Originally posted March 30, 2013:
And now, the rest of the story...
First of all, I must give credit where credit is due, primarily for the pictures and videos I've posted. The (original) profile picture (from the Rock Opus page) is of Cherif Fortin, a former romance novel cover model and "knight" at Medieval Times in Chicago. I came across his photos one night when I googled "hot guys with long hair." Actually, that didn't really prompt any decent results, so I entered "romance novel cover models," and there he was-Jon Warren in the virtual flesh. Wow. Now, even though the original inspiration for the character was Paul Hackman, Cherif fit the bill nicely, too. The picture of him in the CHARACTERS photo album, sitting beside a window, was painful to look at, because it "IS" Jon. So thank you, Cherif, for "allowing" me to use your pictures. The profile pic is taken from a novel called "Passion's Blood," written by Cherif and illustrated by Lynn Sanders.
The other photos of "the bands" are just pics I've taken from various websites of the real people who inspired the way the characters look. At the time I knew nothing about any of their real personalities, so any real resemblance is strictly coincidental. It's pretty weird, though, how much Terry really is like Tommy Lee...
And although when Season was created, I'd never heard of Marion Raven, but when I caught a glimpse of her MySpace profile, after the release of her duet with Meat Loaf, I felt she was a great representation. And of course, there's still Ann Wilson's influence, mainly because Ann is the greatest singer in the entire universe. I want to BE Ann Wilson!! So, put the two together and you have our lusty, yet rather neurotic, heroine. I guess I can also add Lee Aaron to that mix, whom I had no exposure to in the 80s because she was a bigger deal in Canada & Europe than in the U.S. But I bought "Metal Queen" via Amazon in 2006 and Wow!!! She's ultra-cool. Thank you, ladies.
And thanks go out to David Lee Roth, Richie Sambora, Rudolf Schenker, Tommy Lee, AJ Pero, Brent Doerner, and Warren DeMartini. And I pay homage to those who have since passed on, to Robbin Crosby and Paul Hackman. They are greatly missed, by me and other fans alike. My friend Christine, my first reader and partner in hair metal crime, was the one who broke the news to me about Paul. I was devastated. This book is dedicated to his memory, because he was the Number 1 guy on my "Top Ten Metal Men" list, and was such an inspiration for my favorite fictional bass player.
The picture of Saints and Sinners, an obscure band that I discovered via the 80's Hairband World profile, is Tarax as a whole. When I saw the video on the site, I nearly fell out of my chair. Another vision come to life. Just change the hair color of the other blonde guy...I think he's the drummer. The video was taken off YouTube so I haven't been able to watch it again.
The other thing I'll confess is that I may be mistaken about a great many things that a road band does, although I was coached on these details by the best source in the world: My husband Don, who toured with Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band for about 5 years. He helped out a lot with gear info, tour scheduling, and those moments when a band member's boom box can get thrown out of the bus. He was a tremendous help, and when he said the first chapter was actually pretty good, I was thrilled to death. He's a voracious reader, who reads everything and knows a good book when he sees it, so his opinion was highly valuable. But I had to decide which point of view I was sticking with: A 16-year-old girl or a 23-year-old male. The 23-year-old won, of course, and it was just as hard to do that since I was way past my early 20s. I think I've fixed that, now that the first few chapters have been re-worked to make a little bit more sense.
The main disclaimer is this: This is ADULT content. Not necessarily pornographic, but this is pretty much for 18-year-olds and up. Or maybe very mature high-school age and up. There's drug use, relatively graphic sex, mild violence, tons of profanity...(Have you ever heard musicians talk amongst themselves? It doesn't matter what genre either-we're a tough bunch!) I wouldn't go far as to say it's X-rated-more like NC-17. (Do they still use that rating?)
I don't know what literary genre to put it in either. It's not what they call "literary fiction," because it's way too lightweight for that. It's not quite erotica, (a couple of scenes come way close), but that's not the focus of the story. It's not sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or suspense. (Don: "You mean they don't fight aliens or anything?" LOL) It's definitely not a Western. In some ways, when I got to the end of it, I more or less had a romance novel on my hands. Not a conventional one, but well...you know...
It's not Pulitzer Prize-winning material by any means. It's not deep, thought-provoking prose that's designed to change the world. Tolstoy it ain't. It's more like Circus Magazine meets Linda Howard. It's schmaltzy commercial fiction that you read strictly for entertainment, and that is all. You may discover some useless rock trivia, (my head is full of it), and I think I'm accurate in that to some degree. I've mentioned some other "real" people, who were around at the time, and it wasn't meant to offend or put anyone on the spot. I used familiar names strictly for realism purposes.
I did break one rule-by using some songs that were released after 1985, both in the text and in my "soundtrack." Certain tunes just really seemed to fit the story, like Richie Sambora's "Rosie" and Nickelback's "Figured You Out." I want to extend more thanks to the artists featured on the profile songlist and the videos I've posted. Their music has been a huge part of my life, and without it I would not be where I am now: A college music instructor getting ready to work on her PhD and the lead singer/bassist of her own very popular regional band.
(UPDATE: PhD is in hand, and I'm a college administrator now! And Ms Mac & Th Groovetones officially retired in 2014.)
About the songlist (which I will need to add somewhere because you can't do that on MySpace anymore I don't think): Play it while you read, like it's background music. Unfortunately because both Tarax and Rampage are fictitious bands, all of their songs are ones you could say I wrote myself, and if I ever had the chance to record those, I might do it. But though I write decent fiction, I'm a crummy songwriter.
Again, my sincere thanks to those who inspired the story, and I hope that if any of them read it, I want them to know my intention is to honor their work. It is a work of fiction only, and meant only to entertain. I'll also mention that is a complete original work. Every word is mine, right out of my weird little brain.
I also want to thank the following folks I know personally: Of course, Don, who endured a lot while I was finishing this crazy thing; Christine Cooper, Heather Butler, Noel Greer, Bethany Brantley, Bethany Baracosa, Kirt Connor, my first few avid readers; Karen Taylor (we miss you!!), Relinda Ruth, UACossatot, all former and current members of Ms Mac and the Groovetones, everyone who has come out and supported the Groovetones over the last NINE(????) years; Sunni Thibodeau, Kay Mannon, Randy Lindsey, Ann Furr-all those who taught me how to write; my sister Liz and her family; the Kids (Dan, Tiffany, Storm, Katrina, and Cassondra) and all the grandchildren, Ron and Wanda Riddle; and Mom and Dad, for just being the greatest people in the world who didn't seem to mind when the Star Wars posters came down and the Motley Crue posters went up, and gave me my first bass for Christmas; and I guess I should thank Microsoft for Word and Excel.
I guess I COULD thank Northcentral University for allowing me to take a break from writing really fun stuff for four entire years. But they gave me a PhD and nominated me for Dissertation of the Year, so I guess I should just, y'know, deal with it. ;)
Okay, I'm done for now.
Long live rock & roll! And popular fiction!!
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