Jamie Scallion's Blog, page 2

Lead singer syndrome (Inspiration for Burt)

Now people have read the first book in The Rock ‘n’ Roll Diaries series (some of you multiple times) I thought I would take a look at the reasons I wanted to write a story like this and share them. I was in a band with three proper great lads for over a decade. We had some amazing times and of course some tough times. A lot of what I must do as a writer is draw on my own experiences and as a lead singer I had a lot of gold to mine. Lead singers are a fascinating breed and come in all shapes and sizes. One thing they all have in common is a massive ego and this makes it such fun to bring them to life. I was no egg-ception.

I really love writing Burt because he can be spontaneous, idiotic, autocratic and cool all in one moment. Check out these videos we did. I’m loving being the centre of attention as you can see. Does it show? When we did these, we were at our happiest.

There is of course something unique and special between four people who spend all their time touring, writing and hanging out. It forms a bond that is at times unbreakable, like I say in the books, a four way marriage without the sex. Take a look at us here, having fun. We had just finished our second record and we’re as close as anything.

The wheels started to come off when I began to let the influence I had within the band impact on my decision making, and much of that was down to my own ego. Take a look at this video. Why was I flying up to Scotland and letting the other boys get the tour bus?!

I did a few silly things like this as the band was imploding and of course the other guys were hurt and frustrated by my actions. By mining some of those emotions and being really honest about my own character flaws, I hope I put flesh and bones on the lead singer in the book. Burt has some extreme character traits that don’t exist in my personality and I hope I’ve done a good job hinting at why he’s like this. I’ve known a great deal of singers over the years, some famous, some wannabes and I have used a cocktail of those egos to pepper Burt’s personality. I kind of hope everyone secretly loves him.

To swear or not to swear (a short blog)

I recently asked my twitter pals to guess how many F-bombs were in the second Rock ‘n’ Roll diaries book. It got a huge response. The guesses were pretty high and I was once again thrown into a discussion with myself about whether or not gratuitous swearing in novels is necessary.

I decided yes, all one hundred and ten uses of the F-bomb were required. It all comes down to authenticity and reality. Teenagers f-ing swear and so do I.

What do you reckon?

Lead singer syndrome (Inspiration for Burt)

Now people have read the first book in The Rock ‘n’ Roll Diaries series (some of you multiple times) I thought I would take a look at the reasons I wanted to write a story like this and share them. I was in a band with three great lads for over a decade. We had some amazing times and of course some tough times. A lot of what I must do as a writer is draw on my own experiences and as a lead singer I had a lot of gold to mine. Lead singers are a fascinating breed and come in all shapes and sizes. One thing they all have in common is a massive ego and this makes it such fun to bring them to life. I was no egg-ception.

I really love writing Burt because he can be spontaneous, idiotic, autocratic and cool all in one moment. Check out these videos we did. I’m loving being the center of attention as you can see. Does it show? When we did these, we were at our happiest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmY5F1...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZDB-2...

There is of course something unique and special between four people who spend all their time touring, writing and hanging out. It forms a bond that is at times unbreakable, like I say in the books, a four way marriage without the sex. Take a look at us here, having fun. We had just finished our second record and we’re as close as anything.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=...

The wheels started to come off when I began to let the influence I had within the band impact on my decision making, and much of that was down to my own ego. Take a look at this video. Why was I flying up to Scotland and letting the other boys get the tour bus?!

http://vimeo.com/9641435

I did a few silly things like this as the band was imploding and of course the other guys were hurt and frustrated by my actions. By mining some of those emotions and being really honest about my own character flaws, I hope I put flesh and bones on the lead singer in the book. Burt has some extreme character traits that don’t exist in my personality and I hope I’ve done a good job hinting at why he’s like this. I’ve known a great deal of singers over the years, some famous, some wannabes and I have used a cocktail of those egos to pepper Burt’s personality. I kind of hope everyone secretly loves him.

Why Spotify?

When it came to releasing the music from The RockAteers my partners (The Script) and I had extended discussions. Should we sell it? Should we release an LP or an EP? Would we tell people it was a real band or from the pages of a book (The Rock ‘n’ Roll Diaries)?

Our decisions were made far simpler when we started a dialogue with Spotify. They were immediately drawn to the idea and their eagerness to support an entirely new project in its infancy and their instinct to partner up with something that broke new ground was refreshing to say the least. We went for it and the enthusiasm was instant. They helped inform our project immediately, by making considered and adept suggestions. They advised we seed various playlists with one song and let people discover the music in a very organic way. They also suggested we link our book through their new merchandise partner (Topspin). It was perfect. They advanced our aims and were instrumental in making our dream a reality by giving our fan base exactly what it wanted, and had wanted since the book had been released some months prior; to hear the music.

The most satisfying thing for us was seeing the play count shoot up and our social networks lighting up with positive feedback. Along with Rovi Corps, who wrote the band an amazing bio, Spotify helped to set up a great looking landing page on the platform. We decided to leave the question of whether this was a real band or not ambiguous, so the page looking like any other bands was vital. We found ourselves answering people on The RockAteers’ social pages as the characters in the book, which was a great deal of fun. Of course, scratch the surface and you found out the band were fictitious. But no one cared if anything it just made the more eager to investigate the book and project over all.

When we mentioned in a meeting that we are passionate about teenage literacy and asked where our future lyricists are going to come from if our teenagers aren’t picking up books, again they were engaged, thoughtful and eager to help bring the issue to the fore.

It is just the start but already we have over 40 thousand unique plays and hundreds of new followers.

Why we chose Spotify

When it came to releasing the music from The RockAteers my partners (The Script) and I had extended discussions. Should we sell it? Should we release an LP or an EP? Would we tell people it was a real band or from the pages of a book (The Rock ‘n’ Roll Diaries)?

Our decisions were made far simpler when we started a dialogue with Spotify. They were immediately drawn to the idea and their eagerness to support an entirely new project in its infancy and their instinct to partner up with something that broke new ground was refreshing to say the least. We went for it and the enthusiasm was instant. They helped inform our project immediately, by making considered and adept suggestions. They advised we seed various playlists with one song and let people discover the music in a very organic way. They also suggested we link our book through their new merchandise partner (Topspin). It was perfect. They advanced our aims and were instrumental in making our dream a reality by giving our fan base exactly what it wanted, and had wanted since the book had been released some months prior; to hear the music.

The most satisfying thing for us was seeing the play count shoot up and our social networks lighting up with positive feedback. Along with Rovi Corps, who wrote the band an amazing bio, Spotify helped to set up a great looking landing page on the platform. We decided to leave the question of whether this was a real band or not ambiguous, so the page looking like any other bands was vital. We found ourselves answering people on The RockAteers’ social pages as the characters in the book, which was a great deal of fun. Of course, scratch the surface and you found out the band were fictitious. But no one cared if anything it just made the more eager to investigate the book and project over all.

When we mentioned in a meeting that we are passionate about teenage literacy and asked where our future lyricists are going to come from if our teenagers aren’t picking up books, again they were engaged, thoughtful and eager to help bring the issue to the fore.

It is just the start but already we have over 40 thousand unique plays and hundreds of new followers.