The things I am here to talk to you a bit about today are my band’s new LP, The Gospel According to John, and my novels which you can find all clustered together on this Amazon page: John Andrew Frederick
The lovely Judy Lyon of Torched approached me and asked me to write something to your readers about my work and thus here I am.
I have just finished a new LP, the follow-up to the obviously audaciously and tongue-in-cheekly entitled Gospel, and I am steeling myself for the ineluctable bout or spate of depression that ensues once an artist has finished a major project. I hate that word “project”–it makes things feel so amateurish and ephemeral, as though they are pastimes rather than perpetually emergent passions. Huge difference. I’m exhausted by hope. I’ve depleted myself writing and publishing four novels, a book on Wes Anderson’s early films, and 14 studio albums by the black watch in the course of what, in 2018, will be a thirty-year career. It has never been more difficult to be an artist in the modern world–and in U.S. culture/society/milieu in particular. One’s temptation is to turn one’s back on all the trappings of publicity and social media (particularly egregious! oh and here’s our stupid Facebook!) and an Instagram society and make art that is not-for-public-consumption only!
Especially in a wicky-wacky world that needs to re-learn how to laugh at itself once more. A world where people go to museums to take pictures of themselves taking pictures of themselves not even regarding the works of art therein, but to get “credit” from other shallow-minded poseurs who value such stuff. This sounds bitter. It isn’t. It’s despairing. It’s a bit grandstandish. Don’t listen to me. Put down your phone. Talk to someone. Read anything but the news. Read a novel. Read one of mine. Hahaha. Dance when there’s no music playing. Dance when the black watch’s album’s on Spotify. For Spotify (and other culprits) are dancing on artists’ graves. It’s a joke. It’s not funny. It’s hilarious. It’s unreally real.
It’s been nice writing to you. Judy’s such a lovely person–especially as she said she could not stop laughing at my first novel, The King of Good Intentions: a comic thingy about an imaginary band in LA in the NIneties called The Weird Sisters.
The Weird Sisters are the witches in Macbeth, you’ll remember. I think I’ll go re-read that play right now!
Cheers and love, John Andrew Fredrick
TORCHED MAGAZINE 