Heaven or Las Vegas - Stuart Macbride Interview

Stuart MacBride has cemented himself as one of Scotland’s premier young writers. His debut Cold Granite, a crime novel set in a slightly more meteorologically disadvantaged, seedier Aberdeen, introduced us to DS Logan McRae. Two books later MacBride and McRae are going from strength to strength. Stuart took some time out to let us know a bit about his musical tastes and what he has in store for his readers in his fourth novel.

HOLV: First off Stuart, how are things?

SM: My eye hurts – I probably shouldn’t poke it so much. Other than that, things are OK: just finished a novella and Book Number The Fourth, which I’m probably going to have to get a proper title for at some point.

HOLV: How do you envisage the musical tastes of your crime fighting creation DS Logan McRae?

SM: I think he’s got pretty good taste – he hates reggae anyway. I’ve tried to avoid going down the traditional route of listing every bloody song the guy’s got on his iPod. Incidentally, having just bought one of these things I have to congratulate Apple on iTunes, which has to be one of the worst bits of software I’ve ever used – I don’t know who designed it, but they need a seriously hard slap. I imagine him to be a little bit traditional with not a lot of time for plastic manufactured stuff.

HOLV: And yourself, what CDs does one of Scotland's best upcoming authors listen to?

SM: Ah, shameless flattery is it? Well, I’ve got a stack of Radiohead, but only listen to the stuff before Kid A – you know, when they still did songs with tunes? Pink Floyd, David Gray, Feeder, Green Day, Stereophonics, Gomez, Paul Weller, Dame Janet Baker, Peter Gabriel… Hmm, wonder when I became a boring old fart.

HOLV: Some of the venues in Aberdeen, The Tunnels in particular, are fast becoming top places for live music in Scotland. Have you been to see anything recently in the city?

SM: The last live act I saw was in Shetland, and it wasn’t even a group: just people who wandered into the pub, picked up an instrument and joined in. Their fiddle and accordion rendition of the Stone’s ‘Brown Sugar’ was inspired, if a little frightening. I keep meaning to get into Aberdeen to see more bands, but can’t seem to get my backside in gear.

HOLV: When you write, are you prone to listening to music or is that a distraction?

SM: I find it difficult to write without music playing so there’s always something pounding out of the speakers. And if I’m away somewhere it’s on the headphones while I hack words out on the laptop. I think I must listen to about eleven hours of music a day. But when I’m reading, or editing, I have to have silence, or orchestral stuff without words.

HOLV: Do you have any musical pet hates? Any bands you think should never be heard again?

SM: REGGAE! UB40 are a particularly nasty example. I don’t know why I hate it quite as much as I do, but I just need a couple of bars on the radio and I’m swearing a blue streak and hitting the next station button. And boy bands: I don’t like them either. Or any of that jingley-jangly, pop-tastic bollocks that gets churned out. I like music with a bit of darkness to it and people who can play their own instruments.

HOLV: Anyway, off music for the last question. Obviously your last book Broken Skin is not long out, but do you have ideas for the next work?

SM: The next one’s already written, but now we’re into the fun and frivolity that is THE EDIT! Which is a bit like giving a badger a pair of pliers and inviting it to practice dentistry on your mouth while you nail burning squirrels to your knees. But it should mean that flaming kneecaps and missing teeth aside, the book should be a lot tighter and stronger for it.

Book Number The Fourth is probably the darkest, nastiest thing I’ve ever written, with cannibalism on a grand scale and some very, very bad things happening to pretty much everyone involved. Which was fun.

Interviewed By Hammond