Music and Books with Willsin Rowe

My first musician interview!

Recently I did an interview with author Katie Salidas.  Katie co-authored a book series called The Consummate Therapy series with another Facebook friend of mine, Willsin Rowe.  Willsin lives down in Australia and was kind enough to answer a few questions for my blog!

Willsin is multi-talented and will be the first musician I've ever interviewed!  It was a thrill to hear back from him!  So here are the questions I asked:

How long did your first book take to write?

Oh, gosh. My first book came together in about three weeks. It was only a short-ish story, about 12,000 words, and it was for a competition (which I won!)

I know you’re not only a writer, but also a musician.  Do you ever apply music to your writing?

Oh, definitely. Though they’re not yet published, and in some cases not yet written, I have several music-based stories. Some involving bands, some involving fans, and of course, some involving both! I find that I often tend to include musical terminology in descriptions as well.

Have specific songs ever inspired any of your stories?

Actually, yes! My favourite band is Big Country. Obviously, they’re not all that well known outside of Britain (except for one particular song). Here in Australia they’re almost forgotten. But a track from their final studio album, Driving To Damascus, inspired me to write a piece of dark, semi-paranormal flash erotica. The song is called “Grace”, and my story has the same name. It’s not a published story, but I did win an award on an erotica forum for it.

How did you first meet Katie Salidas?

It was through a mutual friend, Jenna Alexander. She and Katie were both blogging at Coffee-Fueled Erotica, and when Jenna decided to leave she asked me to take her place, which I was honoured to do.

Once you and Katie met, how did you end up working together on your Consummate Therapy series?

It took us nearly three years before we tried true co-authoring. Almost from the beginning we critiqued each other’s stories, and we worked together on other parts of publishing as well. I made some covers for Katie and gave her some pointers on her own promo designs. Katie gave me oodles of help with HTML and marketing areas. Then, when we realised we both had stories we couldn’t quite finish, we figured we should pool resources and drive each other onward.

How was your experience writing with Katie?

It’s been hugely beneficial. By co-writing, we’ve each found out a little more about our own strengths and weaknesses. There’s more compromise, of course, since we each have different boundaries, which comes in part from being opposite genders, and also from being in different countries. But the compromises have worked to help us tighten up our writing. I’ve certainly been far more prolific in recent months than at any point in the past, and that’s mostly down to the discipline that came from co-writing with Katie.

Check out the first book in Willsin and Katie's series with the above link!

Tell us a bit about your music and where we can find you.  Can we find your band on Youtube, or buy your music anywhere?

My band is called The Medicine Show. We’re a dirty blues/folk/country/punk kinda band. Tom Waits and Nick Cave are huge influences to us, but we also employ talking blues elements, and folk traditions, as well as old-time Delta blues and prison songs. I’ve made a few music videos which are up on Youtube, and we also have a profile on Bandcamp, where our 8-track album is on sale.

Our Youtube videos are on this channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL26E5282660DE0285

Excellent!  Click the link above to see The Medicine Show Youtube channel!  Very cool to be able to see this!  Absolutely fantastic videos!

Once you like what you see, click the link below to check out and maybe buy some Medicine Show music!  Help support a really good blue collar band!

And our Bandcamp profile is here: http://themedicineshow.bandcamp.com

And before we go, I always have to ask:

Are you working on anything at the moment?

Well, in addition to writing and music, I’m also a book cover artist. I’ve made around 300 covers for people over the past 3-4 years. I have a few long-standing clients like Selena Kitt and Jason Halstead who keep me busy a lot of the time! But I’m also spending time crafting some sweet romantic erotica under a different pen name! Supah-sekrit stuff, though!

Many thanks to Willsin for this interview!  I wish him the best of luck with his music, book covers (I may end up contacting him one day myself!) and of course, his writing.