🎙️ David McGillveray

Read David's story, Out of the Band, now!

Are you a musician yourself? 

Absolutely not. No talent, not enough patience. But I am a life-long music obsessive, record buyer and attendee of obscure gigs. Indie, reggae, synthpop, punk, electronica, rock, rave, a bit of metal, house, hip-hop (nineties vintage), goth, more indie, I love it all. No country, though. That’s inexplicable.

What band or album do you find yourself returning to over and over lately?

I have a core of bands that are never far from the record player, and I admit this does situate me in time and space. Killing Joke, New Model Army, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, Smiths. I’m an eighties alternative post-punk cliche! More recently, I recommend the work of a British band called Heartworms - a bit goth, a bit early-eighties alt-rock, with a sprinkle of something of their own. 

Do you think Galen has any regrets with the way he lived his life and/or treated the people around him?

I don’t think so. He’s an arsehole and he deserves his fate. There’s a difference between realisation and regret. I don’t think he moves into the regret stage by the end, but he makes some progress. He realises he’s brought much of it on himself and the world doesn’t need him, which is a start. He has an eternity to do his regretting.

Was there any real life band that you pictured while writing this story?

Not really. It’s a bit of an archetype, an amalgamation of every dysfunctional band in history. But the story popped into my head, fully formed, at a specific gig, Depeche Mode at the Olympic Stadium in London. We were watching the support act, a British singer called Nadine Shah (well worth checking out, btw), and she performed at the front of the stage with her band. This was because the rest of the stage, and it’s massive, had Depeche Mode’s synthesizers and other equipment set up all around it. Some of it was shrouded in sheets. It sparked the idea for the story and you can see some of that imagery in it.

How many times has this story been rejected by other markets?

Hmm. Nerd alert. Let me check my rejection notes/list of grievances. Eleven. That’s not bad. My current record for story rejections before finding a home is thirty-two. Rejections are not statements of fact about a story’s worth, although it’s easy to lose confidence in the face of a blizzard of them. Equally, acceptances are very often a confluence of fortunate timing, a first reader’s mood and personal taste, luck and finding the right editor as well as quality and skill. Writers must harden themselves to these realities. The only thing they can control is what they write, and how well. If you like what you write, send it out. Although there is always the possibility that you might be kidding yourself.

What’s a great short story you’ve read recently?

I don’t read a huge amount of short fiction, although I’m dipping into the classic pulp stories of Robert Bloch at the moment. My reading habits revolve around older sci-fi novels, travelogues and rock biographies. The last speculative fiction that properly blew me away was the Amaranthine Spectrum books by Tom Toner a few years ago. He’s got such a big, original imagination, weird and different. Too much stuff these days is full of wet characters leaking emotions all over the page.

What book are you reading right now?

I’m reading Angel Station by Walter Jon Williams, a cyberpunky space opera from 1989. It’s pretty good. I’m a fan of his early stuff, especially Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind, and all the original school of cyberpunk authors. I liked the gritty, grimy feel of their worlds.

Do you have anything else you’d like to share?

I self-published a collection of my previously published short sci-fi stories last year. It’s called Forgotten Dragons, Plastic People and you can get it via Amazon. It features obsessive space-monks, messages encoded in the songs of alien birds, modified US saboteurs in China and plastic elves.

Thanks to David for sharing his thoughts on music with us!