Music for the Masses...

By Tony Lee

Well good morning kiddiewinkies and welcome to the brisk and chilly month of December, or as some of us call it – Cashfest. Many of you will only just be emerging from your post-Thanksgiving cocoons, already looking at Christmas but three or so weeks away with a sense of impending doom.

Christmas. I like Christmas. I know it was stolen from Saturnalia and the winter solstice and all that, but I think it's been around long enough to be allowed to keep the name, so let's ignore all of this ‘Winterval' bollocks, yeah?

Anyway. Last week I spoke to you and I asked for suggestions on things I could write about, and over the next couple of weeks I'll write my answers. Why the next couple of weeks? Because only two of you bothered to reply. I mean, come on – I get thousands of readers a week, and I can't really rule the world with my army of willing minions when you can't even send an email. Oh well, maybe I'll get a couple more this week.

Still, of the two I got, the first to arrive was this one.

"Tony – you've spoken before about music in the background, and many other creators speak at length about the music they listen to as they create. How do you work? Do you listen to music? What types of music do you like? Are you a ‘Musical Theatre' kinda guy? And are you a headphones or h-ifi chap? "

Music. It's true, music and comics do seem to go together quite well, and Warren Ellis, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie and B. Clay Moore are among the plethora of creators out there who talk long and hard about their musical tastes. But as for writing to music? It's a little different.

I can only speak for myself here, but I can work with or without music. Currently for example I'm writing this with only the sound of a ticking clock for company. But then there are other times when I need music in the background and I mean that I literally need it – I can't even start to write until something's playing, it's almost like an addict taking his first hit of the day. But again, it has to be specific types of music.

I pride myself on having a rather eclectic musical range, taste wise – from Bach to The Beatles, Rolling Stones to Rammstein, Aerosmith to Army Of Lovers, you get the gist. But a lot of this is totally unusable as background music while I work, because I start to listen to it.

Hey, dickhead, I hear you say, that's the whole point of music.

I agree, but here I must explain. I'm not one of those people who can listen to a song a couple of times and then sing the words. In fact for the first twenty years of my life, I barely heard them. I had some kind of lyric-deafness that meant that I could love a song and know perhaps one, maybe two lines of the chorus – but I could play you the chord structure and melodic riffs off by heart after a couple of listens. I was always the guitar solo more than the singer. I don't know why – it still amuses friends that for most of my life I thought that Alice Cooper believed that his lovers ‘lips are peppermint poison' or that Macy Gray ‘blows bubbles when you are not near. '

And so when I now listen to music, I've had to force myself, to train myself to listen to the lyrics as much as the tune. And because it's now become a part of my listening, I find that when I'm concentrating on something else, I start to focus more on the songs than the scripting I'm currently doing. But not all the time, that is.

So what do I listen to? Well usually I'll put a film soundtrack on in the background, something that puts me in the mood and more importantly the mindset for the script that I'm writing. There's no point listening to the theme tune to Enchanted when you're scripting a gothic horror, for example. I find that there are certain composers that I'll go back to, Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman are my two favourites – I've followed Elfman since Scrooged and often his music is just right to kick me off on my journey. I've been writing a lot to his Hellboy II soundtrack, and Pendragon: The Legend of King Arthur is often written to – well, Zimmer's King Arthur soundtrack.

While I wrote The Forgotten, I listened to Murray Gold's soundtracks for seasons one, two and three of Doctor Who. I found they got me right into the mood. And when I wrote the flashbacks, especially the fifth Doctor, I went back to a lot of the older, Peter Howell stuff to create the right ambience for the mood.

But yes, I do listen to classical music, but again I grew up on classical, and hearing a song in the background that I've known since I was seven will once more knock me out of the mindset, so I don't often have it as backing music.

Occasionally though, I do need something a little more rockier, a little more on edge, and these times I do listen to songs that have words. But once more, it depends on the story that I'm writing. Case in point. I'm writing two Victorian-based stories at the moment, a Doctor Who one shot that I'll go into at one point down the line, and of course the often mentioned Harker. As both of these are mildly steampunk in style (not something I've gotten into because of the craze, I hasten to add, apparently I've been rocking the 'neo-victorian look' for years, according to some mad steampunker at SDCC last year) I've been listening to a lot of Abney Park. This is a band that Warren Ellis got me into a few years back; possibly even in the WEF days and they literally live the part of an airship crew. And Robert's a nice bloke too. And their music has just that right hint of darkness to add to the style that fits what I need in my writing. And so I've had Airship Pirates on loop quite a lot recently.

(It also doesn't hurt that my favourite ever carol ever, "Carol Of The Bells" was covered by them.)

Oh there is one classical piece that breaks the rule – I often write Necrophim to Mozart's Requiem.

Now, as to whether I'm a Musical Theatre kind of guy? This annoys the hell out of me when people go 'You must love Musical Theatre' as if it's a ‘gay' indicator – as if 'Musical Theatre' is simply Oklahoma and State Fair and Rodgers and Hammerstein and "Surrey With A Fringe On Top". Bollocks. Yes, I do love going to the musicals. Not all of them, but I have a massive love for Les Miserables.

As for how I listen to my music? Well, all my music is either CD's that have been ripped onto my HD as mp3s or mp3's that I've bought online. I have an ipod and an iphone with music on, and a 45gb external drive that I carry with me everywhere that also has music on. I have a hifi that's connected into my flat screen TV, and my Xbox 360 links into that while attached to my network. And so I stream my music through the network from my laptop into my Xbox 360, which plays it into my TV, which then shunts it into my hifi.

There, totally simple.

So yes, I do listen to music when I write. But no, I don't really listen to music when I write. One thing I do know is that unlike a lot of artists I know, I can't have a DVD playing in the background while I write as I start to drift, start to watch it. The only exception to that rule is when I'm lettering, as I can stop, watch, continue.

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Well, it looks like Doctor Who: The Forgotten #4 might not be out this week as I'm not seeing it on any of the shipping lists – this is mostly due to Thanksgiving delays I would believe as I know for a fact that it's done and dusted, and Denton my editor was sure it would be this week. So check the comic stores, but expect it to possibly be the 10^th of December instead. Sorry for that. If it helps, I've seen the whole thing now, all six issues, and it rocks. I might even see if I can get a sneak preview out for you next week as a Christmas treat. And remember that possibly the same week you'll be able to buy both Judge Dredd: The Megazine #279 that has my "Citi-Def" story begin inside it, and MILF Magnet from Moonstone Publishing. I'll talk more about that one next week, I think.

I'll admit, I'm a little worried about "Citi-Def" – I liked it, everyone who read the script liked it, but following the "Stalag #666" backlash, I'm worried what the 2000 A.D. forum and 2000 A.D. Review fans will think about it. The post mortem for "Stalag #666" is quite damning on those boards, and sometimes deservedly so - but what really pisses me off? Is that there are people on there, and yes, you know damn well who you are, who have ripped it and my writing apart in posts on the forums in the last week while separately emailing me telling me that actually they kinda liked it, but it's easier to go with the flow.

That is just pathetic. The 2000ad forums are not Lord Of The Flies, guys. Enough people have told me they like it on there – you could do so too. It's like punching me in the face and leaning closer and going ‘hey, wanna go for a drink later? ' – it's bollocks. Tell me you hate it or tell me you love it. I've had both. But don't do one and then do the other. That's just stupid.

And incredibly insulting.

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Someone else asked me what my end of year workload was at the moment and how many pages I think I've written this year. The latter is probably easier – this year I've written six Doctor Whos, fifteen weeks of "Stalag" (one week a ten pager), sixteen weeks of "Prince Of Baghdad", eight weeks of "St. Spookys", sixty pages of Doppleganger, twenty pages of Marvel stuff, a hundred and fifty pages of Nightrise adaptation, a hundred pages of King Arthur, ten issues of Necrophim, and that's not counting things like Journal and suchlike – probably an easy eight hundred pages this year. And I haven't finished yet.

Currently I'm writing Journal with Bevis Musson, Harker, Necrophim, Doctor Who, King Arthur, FaerieTale, Bad Debt, I'm plotting out books two and three of The Prince of Baghdad, I'm waiting on a greenlight for a couple of U.S. things, and I'm writing a novel. So it's all fun.

And on that note, it's time for me to head off again. So have a good week, remember to send me some questions, and I'll see you closer to Christmas.

Not Winterval...

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© 2008, Tony Lee

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