Q&A with the very talented voice artist, Chris Barnes

Thanks for being on the blog today, Chris. I just finished up your narration of High Moor by Graeme Reynolds this week and I adored it! Tell me how Dynamic RAM Audio came to be.


Well, they say ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Such was the case when I set up Dynamic Ram.  I needed a space to call my own.  It really all started when I was working with Paul Mannering, a New Zealand based author who is also a member of BrokenSea Audio Productions Executive Team, on a number of New Pulp anthologies and novels.  The books were originally going to be BrokenSea titles, but after a bit of discussion we decided that I should branch off, leave the safety zone of the mothership and try to create my own brand.  This all happened in May 2012
  In the June, I went on holiday to a remote Scottish island called Tiree, it’s a beautiful place to go, although, being Scotland, the weather is erratic to say the least.  So, having loaded up my phone with a few kindle freebies in advance (there is little to zero mobile reception there) I settled in one rainy day and read a book called ‘The Cold Beneath’ by Tonia Brown.  I finished the book 8hrs later. I was captivated by the story and I knew, there and then, it had to be made into an audio book.   I had to wait 6 or 7 agonising days to get home, get in front of my Microphone and record the prologue.   I then cheekily sent it to Tonia, not knowing whether or not she had an existing deal in place for her books.  Luckily for me, she didn’t, and we agreed that I should produce the rest.   Two months down the road, the book was finished and like a Xenomorph from John Hurts chest, Dynamic Ram burst through the fence!
  I am so glad it did. You have quickly become one of my favorite male narrators out there! Do you have a particular habit you have to do while you are narrating a book? 
A cup of tea laced with honey before each chapter has two benefits for me.  It soothes my throat and relaxes my mind. I also munch on slices of Green Apple after every half hour or so to stop my mouth from clicking.

 
Tea cures all ailments. :) Do you have a particularly favorite book you have narrated and why? My newest release High Moor was a lot of fun to do.  It was a huge responsibility to take a novel that had been so widely praised in print and try to make the audio just as satisfying an experience.  So much so, that I recorded the book three times before I was truly happy with the results.

The book itself was astounding, so much so that reading it three times never seemed like work.  The characters have become a part of me.  I even drop into character involuntarily at times, leaving my native Scottish accent behind and producing North East England voices instead, which has gotten me some funny looks.  One friend recently told me “You haven’t lived until you hear a 36 year old Scotsman talk like an 8 year old Geordie lass!” Just as well this is a horror book, really.  I think you hit all the dialects perfectly! Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your field?  
Getting the sound right.  Each book is unique; therefore it should have a unique atmosphere.  A lot of that comes from agonizing over detail, making sure that if you have a telephone conversation then the effect is put on the right person. If you have onomatopoeia (where a word sounds like the noise it would make) in a phrase, making sure that carries over into the reading.



To me, voice artistry is such an amazing art form, when did you decide it was what you wanted to do?  I’ve always been a bit of a performer, from an early age when I first learned to read, my Mother would get me to read stories (usually my favourite Read Along Star Wars book) to any visitors.  I also used to perform the poetry of Robert Burns in an annual competition held at our primary school. My mum still has all of the certificates I won somewhere.  Couple all of the above with the following anecdote and you will see that fate does exist.   I was a very hyperactive child, never slept through the night and Mum and Dad were at their wits end.  A family friend suggested that they buy me a cassette player, a selection of stories on tape and give me an instruction that I could listen to as many tapes as I liked, but I was not to leave the room unless I needed the bathroom.   Unbeknownst to my parents, they were playing parental Baron von Frankenstein to the monster they would create. My local library very nearly ran out of suitable books for me to listen to, such was my voracious appetite for the medium.  One eagle eyed librarian managed to stop me borrowing A Roald Dahl’s The Great Switcheroo before it was too late!   Over the years, my tastes have grown, my love of the medium never diminishing.  I still listen to audio in some form every night, even after a day of production.   Flash forward to 2007, I was casting around on the internet for freebie audio drama and I stumbled across BrokenSea Audio Productions (www.brokensea.com) and their Doctor Who fan fiction podcast.  It was brilliant; it transported me back into a universe I had adored all my life. I devoured the whole back catalogue, not just the Doctor Who stuff either, their output was amazing!   I decided, sometime in 2009 that I was going to have a go at getting involved in some productions, so I emailed the exec team the next time they had a casting call open with a sample.  They were impressed enough to give me a role. Then another, and another. Audiobooks however, will always be my first love.  So when the opportunity arose for me to do The Cold Beneath, my fate, my destiny, was sealed. Top five favorite narrators of all-time?   Lorelei King Stephen Fry Sir Michael Hordern Neil Gaiman Tony Robinson Oh, I just adore Neil Gaiman! The Dreamking. <3 What is one book you would love to narrate?  If I ever get a chance to narrate anything by Neil Gaiman I could die happy! Thank you so much for coming on the blog! I really can’t wait to see what else you have in store for us audiobook junkies in the future! hehe     Here is where you can stalk this amazing narrator!   Website Blog Soundcloud Twitter Facebook