's an entity there and he's trying to like prove it or capture it or stop it, right. But to a friend of mine who maybe doesn't have an expanse of a view of horror, he would say oh, this is, you know, this is simply a metaphor for a man with depression. This is a literary story and I think that. So what happens is if you sort of branch out from those traditional, the unholy trinity that we've been talking about. I think that once you branch out from that pretty far, pretty far from you know, that sort of shore, then you yeah, then that's when people start saying this can't possibly be horror, because I don't like horror, but I like this.

0:21:33 - Dan Howarth
Sounds about right.

0:21:34 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah, you, you know something like that right yeah, I guess maybe that happens with music as well. I mean, you might have instances of people saying they don't like heavy metal and then they listen to some kind of prog metal and say, oh no, no, that that's progressive music, that's prog rock.

0:22:01 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, you're right you're totally right. And and there's, yeah, I think right, obviously, one thing we're talking about right now is like, yeah, the danger of these like sort of uh, category, categories or whatever you know. And then I do worry, though, because I, because of what we're talking about we're talking about this because it's very, like, prevalent, so, okay, if I'm hoping that burn box gets out there to as many people as possible, well, is this kind of thing harming it? The word horror, well, I don't care if it is because I love it and the genre, I love it and I, I, you know, want to be a part of it and and have my whole life and blah, blah, blah. But you can't help but wonder, like, is there a fella out there that would have read this and would have loved it, but it just didn't, because he thought he didn't like horror novels, you know. And then that thought can you know, that can kind of keep you up at night

0:22:50 - Michael David Wilson
I mean, I, I would suggest, if you write a story and there's ambiguity in terms of which genre it fits into, that's probably a good thing, because it means that you can't just pinpoint it and put it into a little box and so, rather than ostracizing yourself from some readers because it's perceived as horror, I would suggest that you're actually broadening your readership, because some people want to classify it as horror, some thriller, some literary. Well, great, then you can take readers from each of those camps. Thank you very much.

0:23:45 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, I agree.

0:23:47 - Michael David Wilson
I agree. I think we've got to talk about the writing process only because it appears to be so unique. So firstly, there's the issue of live birds flying around your apartment during the composition, during the composition, and then I believe the initial draft was written in 26 days, uh, with no punctuation, uh, possibly no dialogue, just almost like a frenetic nightmare scrolled onto the page.

0:24:29 - Josh Malerman
Oh man, it was so glorious, the, yeah, the rough draft, no chapter breaks, no indentation, there were no quotation marks, so so there was a sense you didn't know if a person was talking or, or, or thinking um, or, you know, and also sometimes you didn't know who was talking, and the entire draft was this is going to sound insane was done in italics, which was something I did in Goblin, where I wrote something like a 20,000 word novella, something like that. That was all in italics almost, where it was a dream-ish thing, sort of whatever, a nightmare. But the point was I realized like, oh man, to write in present tense and italics sort of really gave the writing process this like, yeah, nightmarish, foggy effect. So I was like I'm gonna try a whole book that way. All right, that was, that was the rough draft of bird box, and so it was. It was just a brick of a nightmare. It was also three times, almost three times, the length of what it is now. No, twice, twice the length of what it is now.

And every night that I went to bed right before I fell asleep. I would kind of like think like, oh, oh, maybe tomorrow this happens in the story, and then I go to bed asleep. I would kind of like think like, oh, oh, maybe tomorrow this happens in the story. And then I go to bed, wake up, work on it for like four hours, right, like honestly, like 4,300 words, you know, a day, 26 days, just like bulleted through. This thing Never hit a roadblock, never got snagged, never really got too insecure. It was really the kind of artistic experience that I think I know I'm gunning for and I believe that most of us are gunning for, which is just a fluid. It was almost like I was telling someone the story while I was writing it, you know, and doing a reasonable job of it, you know, meaning like I was like oh, yeah, yeah, that's good, okay. And then this okay, oh, there's a knock on the door and, uh, there's a guy here named Gary. Who's Gary? And it was steady. So I don't remember the experience as being manic but in hindsight, 26 straight days, over 4 000 words a day. Yes, birds, five finches flying around the apartment, because I don't have the heart to lock a cage on five birds, that just seemed insane. So they're flying freely around the place, and it was an absolutely gorgeous experience.

The rough draft now you know what we have now the finished book is much better and doesn't what's the word? Uh, oh, doesn't have like all the things I just listed. That's all you know. It's not an italics, there is indentation, but part of part of the appeal of that original way of writing it was that to me it was okay that Malorie didn't know her housemates like that well. So it was okay if the reader wasn't sure who was talking or whether or not it was an internal thought, these kind of things, because she didn't really know them that well.

And sometimes I'll read a review on amazon or whatever which I should probably stop doing that and and it'll be like, oh, there's poor character development and I'm like, oh, man, you should have seen the rough draft. There was like zero character development and I liked that. I like that Malorie sort of enters this house and, man, she's only there for like six months or something like how well is she gonna get to know this group of people? And so what's the difference if Don is saying this or Felix is to her? It's like the world is going crazy outside the door. Does it really matter? Does it really have to say Felix said or Felix mentioned or Don responded? No, somebody in the house said this, somebody said that and it's all just like a twisted foggy nightmare. I loved that approach to it and and sort of in a similar thing with the with the canned goods um, yeah, I think you know, and my editor was worried, and I think rightfully so. It was almost like just too distracting or too confusing, where the whole time you're sitting there thinking who the hell is talking instead of you know whatever, enjoying the story

0:28:36 - Michael David Wilson
it was really interesting to hear you talk about the process, because it sounds very experimental, but in describing what you had produced, it almost sounds like you had produced a piece of work that was, whilst perhaps not as recognizable as a conventional story, it will be providing readers with a more authentic experience. Now I don't know, you know what kind of audience that would have, but of course, in the real world there are people talking. We don't always know who it is right that's talking, if right, or you don't always know who it is that's talking.

0:29:34 - Josh Malerman
Right, or you don't always remember exactly who said it right and these sort of things, or where this thought came from, that kind of thing. I'll tell you what I do have the desire to release the rough draft one day. You know. Not because I think like, oh, it burned, you know, hello, oh. Not because I think you know. Not because I think like, oh, it burned, you know, hello, oh, not because I think you know.

You know, Bird Box is so meaningful, it needs its rough draft published. But just because the rough draft is so different than the one that came, no, it's weird though it's so different, but at the same time, by the end of it, it's the same mood and you walk away with the same feelings. That's one of the. I think that's a sign of how great the editor was, you know, I really do Is that she recognized everything, that, all the parts that were right about it. You know that kind of thing. But I will say that you know, I gave it to my lawyer and manager as that experimental italicized brick and you know, and they loved it. So one day I think that it would be fun to release the rough draft, almost just for writers to to you know that that cared, or or horror writers that may be interested, like I would be interested to read like the rough draft of pretty much any horror novel I ever read, you know. Just to experience like the rough draft of pretty much any horror novel I ever read, you know, Just to experience like the difference. That's a fun. That's a fun thing like hearing a. You know a demo of a band, you know an album or something. But I don't, I definitely think that the one you've read is quote-unquote better. But there is something, like you know, fascinating about that other draft.

0:31:14 - Dan Howarth
Yeah, definitely Send it to us, Josh.

0:31:19 - Josh Malerman
Oh, man, Okay, I won't think about that. You know I used to man. I used to hand this out so freely. When my band was on the road, people would be like you wrote a book. I'm like, oh, yeah, and I would like go to Kinko's and print it out for them and hand it to them. You know, not bird box, but like any book, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's interesting. It was very, very loose with all that there are. There are probably a hundred of my rough drafts of these books out there somewhere right now all over America.

0:31:39 - Michael David Wilson
it's the kind of thing where, uh, when you get the kind of blu-ray anniversary edition of a, of like a kind of iconic film, you'll often see like, oh okay, this is the initial idea, or um, I'm trying to remember what it was. It may have been Sinister or possibly Oculus. It was quite a recent horror film that initially was a short film and so they released I think it was oculus man yeah, so they released a version of that with the dvd.

And of course there's a, a christmas horror film. See, I'm totally bailing on all of the names today.

0:32:37 - Michael David Wilson
Rare exports.

That's exactly what I'm oh, I love that movie but I I think that the short version is way better, because for me the full length seemed a little bit too bloated but the short was so pared down and it just had more of a feel of dread to it. And I know that me and Dan have kind of off-podcast debated Rare Exports before, but my main criticism with it is but my main criticism with it is I felt that it didn't quite know if it wanted to be a horror film or if it wanted to be a comedy. I think the horror and the humor, unfortunately in that instance worked to the detriment rather than complementing the other.

0:33:36 - Josh Malerman
Yeah sure, I, I, you know what that is. Uh, first of all, I did not know that rare exports was a short and I'm gonna watch that. I, I loved that movie without knowing there was a short. Um, does the short have them like sort of unearthing, the krampus santa thing?

0:33:52 - Michael David Wilson
The short is actually a series of shorts, so they're not very long. I think the best thing to do is to just track those down.

0:34:05 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, okay, I'll do that.

0:34:06 - Michael David Wilson
I mean, like you mentioned mama, and they're that kind of length, okay, so to say anything is almost to say everything.

0:34:22 - Josh Malerman
you know what you just mentioned about the comedy horror thing. It's weird. I struggle with that, like I love you know comedy and I love I love, uh, you know man, comedy and I love I love you know man. Sometimes I think that sometimes, okay, I think we all sort of can agree or understand the concept that horror is one side of the coin and comedy is the other, that kind of thing or how they could go hand in hand. But sometimes, like a comedy can sort of, or the comedic element can sort of like remove like any possibility of a scare from for me and I want you know to be scared. I mean that that's like the thrill of it for me. So okay. But then I saw a movie recently called Housebound.

You guys see that one? I loved it and that that was like, uh, that one seemed like it juggled it like exactly right. But it does seem like there are a lot of novels where I don't know where suddenly the author seems like he's trying to be light, maybe, or lighten the mood or just be funny, or maybe he's just a funny guy in real life or whatever, and then it will take me like 40 pages to get back sort of into like the, the like, into the, the zone. You know what I mean and I, I kind of. I guess what I'm trying to say is I kind of struggle with the horror comedy.

0:35:38 - Michael David Wilson
I think with fiction as well, sometimes people will almost dilute it with a comedic, dilute it with a comedic moment, and I don't know if it's a consciously editing their own work to make it less extreme and more palatable for a mainstream audience, but, like you say, it can quite often be a misstep to the point where then you have to get back into that.

Yeah, and, and, to be honest, to create fear within a book can be pretty difficult to start with yeah, yeah so it's a pretty big risk, isn't it, to then do something that takes someone out of that zone.

0:36:34 - Dan Howarth
you straddle the line though, don't you? I mean, how many times is there kind of a reveal in a horror film of you know you finally see this monster and it looks shit. Let's be honest, like you know you, you're constantly kind of straddling that line between what's scary and what is just ridiculous. Do you see what I mean? Like? Say, for example, you know, like the transformation scene in American Werewolf in London, for example, is held up as an iconic moment because of the way it's done. But you know you look at that scene and you think it was so close to, you know, to ridiculousness. You know you've got this guy whose face is elongating and his you know his fingers are stretching. You know, in another context or done slightly differently or not as professionally, you know you've got a joke scene that ruins the whole film rather than creates this kind of legendary, legendary, iconic scene.

0:37:27 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, or even just different music might do that to it. You know, like, if it was like, you know, like carnival music or something that might the whole, that whole moment changes. Yeah, I know, um, that movie actually, man, that movie actually is kind of one of the first horror comedies, isn't it?

0:37:45 - Dan Howarth
Well, yeah, it's probably a bad example to pick.

0:37:53 - Josh Malerman
Well, no, no, but yeah, I know what you mean.
I got another. I feel like I'm telling you guys every book I ever wrote. I got another book about a fellow who's really really, really serious about the horror genre and he's in a scary movie alone and these teenagers are laughing up front during all the scary parts and it's just driving him absolutely insane. And so afterwards he's sort of a loose cannon and afterwards he follows the teenagers as they sneak into another movie and the teenagers snuck into a comedy and at the first joke our main character just lets out like a blood-curdling scream and the teenager's like whoa, dude, what's going on? And at the next joke the guy who loves horror screams like he's being mutilated. Eventually the ushers escort him out while he's screaming bloody horror during this comedy.

And sometimes I think about that. I've got friends who there are people that just don't get scared from movies and whatever, and they're just not the horror audience. But there seems to be a sort of you know, oh, I love, you know, sort of almost tough guy thing where, like I love the horror genre, I love, I always laugh at all the scary parts. Oh well, well then they're not scary parts to you, dick, you know, and so I feel like sometimes when Friends are laughing through the Exorcist or something. Yeah, it makes me want to just scream in pain during Caddyshack.

0:39:20 - Michael David Wilson
Well, I think there'll always be comparisons between the horror and the comedy genre. Yes, I mean on the basis that they're the only two genres that are really going for a physical reaction. I mean, they're either trying to to scare you or to make you laugh. Yep, well, I guess, apart from erotica, which is also going for a physical reaction.

0:39:54 - Josh Malerman
My favorite genre. Horror erotica. Those are good.

- Michael David Wilson
well, you, you hear of a lot of horror authors that well, a lot of authors in general that start off writing erotica just because it's pretty easy money and there's a hell of an audience.

- Josh Malerman
That's funny that you're bringing that up actually, or that this is coming up because, um, I actually sort of started in that way myself where there was a sense of like, oh I want to write the sexiest, not not sexiest, like the dirtiest, like a horror novel, and I want to. You know, there is something about writing horror that is compatible with like trying to write like a really steamy sex scene or something. I don't know exactly what that is, but it might be what you just said the physical reaction. But or maybe because they're both sort of like taboo in a way or could happen in an alley. You know, like comedy, comedy is probably not going to happen in an alley, but a horror story or a sex story definitely could.

0:41:01 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah. I guess, if you have like a kind of clown, jump at you out of an alley, then it's probably going to turn into a horror story anyway.

0:41:11 - Dan Howarth
Yeah, yeah.

0:41:12 - Michael David Wilson
Or a very weird erotic or an erotica from dan's personal collection yeah, the horny clown chronicles yeah, keep an eye out for those the horny clown chronicles, josh, just to talk about.

0:41:28 - Josh Malerman
We've been talking about horror and comedy.

0:41:49 - Dan Howarth
Um, just talking about kind of your writing and your music, how do you think those two things have kind of intertwined for you? Do you think your songwriting and musical experience have shaped the way that you write in terms of your prose and you know characters, situations, things like that?

0:42:10 - Josh Malerman
They both started around the same time for me trying to write stories. Well, actually I would say they started at exactly the same time because I was trying to write short stories and poems I guess for lack of a better word right now poems at the same time. They were both really sort of dark or at least horror-esque at the time really sort of dark or at least horror-esque at the time. And then a friend of mine started singing some of those poems over other friends of mine playing instruments and it's sort of like a flash moment for me where I realized, oh man, I guess I could have been writing songs this whole time. These are songs which led to me really really falling in love with that whole thing. You know, writing these songs that my best friends are playing the music for. I mean, it was just what an experience. The songs became less, I guess, like horror-ish and more sort of like quirky shorts or not quirky, like weird short stories, you know, quirky short or not quirky, like weird short stories, you know. And then the one thing that I discovered that is probably not a great thing is that if I had an idea that felt like novel length, I'd write the novel. If I had an idea that was shorter, it would become a song. So what's resulted is, you know, I have, you know, tons of songs and tons of novels, but, like, like, I only have like two short stories written in my life, which is a strange thing for a man who's got like 20 novels and all these novellas, to have only a couple of short stories. Especially since we all know that the short horror story is man, that is, that is like prime real estate. Some of the greatest story horror stories we've ever read are other short ones, you know, and, and, and it's like a point of like, it's like a badge of honor almost, for a horror author to be good at that kind of thing, you know. So to me it seems like a glaring absence is that short stories, are those short stories? But then you know, at the same time, alright, well, me and my friends, we've got, like you know, a dozen like albums too, so, so I feel like, you know, I've I've sort of filled that hole in a way, but at the same time I do miss it, you know.

But to expand on this a hair further, is that there is. I don't know what it is, but with the band and in the confines of a song, it almost seems. It almost feels similar to what we were just talking about in terms of the comedy horror thing. Whenever I've tried to write a sort of scary song, do you know what I mean, it almost feels like goofy or something. And so it results instead you know the songs would be you know what's the right word yeah, like more like weird tales, short, strange quirky things, and you know versus something very scary.

But the thing that sort of troubles me is that now the songs and books almost seem incompatible in a way, because the band is very bright and the books are straight horror. So I'm still trying to, I'm still trying to sort of make sense of all that and I wonder if short stories are the missing sort of like bridge of this whole thing. You know, this whole body of work or something. I don't know if that was like really the answer you were looking for really, or you know what I mean, if they really answered the question. But those are the. Those are the recent thoughts I've been having about the books and songs

0:45:38 - Michael David Wilson
talking about this connection between horror and music, you said, whenever you have written a song in a kind of horror Zombie that have this almost cabaret, this almost carnival horror feel to them, and actually with both of those artists and also with Marilyn Manson and indeed with King Diamond, there's a visual performance that goes alongside it. So that's one side of horror within music. Then the other is to go for something more like Celtic Frost or Triptykon, where it's almost the soundscape and the it's not even the lyrics. So much there it sounds like something that could have been conceived in hell or in the kind of deepest, darkest depths of your nightmares.

And then the only other kind of horror thing is if you think of death metal bands like Cannibal Corpse, and I guess that's the splatterpunk of music, where I guess it's being so kind of in-your-face and obnoxious that in doing that it almost becomes a parody of itself and then renders itself back into the cabaret horror that we were talking about.

0:47:42 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, absolutely, man, I couldn't agree more. I think that one band like I think the doors actually almost accidentally, with some of like the theatrical sort of live stuff they were doing, almost accidentally, we're doing sort of horror, like dark performance art, you know, um, it's like that celebration of the lizard stuff. If you ever really listen to the sort of live versions of that, it's like man, this is like weird. You know, the drums are all akimbo and Jim Morrison's singing just strange, non sequitur dark lyrics and and that almost seems like like one of the closest I've ever heard of actually pulling off writing a song. That would be quote unquote scary without See, but they get goofy too in that way, but without it getting, you know, like parody. I go to the horror, like conventions around here, and every time I walk into like a horror convention, it's like the. It's like, yeah, like death metal music, and I'm wondering myself like what you know where are like the? Okay, for me, I have a really, really great collection of horror movie soundtracks on vinyl. I'm super proud of this collection. I play it all the time while I'm writing. Everything you can imagine, from Chopping Mall to Vertigo, I mean just magnificent, which is essentially dark classical music, right, almost like playful, I always imagine like a child wrote like a, like a, like a mischievous child wrote these like soundtracks or something, and I for me, that music, that's where it's at, that's like the horror music, where that is scary, is thoughtful, takes me places, tells stories, that kind of thing. Whereas and I'm a fan of all of it I like dark metal, I like everything we're talking about, actually. I like Alice Cooper. I like all of this stuff, but the one that seems to transcend or to escape that sort of like parody is, is like the, is like the horror soundtrack you know what I mean.

0:50:02 - Michael David Wilson
Oh yeah, I listen to a lot of horror soundtracks myself. I mean it, it almost sounds wrong to talk about the horror soundtrack as if perhaps that was a genre, because if you put a john carpenter uh soundtrack next to something by goblin and then you put that next to um, something like, uh, the saw soundtrack by charlie clausen, and you've got three completely different yeah, uh, you know scores that only really have the commonality of being kind of put to a horror film and that's yeah, that's where where the similarities start and end

0:50:57 - Dan Howarth
michael wilson is the kind of guy that you see driving around the streets with his window down, blasting the sinister soundtrack as he stops at the lights and and makes eyes at ladies. He's that kind.

0:51:00 - Josh Malerman
Sounds awesome, man. I know what you mean, but I I the one other similarity that I do think that maybe john carpenter and maybe not well, some of goblin, um, and even like bernard herman whatever is that man it it does, they do all get past that parody thing.

I guess some of john carpenter, like Escape From New York is sort of silly right, but but like, yeah, they all seem to get past it. And so, like I don't know if either of you play music, do either of you like write songs or anything I'm afraid no no, it's just fiction for me fiction.

I play guitar, but don't don't write anything it's tough, man, and sit there because you're like, ooh, I would love to write a little song that was like a what do you call it? Even like a scary folk tale, right, it seems like, ooh, that might work, that might work with some minor chords, and somehow just, no matter what I do, it just comes out so cheesy. You know, I've really tried it, I've tried it so many times and it's I really, I really tried it, I've tried it so many times and it's like a fantasy of mine to be able to actually pull off an album that you know had. That, I think some people would argue. The closest thing, one of the closest things to that would be like nick cave or or, uh, tom waits. You know that they have certain songs that are that succeed in that way, but even them, I'm not so sure. Even even that has a sort of like, like put on, feel to it or something. So, yeah, I guess the closest I've come is that vinyl collection of scary soundtracks.

0:52:38 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah, I think what's funny here is we're probably going full circle in that I can imagine some nick cave fans and some fans of the doors saying oh no, you know that there's no kind of horror in this, don't you? Dare put that label on us and getting irate, as, uh, some people would about bird box because they happen to enjoy it. They're like no, no, definitely not horror, because I enjoyed it.

0:53:11 - Dan Howarth
So, josh, you've been doing some book reading, events and stuff. How does kind of touring around doing those. You know, how does that compare to? You know, the life of a gigging musician?

0:53:25 - Josh Malerman
Well, great question. At first it was sort of shocking, because you know, we show up at the bookstore at like 5 and we're on at 7. And when we get there they're like, do you guys want some coffee? And we're on at 7 and we're done by like 8.30.

And it's like now, what do we do? I'm so used to on the road, arriving at like 10 at night. We're there until like 2 am. Nobody can see straight am it's, it's, nobody can see straight, you know.

Um, but one thing that we're doing and I don't know if you guys know this or if I don't know how you would know this, but you know, when the the idea of doing a book tour came up, harvard collins was like you know, you just, you know, go around and and stand up in front of people, read your book, you know. And I was like, oh man, no way. Uh, first of all, I I do not have a sort of like scary voice. You know, like if I had Vincent Price's voice, maybe I would do that or something, but nope, I feel like I'm a little more like Woody Allen than I am Vincent Price, you know so.

So what we've been doing is we have been bringing instruments along to these readings. We blindfold the audience, the whole audience, everyone in the bookstore blindfold them and we play, essentially, a scary soundtrack while we act out the scene from the book. So my girl Allison, she plays Malorie, I am the narrator. Another friend reads the part of Tom, that kind of thing, and essentially because the audience is blindfolded, it turns into like a, like a radio drama, like an old timey radio drama. You got the scary music and the footsteps and doors creaking and Malorie screaming and you know these kind of things. It's like an old horror radio drama and and I so, in a sense it still feels like you know, I'm still like a musician on the road because it's a strange musical performance these readings have become.

0:55:19 - Michael David Wilson
I can kind of imagine if, if you have that experience and you haven't read bird box and then you pick it up, then you've instantly kind of given them something to go back to and this kind of scary place with the weird music and that experience.

0:55:45 - Josh Malerman
So yeah, yeah. And then also it's like man, if I was in a bookstore and I chanced upon upon that reading, I would be like wait a minute, what's what? Who are these guys?

0:55:59 - Michael David Wilson
I think, particularly within the kind of horror and genre community, there is something about making these readings memorable and making them exciting. So I mean, we've referenced it before, but of course we put on an event for Joseph blood fugue, where we had our presenter effectively feign illness from this blood fudge that had been created and, uh, attack Joseph D'Lacey mid reading and then launch into the audience

0:56:47 - Josh Malerman
wait, that sounds amazing. Do you have like video of that?

0:56:48 - Michael David Wilson
Yeah, there's some YouTube footage of us destroying Blackwell's bookstore in London, which, for some reason, we haven't done a reading there again since. But I think, in terms of the amount of times we've got to tell that story and the video footage, it was worth, you know, burning that bridge.

0:57:16 - Josh Malerman
Yeah, absolutely. You know what this conversation reminds me of is like Grand Green Hall, you know. It's like the idea of like the horror play you know hasn't been I don't know if it's, if it's ever been done right since then and who knows if it was done right back then, that we only read stories about it. But like that idea of going to a theater and seeing, like obviously there's no cg, right, it's all like it got to be as man-made effects as possible. Like to see someone beheaded on a stage that you're like two feet away from and blood like splatter across the stage. Or a mad scientist like stabbing, like you know, a needle into a patient on a table. You know, and these sort of those sort of things are, I guess, maybe probably the roots of why a horror author would be like man. I'm not just gonna stand up there and read, you know, I mean the whole point.

One of the joys of being into horror and being a horror author is that this I don't want to say the spectacle of it, but it's like a sensational thing to be a part of. You know, and you want to like get you scare someone and you want to. You want like this like memorable, like sort memorable image to come across, or whatever. It is imagery to come across, not your image. Well, maybe that too, and I think that, yeah, grand Queen, all starts that. And then now, I think most of us are looking for ways of, as you said, making these readings more memorable.

0:58:49 - Michael David Wilson
Most of us are looking for ways of, yeah, making these as you said making these readings more memorable.

Well, I think as well, if we're going for that scare reaction, is it really possible to suspend disbelief and to fully immerse yourself in a reading in kind of regular lighting in crowd in a bookshop? I would say that's making the conditions pretty difficult. So then suddenly you have to think well, how can I, how can I play with the conventions, how can I play with the expectations and create something a little different, a little memorable because yeah, that's like putting a comedian in a hospital it's okay, go be funny go, make, go, make us all laugh and it's like, yeah, man, whenever we go around to the bookstores I'm always like, hey, can you, can you dim the lights?

0:59:42 - Josh Malerman
and usually they're like, no, no, we dim the lights in our bookstore.

0:59:45 - Michael David Wilson
You know we have people looking at books over there well, I mean that, that's kind of giving me a, an idea. I don't know, maybe the next uh book reading we do, we should actually do it in one of these areas that's kind of cordoned off, where the public aren't meant to be there, so kind of behind the scenes, and then you can kind of turn the lights off, just have a few flashlights.

It's gonna be colder in there too, which is going to add to the the awkward atmosphere of it yeah, yeah,

1:00:26 - Josh Malerman
I was thinking the first one we did here, the first reading when Bird Box came out, we did um at a bar and it was a. It was a kind of like a. It's a dive and you know, fits like 150, it was dark, you know, smelled weird. I mean it was absolutely perfect. I mean what you're describing right now sounds perfect actually, but this was really good versus, you know, the bookstore. But that is one thing about blindfolding the audience. That obviously also helps is not only does it add to the sort of radio drama, but you're also now now they're essentially in a, in a dark room.

1:00:52 - Michael David Wilson
I think if you go to a bar or you go somewhere where there wouldn't necessarily be regular author readings, you can sometimes get the best reaction or the best crowd there, particularly because there can be people who just stumble upon that event and so it's a more exciting spectacle for them because they're not used to these events, whereas if you go into a bookstore and you've been to a few I'm sure you kind of have an idea what to expect from a live reading.

But one of my favorite events that I participated in this was, I I guess, going back about five years now. It was the launch of this arts anthology called polarity, and the event was in London in a pub called the slaughtered lamb. How amazing is that, with like the pentagram and everything, and it was just in this dimly lit room. It this wasn't even meant to be a horror event. This was for an arts magazine, like I say, and it was edited by one of my professors at Warwick University.

But it had a kind of creepier more sinister atmosphere than most of the horror events that I've been to.

1:02:45 - Dan Howarth
You want to know something sinister, Michael.
I'm literally wearing a Slaughtered Lamb t-shirt. It's from Last Exit to Nowhere, because that's the name of the pub, isn't it?