Wolf Interviews: JD McBride
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He has a degree in creative writing from Brigham Young University and a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Westminster College. He currently lives in Sandy, Utah.
Your substack feels unique in that you incorporate music into your broader created world. Which came first—the music or the novel?
The music came first. I started playing the guitar and writing songs in high school. During college, I got a digital portastudio, a drum machine, and mics and started recording. I’m not great at collaborating with people, so I was doing everything myself, which made it difficult to play conventional concerts. So, I started to do performance art pieces accompanied by a boombox playing my music. Sometimes, I opened for myself by improvising silly songs with a guitar and a fuzz pedal. Soon, I had two fictional bands, Finngerhutt and the Deviant Headphones. Of course, fictional bands need fictional band members, so I came up with Adlai and his foil, Simon. One night, I came up with a whole concept for the college town where they lived. But, it has taken a lot of time to improve my writing enough to bring the concept to life.
This is possibly my favorite origin story! I think some of the best stories come from these almost accidental realizations, like if you invent a fake band, it probably needs fake band members.
Colleges are a common setting for a lot of fiction. What are some of your favorite literary depictions of college and college life?
I admit I haven’t read a lot of novels about college life. I think that is a blind spot of mine. But years ago, I read Donna Tartt’s A Secret History and Bret Easton Ellis’ The Rules of Attraction. I enjoyed both quite a bit, and perhaps they deserve a reread. Of course, putting them on the same list is natural because Tartt and Ellis were college classmates. I also like Nabokov’s Pnin, and I recently read Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, which has a college section in that. And that book really resonated with me for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint.
One that I still need to read is John Williams' Stoner, which I’ve heard is amazing. I just need to get in the right mental space to appreciate it properly.
Honestly, I think I’ve got some reading to do. If you and your readers have any suggestions for campus novels, I would love to hear them.
Who are some of your main musical and literary influences? How much does music influence your literature and how much does literature influence your music?
My main musical influences are R.E.M. and the Smiths. When I was sixteen, I bought a copy of R.E.M.’s Murmur, which changed my life. It made me want to learn guitar and create things. My main goal is to make something that will affect someone the same way that record affected me. Other than that, I love the Velvet Underground, Joy Division, The Gang of Four, Echo and the Bunnymen, Talking Heads, The Cure, The Beatles, Dylan, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Magnetic Fields, Guided by Voices, Prince, Richard Thompson, Leonard Cohen, and John Coltrane.
My literary influences are more difficult to pin down. But some of my favorites are Faulkner, Pynchon, DeLillo, Nabokov, Philip K. Dick, Carver, Morrison, Delany, Stephen King, Blume, Chandler, Borges Lovecraft, Hammett, the runs of Ditko and Romita on The Amazing Spider-Man, Carl Bark’s Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge Comics, Schultz’s Peanuts and unfortunately, the writings of Joseph Smith and the early Mormon Leaders (Mormon theology, culture, and culture is one of my major themes).
An eclectic mix! I can imagine Pynchon coming up with the kind of idea you presented above, especially since he seems a writer very in love and influenced by music. How does theology play into all these various influences?
Thank you for the kind words. Mormonism, and my relationship with it, is one of the more delicate aspects of my work. So, I have to be careful answering this question.
I came from a Mormon background. I served a two-year Mormon mission in the Philippines and graduated from Brigham Young University. Some of my ancestors were among the first adherents of the Latter-Day Saint Movement. Mormonism is the water that I swim in. Because of my background, many of my characters are Mormon or Mormon adjacent. I quote Mormon scripture and folk doctrine to show the state of mind of my characters. Sometimes, they have visionary experiences. I recently remembered that Marquez quote that basically said that Latin America was surrealist and how that influenced his fiction. Maybe Mormonism has influenced my fiction in the same way. So, my fiction is weird because Mormonism is weird.
And I want to make it clear what my relationship with Mormonism currently is. I do not believe that Mormonism describes the universe or reality. I also have serious philosophical disagreements with Mormonism. Despite this, I am trying to portray Mormon characters in the most empathetic light. Many of my friends, family members, and respected colleagues are still believing members of the Mormon Church. They are good people trying their best in a complicated world. So, although I no longer share their faith, I hope my work respects and honors them as individuals.
I often think of The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Leonard Cohen, Pynchon, Nabokov, and Borges as being very playful and inventive, with the inventiveness often coming out of the sort of joyful playfulness. With your novel, are you aiming for a similar goal? Or maybe a better way to ask: how important is humor and perspective to your writing?
Yes, humor is an essential element of my writing. My personality is quite silly, sometimes painfully so. And I have tried to put a fair amount of that into my work. Most of my humor comes through in absurd characters and situations. But honestly, I don’t know how successful I am in making the novel funny.
What made substack the right place for your creative work?
The thing that is good about Substack is that it is sort of a blank space that allows you to post different kinds of stuff in different mediums. So, you don’t have to have three or four different websites. When I realized that you could put a link to Bandcamp in one of the tabs, I got excited. Anyone can come to the page to see all the pieces of my project. The major downside is trying to get someone to read a long-form piece of writing (such as my novel) on the site. Shorter forms of writing seem to work better on the web. But that has more to do with the internet itself and not Substack in particular. The ideal would be a combination of Substack and print. Hopefully, my project will get there sooner rather than later.
Final thoughts?
My fiction and music are on my Substack page. Subscriptions are free, so there is no monetary commitment involved. Feel free to stop by, take a gander, and wander aimlessly. If you like what you read, please send a candygram to a friend to spread the word.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.
Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers
This opens up a whole other portal to JD McBride than is often seen on his substack page and the haikus he writes. Thank you for this interview.
Wonderful interview! The fictional bands made me think of Old Gods of Asgard, the fictional band in Alan Wake II. Haha, of course I had to mention that XD. Also it is cool when writers experiment with humor. It may be the most challenging thing in writing.