Zombie Book Club
Welcome to Zombie Book Club! We're a Podcast that's also a book club! We talk about Zombie / Apocalyptic horror novels, TV and movies.
Zombie Book Club
The Undead Symphony with Special Guest Darren Smith | Zombie Book Club Ep 96
In this episode of Zombie Book Club, we sit down with Darren Smith, host of The Undead Symphony podcast and author of the novel by the same name. Darren shares how his journey from reviewing over 300 zombie films to writing a novel was inspired by listener misconceptions and a desire to explore deeper themes within the genre.
We delve into the unique aspects of his novel, including its symphonic structure, the evolution of zombies from rage-filled runners to traditional shufflers, and the practical survival techniques embedded within the narrative. Darren also discusses the significance of his Jewish protagonist, Yonatan Solomon, and how cultural identity and societal commentary are woven into the fabric of the story.
Guest Contact & Links:
- Podcast: The Undead Symphony
- Instagram: @undeadsymphonypod
- Books by Darren Smith:
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Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a podcast and the podcast is a book, and the book is also a symphony, but the symphony is performed by zombies and it's the apocalypse, but you can somehow still get Indian food delivered. Nice, I'm Dan, and when I'm not conducting a symphony of my own with diesel trucks driven by asphalt-covered tweakers, I'm writing a book about an undead world that has a lot more in common with a symphony that I originally realized.
Speaker 3:Interesting world that has a lot more in common with the symphony that I originally realized Interesting, dan and I'm Leah. Today we're chatting with the Darren Smith about his gripping new novel, the Undead Symphony. And if you're a part of the zombie world, you probably already know the voice that is Darren Smith behind the London-based podcast, also called the Undead Symphony. That covers zombie movies, tv shows, has awesome interviews with actors, fans and fellow zombie besties in our community. But you may not know that he's also the author of several novels like the Bends and A God in a Box, and now he's brought us the Undead Symphony in book form, which is a powerful and surprising new addition to the zombie fiction genre. Welcome to the Zombie Book Club podcast, darren. We're so glad you're here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming, that is true most of that was true about me I'd say most of that was true okay, is there anything?
Speaker 1:uh, anything. You want any corrections or no?
Speaker 2:that's 100.
Speaker 1:There was a hundred percent any embellishments you want to throw in no, no, I'm good, I'm good with that.
Speaker 2:I am good with that. Yeah, and it is. Yes, it is a london-based podcast called the undead Symphony, and if you're going to ask me why it's called that, I've prepared my answer.
Speaker 3:We do have that in the list, but first we have to ask the rapid-fire questions. We ask every guest on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need these answers.
Speaker 3:As a zombie expert yourself, we are going to judge you at a much harsher level for your answers.
Speaker 1:So give us your gut quick response your choice hot shot, 40 hour work week or zombie apocalypse uh, I kind of like my job um weird killing zombies um yeah, I mean to be fair.
Speaker 2:I actually do enjoy my job. I am actually, uh, I'm actually happy with the work week. What was the hours, by the way? 40?
Speaker 3:oh, fuck, that zombie apocalypse how many hours a week do you get to work over there in the uk?
Speaker 2:uh, it is actually a 35 hour work week or 40 hour work week, but based on what I do, I'm kind of like a specialist, so I just like it's like a hour or two a day, sort of spread out, depending on when I'm needed.
Speaker 3:Wow that is the dream, darren. I would also choose that.
Speaker 1:That's how I managed to churn out novels from time to time in the, in the breaks all right, we have to move to the uk now. I mean, there's a lot of reasons oh yes uh. So, um, since, since you didn't uh, since you uh were given those extra five hours of work a week and you chose the zombie apocalypse instead, it's the zombie apocalypse now. Congratulations, it's your fault. Um, thank you. What is what would be your, what would be your weapon of choice?
Speaker 2:oh, that's good. Um, it would depend on the kind of zombie and the kind of infection. Uh, if it is a la, 28 days later, bloodborne kind of thing, uh, as far away as humanly possible. Um, I, I would, you know, gun, obviously. But then there's the bullets question. I would be really partial to a flamethrower.
Speaker 2:I was thinking that the other day I was watching someone finish Last of Us the first computer game and they were doing it with a gun and I was like you don't take out the nurses and doctors with a gun, why do you not have a flamethrower? It's really good for parties and excellent to start the barbecue as well, so maybe I'll go for a flamethrower as my weapon of choice.
Speaker 3:That's a good choice. I think you just gave us a reason to buy one, which is parties and starting the barbecue.
Speaker 2:How do you not have one already? You don't. How do you not have one already?
Speaker 3:I feel a little shamed.
Speaker 2:I am ashamed for you. I thought you guys were prepping. We are, but we live in the united states, so that's guns, baby. Yeah, we can have guns. I had to talk dan, out of buying more recently. Yeah, I asked my please get more guns, my gun drawer is not full um, but I think that was very special, I think when you can choose between pretty much any gun you want.
Speaker 1:We don't really think about arson as the solution to the problem, so I think it's just a different way of thinking I think it's a smarter way of thinking because, like you said, darren, bullets they run out. But you know now that I think about it it'd be a whole lot easier to clear all the snow out of our driveway with a flamethrower than just shooting at it because, that's true, it gets expensive right.
Speaker 3:Next rapid fire question.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:You're in the zombie apocalypse now and you get to eat only one unlimited shelf-stable food item for the rest of your life. You've come upon a warehouse. It's going to feed you until you die, but it's only one thing. What do you choose?
Speaker 2:Okay, I actually did a lot of research for this, for the book, and virtually everything goes off. That's good for you um true it's it. It's very tricky. Uh, I have to eat one food stuff for the rest of my life it's probably going to be bad for you, that's just it's gonna have to be bad for me, isn't it?
Speaker 2:um, I don't really know. I mean, I'm a bit of a carnivore, so that's pointless. You know, because you're not going to eat any canned meat, shouldn't eat canned meat anyway, I like canned meat. In the zoppy apocalypse you've got to open a can of canned beef. What called beef? What the hell is wrong with you? Um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Uh I mean, that's how it starts barbecue beans because you know, could I could have a well as day soon. That'll mean I'll be no one to use my flamethrower. I don't know, can peaches, we'll just go with something simple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that brings some joy to your life. Plenty of vitamins and minerals in those peaches.
Speaker 3:It's a new one. Yeah, it's definitely new.
Speaker 2:They're put there by a man, yeah.
Speaker 1:In a factory downtown.
Speaker 2:I was about to start singing.
Speaker 3:I was going to do that as well. What is that band called?
Speaker 1:The. Presidents of the United States, yeah, I wish they were the Presidents of the United States still.
Speaker 2:We'd all get peaches, I think a lot of people think that yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Well, I got to give you kudos for Unique Choice. When you said beans for a moment there I was like, oh no, our only two uk-based authors have both chosen beans, so good for you choosing peaches.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good choice, you know, because there's so many things that if you ate it non-stop for the rest of your life, you'd you'd probably want to end your life pretty quickly, because I I like beans. I don't know if I want to eat them every single day, though yeah, but peaches, though, that's a different. I don't know if I want to eat them every single day, though yeah, but peaches, though, that's a different story. I don't know how long it would take me to get sick of peaches.
Speaker 2:I don't know we watch any, you know, not necessarily zombie, but you know apocalyptic movie, and they sort of always get fine canned food and they always shake it and they go oh, peaches or dog food or something so it's one of those. It's one of those staples even when the even when the label's been pulled off, it's like shake it peaches it's.
Speaker 1:You shake it and it's either peaches or something.
Speaker 2:That's really gone horrible it is that corned beef, but now it's liquefied.
Speaker 1:You're like oh, this is definitely peaches, and you open it. It's like this used to be condensed milk.
Speaker 2:It kind of reminds you what is this, that smell? Is it either like really bad meat or good cheese? It's that kind of thing. But yeah, I'm going to stick with peaches, even though they will go off after like 18 months. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean mean you can. You can forage so much stuff to, you know, eventually concoct a pie at some point, you know I was just thinking adding peaches to a forage salad would be like a really lovely salad, sure also I'm sure they're very good when you actually want to.
Speaker 2:You know trade with other other survivors.
Speaker 3:Would you like some peaches, because I got dog food you can make like a peach marinade for the fish. I think that could be great a little bit.
Speaker 2:I don't know what peach cobbler is, but I could probably make a post-apocalyptic peach cobbler.
Speaker 3:It's like a crisp. Does a crisp sound familiar to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we call it a crumble, I think it's very similar, where it's got like OT top and a fruit underneath, kind of thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Next question putting the fruit underneath, kind of thing. Yeah, um, yeah, all right question. You know, okay, in this, in this warehouse, there's also a small stockpile of one very specific dvd box set of tv show or movie, possibly a movie series. If it's a dvd box set, um, and, just as luck would have it, a battery operated dvd player with a little screen built in and a solar panel. Weird that you find all these things in the same place, but you do. Really lucky, um, what would be the dvd box set of your choice to watch for the rest of eternity?
Speaker 2:that's a good question. I could jokely throw out some sort of porn series. I don't know if this works too. I think it was a TV show that someone jokes about. He found a DVD and it was like Anal Destructor 7 or something.
Speaker 1:Someone else joked about.
Speaker 2:They made six of this. I don't know um sapanos was always good, um, and there's quite a lot of it from what I remember. Um, I thought my favorite tv show, you know, when I was a kid growing up, was blake seven, which is like this bbc sci-fi show, um, and it had two series, like 13 episodes a season. So maybe that, maybe that it depends on how much of my time I don't spend, uh, killing zombies and just spend dicking around in the apocalypse because, you know, there's nothing else to do.
Speaker 3:Well, you've got a lot because you've got your peaches yeah peaches and blake seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably, yeah probably blake seven which you guys wouldn't have heard of necessarily but it was kind of like in there, no, but it's kind of like around. It was like 80, 81. So star Wars had come out and and empire was about to come out. So I think I think they they're serious straddled empire and so like it was like the BBC. So it's like BBC kind of. Every alien planet either looks like a quarry or a water purification plant and those kind of things, and you know it's kind of like a Doctor Who-esque.
Speaker 2:You know sci-fi, special effects, so it was great growing up with it, though, although I might say I might change it to Red Dwarf, because I think they've got 11 seasons of that now.
Speaker 1:That's something I've heard of, so yeah, it's a comedy.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like a sci-fi comedy. The english guys get stuck in space and you know forever, well, for 11 seasons. So yeah, but that was funny, though it is funny, genuinely funny. So maybe one of those. I kind of like british, although I don't love global tv and movies. Obviously the podcast has covered 40 countries of zombie movies. Incredible, uh, but I give it, it's incredible, given the fact that all these countries want to make zombie movies. Uh, but yeah, it's kind of the bbc stuff kind of hits home because it's like stuff from my childhood like hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and doctor who and stuff like that. So yeah, yeah, I'd probably go with Red Dwarf or Blake Seven.
Speaker 1:Also, as your mental health declines. This is going to become your new religion, too, and your best friends.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, in which case it should probably be Red Dwarf, because the actual idea of it is that one of the guys is brought back from the dead to keep the other one sane.
Speaker 3:because he is kind of by himself. So conceptually I think maybe I'll stick with red dwarf I feel like that could be, like I'll become a little too close to home over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah but when you're going progressively mad in a zombie apocalypse it's fine as I'm shouting back at them. Uh yeah, although, to be fair, my grandpa is a shout at the tv too, and it wasn't the apocalypse.
Speaker 1:So uh, we have a bonus question just for you, okay, um, thank you. Same idea, I guess. Um, you're a zombie, apocalypse has a soundtrack. You can hear it. It's just playing. It's. Uh, you're just walking along and you hear some walking along music. Um, you're, you're, you're doing stuff back at the, at the warehouse, with all of your peaches. You have the doing stuff with peaches music. What is the opening theme of your zombie?
Speaker 3:no, no, no, no. What's the? You're doing stuff with peaches, that's gotta be the correct question. Two questions yeah opening theme and song and doing stuff with Peaches song.
Speaker 2:It's probably the same thing. It's probably the same song, because it will just be constantly just running through my head. There ain't nothing going to break my stride as I'm opening the can of Peaches in time, with the music Hoping. It's not condensed milk again Shaking it to the drums, the drums yeah, I know yeah yeah, I love it. Yes, it's wilder, something wilder sang that song. I can't remember his first name, but yeah, ain't nothing gonna break your voice.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, I could go completely batshit and like africa by toto I just spend the whole I just spend the whole time walking around the apocalypse, singing out loud that song has such feeling and as your mental health declines you sing it even more manically when it rains I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:It's actually a safety thing, because what it is is like security, because if any anyone in the warders want to come and steal my shit, they're gonna hear someone singing toto from like the next valley, like an insane person that would be disturbing and that will strike fear in their hearts forget putting like zombie heads on pikes around my enclosure. I'm just gonna sing my lungs out to toto the whole apocalypse.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, um well, you aced it.
Speaker 2:By the way, our judgment is a plus it makes you want to write more comedy, zombie stuff now yeah, hey, I mean there's.
Speaker 1:There's some moments in your book that I think were pretty hilarious, um, and we're gonna talk about those things, okay. Uh, so we first discovered you through your podcast, the Undead Symphony. That's the name that I was saying with my mouth, just put your teeth in please. Yeah, how did the Undead Symphony podcast start originally?
Speaker 2:I could do the long story short or short story long. Basically, I already had a podcast, a running one that I started during covid, uh, because I'm one, I run ultras and marathons, uh, for charity. So I was, I'd got up to like 50 and then covid happened and there were no races. So I need to keep myself occupied and and, um, motivated. So I went back and started, I created a podcast to literally review all the races I'd done, with the hope that they'd start again before I'd finished, and they did. So I've actually done.
Speaker 2:I like podcasting as a, as a, as a medium, um, I, I like audiobooks, I like audio plays, you know. So I kind of like the medium and I love, I love zombie movies and tv shows. So it was kind of a natural progression of but what do you got a podcast during COVID. I had all the streaming services across them. There were probably a couple of dozen zombie movies and shows that I either had watched or wanted to watch, or you know, et cetera, et cetera, and so it kind of made me think maybe I could do a podcast on that. But let's just see. Let's just see how many zombie movies I could probably discover now, how many, and so I. So I created what was the zed list and it had like 15 pages, double-sided, two columns on each side, so several thousand, uh, zombie movies and shows, and so it came. It came about like that and so I'll go. So well, I'm gonna just do.
Speaker 2:I started a couple of years ago. I'm just gonna do simple reviews. This is what happens with it. I think I started with a live and final days, which I think you call I think you call alone uh, the one with, uh, what's his name? Posy in it, um, the guy who played team wolf in the show. Um, so I did one and then I did a couple of others. I got to like episode 40 and michael came along and then I started getting a format and it was just that. It was just I love zombie movies. Michael was actually my sounding board as I was recording them, uh, and then he joined and you know it. Just, it just happened. It was organic, it's natural. You know you can't force this kind of thing, you can't.
Speaker 2:So I love zombie movies, I love podcasting. Let's put the two together, um, and and and you know whether it works or not, whether people listen to them or not, I just don't really care, um, I will put it, put together a show, get some famous people to do the intro, make, put some stupid ads in that I've made up, talk, talk to michael about it, or get a guest, um, and then put it out there. And then the thing is that, you know, I, I record it for me. I enjoy doing this. I like watching a zombie movie and then talking about it and then put it out there and then forget about it, move on to the next one. Uh, and it's for me, it's about, it's about experiencing stuff too. So, like I said, 40 countries, we've covered zombie movies. Incredible, uh, but yeah. But I guess back to my point is that it means that the zombie genre is global, you know. So I've seen south african and african and loads of different asian ones and australian, new zealand and, you know, all across europe, um, don't forget canada.
Speaker 3:Gotta give canada a shout out. Canada's got some great zombies, yeah you know blood called.
Speaker 2:You know Blood Quantum is one of my favorites, same. So you know it's one of those sleep hits not many people have seen, but you know I've seen them from all over. Everyone gives it a go. There's a Belgium's only zombie movie. It's called Yummy Yummy. That was a video I've not watched that one yummy, I've not watched that one.
Speaker 3:Should we check it?
Speaker 2:out. Actually, I'm asking you because you suffer for all the rest of us. I do, um, it's very good. It's one of my sleepers like like blood, quantum and it stains the sands red and other ones like that, though they're all very watchable. That one is, if you like, a bit of blood and a bit of gore and a bit of humor back humor because it's set in a um, um. It's set in a a cosmetic, uh, like surgery kind of hospital, like we go and get your, you know, tummy tuck and and butt lift and stuff like that uh in some unspecified eastern european country.
Speaker 2:so it's kind of got like, you know, a little bit of a hostile vibe Hostel.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know if I can watch that. That movie is serious.
Speaker 2:But it's a zombie. It's a zombie movie. It's got some really good go in it and it's genuinely funny. There is arguably one of the funniest penis scenes you're likely to see in a zombie movie.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm in it.
Speaker 2:You sold us. I sold Dan on the penis scene.
Speaker 3:I wasn't expecting to say that in this, that's the clip right there, darren, we're gonna make that the real I sold down on the penis darren um, you mentioned that you do it for yourself, which I also resonate with that. Like, dan and I just have a really good time making a podcast. But then something weird happened. People started reaching out to us and we were like, oh, like there's, there's like people listening there's a community, and so I'm curious what that was like for you.
Speaker 3:Like what was. Who was the first person that reached out and said hey, other than Michael, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I knew Michael from before because we run a few marathons together. It's always very, not so encouraging, it's always very encouraging. It kind of puts an extra oomph in your day when someone messages and goes actually, I just listened to this podcast, it's awesome. Or I just listened to this podcast, it's awful. And they'll be like oh, you listen to my podcast, oh, what do you mean? It's awful? Yeah, it's encouraging. You know, when you go and see the numbers and I always get the updates because my host just sends you the stats and stuff like that Somebody goes. Oh, that episode, why are people listening to that? That was like three months ago.
Speaker 1:That's how I feel about our first episode. Yeah, stop listening to our first episode.
Speaker 3:It's terrible.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, hopefully people will listen to this one.
Speaker 3:Yes, I don't want to listen to the old one.
Speaker 2:Well, you can listen to the old one, everybody, but listen to this one more than once.
Speaker 2:But, please don't. I think you're right. I think we do need encouragement for the people to say because what's the point otherwise, what's the point of publishing it and putting it out there? So it is lovely when someone comes back and says I listen to your podcast, it's great, it does keep you going. But I think I've already got the mental fortitude, probably from those books I wrote in the early 2000s where I don't care if anyone reads this Because I didn't write it for them, I wrote it for me.
Speaker 2:I spent a year of my life in bars in Manhattan scrolling nonsense onto a page and got it out of my system. It was kind of like some sort of catharsis, whereas I think the zombie apocalypse is the same thing. So we put this zombie podcast is the same thing, um, I, I it's. It's something I want to do for myself and, if anything, what I'm doing is is I would be watching these movies anyway, probably talking to people about these movies. Anyway, I'm just narrating it. So, if anything, you guys are dialing into my um and my inner, inner monologue and my inner journey, my journey, so you know, the one that I'm narrating, um, rather than me going. You know I'm not. I'm not. This isn't a tv show. I haven't got a team of writers, you know, trying to create the zeitgeist. You know it's me watching a zombie movie that could be like 50 years old and shit, and me just moaning about it for half an hour with michael sometimes that's the best.
Speaker 2:Thing absolutely pro wrestlers versus zombies yeah how dare you a?
Speaker 3:fellow, a fellow creator, um steve urana, who's on the podcast, recently posted something on instagram. It's a quote from some person named rick rubin I don't know who. That is sorry, rick, but it's a good quote. Are 100% successful as soon as you send your project off into the world, regardless of how it's received, and I do think that that's what brings creators together who actually just keep creating, and the audience comes, like we were. We were surprised too. We're like wait, somebody's listening to this.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:So I'm glad that we're all part of the same community now, though that's been like a great surprise.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why I had to add it to that page at the beginning of my book, the dedication page is because it could be very lonely, this, it could be massively isolating and we can literally go and do it and send it off and, like you, don't get any feedback and you know, you think, what do I bother doing? You keep, you'll keep asking yourself why am I doing this? But when you actually do deal with people, um, like we have steph, steph grant from this is the dead on quite a bit. You know, I mean, I'd ollie the other week and we know everyone's on discord. I don't quite do the discord thing.
Speaker 2:Um, however, I'm more than happy to appear on other people's shows, for them to appear on ours, and it is a little community and even if I'm going, followed by someone who's doing the same thing, you know, it's like when, um, when I, when I sponsor someone for doing a race, they will go oh, are you doing a race too? Yeah, okay, I'll sponsor you back. I'm following them, they're following me. Uh, I'm your one lister, you're, I'm, you're my one lister, kind of thing. Um, tit for tat, but um, no, to answer your question, I do love it when people you know I keep putting it out there come on, you know it's very relaxed.
Speaker 2:It's just me and michael talking about a movie we've all seen and if people want to listen to that, I'm more than happy to keep generating more um watch. But also we're watching more zombie movies, which we love doing anyway. So, yeah, yeah, I do love the feedback, what there is of it. Everyone goes on and on. Oh, you've got five-star rating, yeah, but it's from five people on iTunes or whatever it is. But there were five people who liked the podcast. I know one of them is Michael, given that he's like Marathon Mike 1993., Are you sure, though?
Speaker 3:but for every five people, there's all the ones who just never bother. So I I think it's. For me, it's about the quality over quantity. I love the little community we've created, and when more people come, that's great yeah, um, oh, 100, 100.
Speaker 2:I mean I, when there are new people out there, you know you do have to like, encourage them, go on and like. I just got a message from someone to say please follow my youtube channel. Yeah, I will do. I mean I don't watch youtube channels but I will go and subscribe. So you've got another number. Uh, because you got it. That's that's all I can do then. That's that's what I will do, because you know, if you encourage me, I'm happy to encourage you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I had a I want to back up a little bit because, um, when were talking about running in marathons, something popped into my mind from a long time ago and I was wondering if you've ever heard of this running app called Zombies Run. We have something similar where it's an immersive thing, like a little audio adventure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like you all want, a zombie comes out from the side and the left and the right.
Speaker 1:And then, like somebody that pretends to be in a helicopter, is like wow, the zombies are chasing you, better run faster.
Speaker 2:They kind of like doing the helicopter noise with their mouth. Yeah, Sort of. I haven't used it. To be fair, I am. I tend to run with playlists, the song Peaches over and over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're trying to find those peaches.
Speaker 2:Well, the thing is I'm running predominantly ultramarathons, so I'm running for like 125 kilometers and stuff like that. Wow, I have podcasts, I have audio books, I have playlists, I have playlists and I didn't want to necessarily be chased and I have to run through the night actually on some of these races, so I don't necessarily want to be running through the night in the woods with the zombies in my ears. It's scary enough as it is.
Speaker 1:I was trying to get back into running and I was like this will be fun and um, it was like the last time I went running, because I I was just running along, I thought I was doing just fine and then a van pulled up next to me and asked me if I was okay. Um, oh, and I didn't know if I mean, I lived in a place where people typically don't run so like america. They're like does this guy not have a car? Is he escaping somebody's basement? I don't know, he looks scared. Anyways, I was. That just popped into my head, so I was uh, I was curious if you would, if you ever reviewed no, I'm aware of it.
Speaker 2:I'm aware of it. Um, I I've never used, I haven't ever used it though.
Speaker 1:Um so let's get back on track and stop talking about zombies run uh okay so you titled um your podcast, the undead symphony, um available on all platforms, by the way, I'm assuming and a lot, of, a lot of those you haven't heard of yeah, um, yeah, when did you? When did you start writing your zombie novel of the same name? And like, uh, when, when did you know that that was the name of your, of your book as well?
Speaker 2:um well, it's an interesting story. Basically, the title of the podcast, as you said, is the undead symphony. I couldn't come up with the time. It's actually terrible the titles I genuinely I think it's good.
Speaker 3:It's a great name yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically I I was going to the beginning, I was got the z list, as I said, and I started watching these movies and started to think about how I was going to review them and I was trying to come up with a title. And I think I just watched zombie Flesh Eaters or Zombie Creeping Flesh, one of those old Luca Fulci kind of 1970s Italian zombie movies, and I was like, oh, I like classical music too, so you know Schubert, marlowe and Bruckner, and it's like, oh, the Unfinished Symphony, the Unfleshed Symphony, I'll call it the Unfleshed Symphony. What a great title. And I was walking around thinking I'm going to call my zombie podcast the unfleshed symphony for quite a while. And then I actually live literally 10 minutes away from the Hellraiser house and it's not real, it's just a house. Calm down, the pair of you. It's just a house, uh. So I, I could, I, so I walked past it and and, uh, it's like on the way to cricklewood and I said, oh, oh, unfleshed kind of does feel, give over a bit of a hellraiser vibe, you know, it's like, you know, with all the flesh being ripped off with the fish hooks and the chain and the like. So and so I wanted, I wanted to to move away from people thinking it was Hellraiser related. And then I became really lazy again and said, well, I'm not going to call it Unfleshed, so it's zombies, let's call it Undead. So I called it the Undead Symphony and it was the Undead Symphony and it still is the Undead Symphony.
Speaker 2:And, as you said, lee, people would message me and go I love your podcast, but I thought it was going to be about zombie music, like, like it's a thing. And and then they were like, you know, because I see I follow people online as part of the, you know, the community, horror community, who who have the vinyl um soundtracks, official soundtracks for all the horror movies that they love and plenty of those zombie movies. So you know you can get the original 79 dawn of the dead soundtrack, kind of thing. And so you know, is that maybe? Maybe they think that this podcast is about the official soundtracks to zombie movies. That's going to have a very limited appeal, it's going to have a very, very limited lifespan.
Speaker 2:So even when I went on Zompocalypse Brian's podcast, he said, oh, I thought your podcast was going to be about music and it just started to annoy me and so it's loads of people now saying that they think that my podcast is about music because I use the word symphony, right, okay, I need closure on this. I need closure on this. I'm going to write a book called the Undead Symphony and now I need to come up with what the fuck the book is going to be about. The fuck the book is going to be about. So, based on several years and hundreds of zombie actually covered over 300 zombie movies I could probably write a post-apocalyptic zombie survival horror, which is what I effectively did, but let's just give it that symphony slant. So let's make the main character something to do with music, but also let's make it something that's smart. You know he's.
Speaker 1:he's not a drummer uh, no disrespect to drummers who are listening. Oh, what a dig against drummers isn't that the joke?
Speaker 2:it's like how can you that's how you tell if a stage is flat, you know, or not, because which side of the mouth is the drummer drooling out of? Um? So they're affected. They're like a human spirit level. Anyway, I'm joking.
Speaker 1:Apologies to drummers, ringo, sorry I'm not a drummer, so that's okay.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say dan's a drummer, uh and so. So yes, I want to do something like make him smart. So I think a composer of music for tv and and cinema, who has to write orchestral music, thinking about all of the different elements of the orchestra, is gonna be smart. And the cool thing for me which is in my in my mind I wanted to do from the start was a symphony has four different movements and they have different styles, different feels. You know, this one is more pedestrian because it's an introduction. Know, this one is more pedestrian because it's an introduction, and the second one's more the bigger because it's got more happening.
Speaker 2:The third one's a huge, you know, explosion of activity and then the final part sort of goes back to how the original, the first part was like.
Speaker 2:So basically it's kind of like you know, reviewing, you know the journey based on what we wanted to do at the beginning of it, and so that means I actually had a structure. So now I had something, something the main character could do, um, as a, as a job which is going to be useful for his mental, you know, acuity and and and the way that he actually deals with everything in in the apocalypse. Plus, I actually have a story structure and, to be fair, that story structure helped me write it as quickly as I did, because I went so I've got the beginning, then I've got this bit, then I've got this bit, then I've got the finale and I need to go okay, which is the first bit, that's, you know, yonatan and Craig, and the next bit's got more people, and then the next bit's really big, and the next bit's Yonatan and Craig again. So it's kind of like, ah, this makes all this all makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had no plan when I started the podcast to write the book. None at all. It was only the accumulation of everyone asking me if it was about bloody music that made me decide to go and put a book, write a book, which then I could go, no, but just read this book. But the book is.
Speaker 1:That's a a great way to inspire. Inspire an idea for a book which was actually I. I really enjoyed the premise of of the book. Um, also, like, as writers, we think about things often just in the three-act structure. I love, I love what you're describing as the fourth act just being this kind of revision of what happened. I often find the three-act structure to be unsatisfying and that's kind of the appeal sometimes is that it leaves you wanting more, but sometimes you want resolution.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I took a fat red Sharpie and I drew lines underneath it at the end of this book. That's it. That's that story over and done with, and then my editor being a pain in the ass uh basic because I was like, what should I do next?
Speaker 2:I don't know. You know I mean, if you're, if you've written anything, you've spent a lot of time working on something. I think you often come out of it sort of like when I spend 18 weeks training for a big marathon and you run it over the next couple of weeks you feel post-marathon blues. You need something else to think about because it's consumed you for all that time and a book consumes you for a year, sometimes more, and so you need something else to focus on, because you've spent so much time thinking about it, especially during the editorial phase, that you need something new. And I was like I can't think of anything to write now. I'm going to get depressed. And she said I'll tell you what I fancy. Torben, can you write more? And she was interested. She goes because you know we're not giving away any spoilers or anything, but not everyone. You don't have to go back to the Middle Ages If the apocalypse happened today. Not everything is going to go Mad Max, or you're not going to go back to Dung for Dinner and Bow and Arrows, so some people are going to actually thrive.
Speaker 2:We don't really see it in shows like shows. Like you know the walking dead and stuff like that, where you end up with like people wearing other people's skin and the trash, lunatics and all that rubbish, some people could just live well. I mean, the reason why I created that particular community was the high-end sustainability market has everything you need to survive regardless. You know water reclamation. You know, at a really excellent scale, decent hydroponics and and solar and all these other things that you could, you could put into your house now that if the whole electricity grid goes or the water water pipes will explode or what anything that happens, you know they would still be fine, and I think that there are.
Speaker 2:There would be communities that just absolutely thrive if you've got the right group of people, and I think they're quite selective uh, the knights of elysium, and so what I decided then and it's exciting, uh, news is that? Well, not news, because if you follow me, then you know I was going to do this anyway. I'm going to write two nights of Elysian books and one of how they all kind of get together as it's happening. It's a bit like fear, the walking dead. So it's happening as it's happening, and then they end up at Elysian and then Jonathan turns up the harbinger of Doom from the Undead Symphony. Undead Symphony. Why do I keep saying Undead Symphony?
Speaker 3:The Undead Symphony. It's finished. You just told us.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:It is just finished.
Speaker 2:Part one is up to that point and then part two would be how they as a community then deal with what they have to do in the Undead Symphony to help Yon thing with his war. So basically it's looking at it in two different angles and like this is them before making something brilliant and now this is them after having to deal with aftermath of the war. So I've got that. I'm working on the first one. I'm going to do it linearly, so I'll do the first one first. People like it. I'll do the other one first. People like it I'll. I'll do the other one.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, you should keep going. I always love an alternate perspective of the same story because there's just so much you can tell um from that from that point of view. So that sounds really exciting to me. But we got to get the basics here first. For those who have not read your book yet, we know that you've seen a lot of different kinds of zombies. Tell us about them. So all of them. Yes, tell us about your zombies and what, why you made the choice for the kind of zombie that you had in your book.
Speaker 2:I'm greedy, it's the equivalent. I lived in the States for 10 years and I sort of traveled all over it. At one point I went to this wedding in in Georgia, in Savannah in Georgia. I stopped at a Cracker Barrel. Have you ever been to a Cracker Barrel? Of course, yeah Cool. So I walked in a naive English guy I'm just there to do a speech at the wedding and then flirt and it's what you do. I don't know. I was young then and so I said I'll just have the breakfast special, whatever it was. And then this person will be this massive plate of food it was just like bacon and sausage links and huge mountain of of home fries and like funny breaks and you got the big breakfast special I'm doing this air quotes special and so basically I kind of struggled my way through just the bacon and eggs and then I kind of pushed it away.
Speaker 2:And then the same server came over with the same sized plate, but it had like a giant stack of pancakes and tons of fruit.
Speaker 1:Next, to it too.
Speaker 2:I went what is this? And she goes that's the rest of your special. I went this is not physically possible, anyway. So my point is that you could basically choose what you want to eat. So then I just poured tons of maple syrup on my pancakes and ate them. So I ate the bits that I wanted and I picked the bits that I cared about, and so when it comes to zombies, you know it comes down to that thing, you know, are they runners or are they shufflers? Are they dead or are they alive and are they infected?
Speaker 2:So I actually kind of prefer the infected humans, you know.
Speaker 2:So, basically, you can actually kill them and they will die, um, however, they may no longer have pain receptors, or they may, they may not no longer have, um, you know, the ability to speak, ability to think.
Speaker 2:They're just like base base emotion kind of thing, or base base human now, um, so what I wanted to do and this is what I said, I did actually do quite a lot of research for parts of this, like you know, the way that, the way that they farm in it and the way that he sort of like builds his weaponry and the way that the food goes off and all of these different things. I also researched the actual virus I created, which is like the pithos virus and what it does is based on the way it affects your body. It starts by making you progressively more and more angry, so it's kind of like the rage virus from 28 days later, 28 weeks later, 28 years later, um and so basically, you're going to be a running angry beating people to death with your fists infected can I tell you what I thought of when I first heard the pithos virus described just before my period?
Speaker 3:that that's what I thought of.
Speaker 2:I was like this feels familiar, the next person to ask me what were you thinking of when?
Speaker 3:you came up with the first one.
Speaker 2:This is self-reported with somebody who has a uterus, okay. But then I actually wanted both ends of the zombie spectrum. I wanted to go how about the 28 Days Later, know, the world war z, kind of running zombie infected. But then I kind of also wanted the shufflers because of other parts of the story. And so what I said is okay, natural dehydration, natural, um, rigor mortis, but not rigor mortis.
Speaker 2:But if you're not eating, you're not drinking, but the virus allows you to continue to exist. You literally just start turning into jerky, effectively. So, uh, but maybe jerky. So what I wanted is is really to create a virus that at the beginning will turn you into a rage monster running around, which is exciting parts of the story. But then also I wanted this whole mass of, I don't know, george A Romero-esque shufflers, but still alive, for other parts of the story. And so I just said I want a virus that gives me both. I wanted the eggs and bacon and the pancakes of zombies and that's what I created purely for the storytelling, because I I feel it would be limiting otherwise to either have them as just runners or just shufflers. Or when michael and I watch a movie, he goes hold on these were shufflers earlier and now they're runners. What does that mean?
Speaker 3:you know you have to have a good rationale.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna do, I think it makes so I created at the beginning this, the virus that do both, and so it allowed me the ability or the stretch of the imagination, if you wanted to do both and I could. Oh, this story, this bit of the story, let's just have them as shufflers. And I think there's one bit where he's putting gas into the Jeep, he's stolen and he's got screaming rage, monster runners at one side of him and he's got shufflers at the other. Because it allows you to then come up with a choice of don't want to go and try to fight those guys, that's fine, or don't just want to pop one in their head and then push the other ones over, because they're you know, they're just shufflers, you know, walking dead style shuffler. And it allowed me to do that. So, um, is it lazy? I wanted both. Or is it greedy?
Speaker 3:I wanted both, but, um, I think it allowed me to tell the story yeah, you did a good job of suspending my disbelief, because it was a virus, and it was just clear that this is a virus that mutates. There's different strains and the same thing, and that is, that's all kind of virus works yeah I mean the, the, in fact the.
Speaker 2:the biggest part of the story for me was obviously you know it's a revenge story and it was COVID, because COVID affected everybody and regardless of everyone's opinion on vaccines or whatever, it was a virus that went globally and was mishandled by many governments, mine included, and I watched in shock as my prime minister came up with slogans. So in the book.
Speaker 2:he was always using the slogan um, keep the borders open. The economy is the lifeblood of the country and that is the sort of bullshit they would give you and that was their justification of leaving the borders open so people who are infected could come in and out. And it was purely about money, because the people who own the prime minister owns big pharma. They own the pharma, they own the airlines, they own everything. So a lot of this book was the way that COVID was mishandled, and I sort of try to explain it with you know. Actually it's pretty much like it was in COVID. We had an app that told us how many people locally had the virus, and we had quarantines and we had lockdowns and we had tests that were false positive.
Speaker 2:We had all the things that happen in this book to do with the pithos virus we genuinely experienced during COVID. And in fact, during COVID, I remember thinking as I was doing you know, thinking, watching zombie movies and the like is if this was worse than a, you know, it was just a flu variant. If this was worse than just a flu variant, we would be fucked. Yes, because the idiots in charge are purely trying to make money for them and their buddies. You know, the health minister here gave a PPE contract to his old school chum who owns his local pub, who's got no experience with PPE at all.
Speaker 3:You're making me feel better about America. Well, I decided to purely focus it on here, no, I know, but I'm like oh, it's also, there's also scandal.
Speaker 2:That makes me feel better oh, and, to be fair, all of the stuff that happened in this, up to the point of you know, with this tiny little bit of extrapolation, but it all happened, all the all of the stuff that I list that the politicians did in this book actually, actually they did during COVID, albeit slightly differently, but we had slogans that was justification for keeping the borders open. We had excuses they decided to obfuscate the data because people didn't want to see it or it was wrong, and all these different things that, as you read the book, you're like, oh, that's really bad, it's making things worse. Yeah, it happened, and so it does. For me, it kind of had a quite personal grounding, which is why when I I started writing and thought you know, the zombies are the zombies, right, zombies for me in any of the zombie movies and stories and books are just a catalyst story to happen.
Speaker 2:They're an environmental hazard well, for it's more like we find a place to stay hunker down, but the story needs to happen and to move along. So the zombies are going to come through and knock our security down, set the place on fire. Some things do. It's just a catalyst for the next part of the story. So I wanted this story to be personal and to be about what is probably more true. And what was true is the politicians fucked up.
Speaker 2:And if I was in the same position as Yonatan and my family had been killed by an infected, would I blame the infected? No, the infected is just infected. It's just an animal doing what animals do. The person who put that infected in my house would be the person who made all these bad political decisions in the first place, and that's why the story became this quite unique. I think you know in zombie stories you don't want to get people going after other people. They normally just want to survive, and that's what I wanted it to be. This is actually a revenge story about a man who loses his family. It just happens to be in a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 3:And I really appreciate that his target is the prime minister and it was really clear. I could feel the parallels the whole way through with COVID. And sometimes we have really polarized perspectives from writers about whether or not stories should be political. Dan and I are definitely on the side of we love a strong political point of view in a story. What do you say to folks who say you know what politics should not be in the stories that we write and read?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't specify which political party they were.
Speaker 3:You didn't, no, but it was political in the sense of like. There was a message and a point of view.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes. But then, is it my perspective or is it the perspective of my, my character? You know it when, when they wrote the egan, you know, in the walking dead, is that their perspective or are they writing a character that's telling part of a story? Um, I'm okay with people having a uh, a political, um stance. You know, when we've all read, you know vonnegut, kirk, vonnegut jr and bakowski and everyone, these guys used to just spew what they believed politically. It's a personal thing.
Speaker 2:I think the problem with going purely really political, you know, on the left or right spectrum, is you can alienate other people. It is tricky. You can't keep your personal opinions out of it entirely, even if you do it subconsciously. I want to be more inclusive in my storytelling. I wouldn't want to turn someone off my storytelling, much like I wouldn't want to pick up someone's book and it's just all. You know, crazy. I'm not going to. I'm not going to add a list what I class as crazy politics. But the not going to list what I class as crazy politics, but the antithesis is what I believe and go. I'm not going to be there because you know it's a very small group of us and then we've got a very limited audience. That's overlapping. So don't try to just try to alienate people with something that's too that's too polarizing well, I think it's usually allegorical, right like it's it.
Speaker 3:Well, yours was. Obviously there was a clear connection to covid and that you could feel that throughout it was not actually covid and there was no mention of like um, I think it was Yanni mostly, but I guess Yonatan having like one affiliation to the other. In fact, he was very clear that he did not, but he did, very succinctly or you as the writer, pointed out real problems in our world and made some pretty strong statements that I really like resonate with. One of them was a standout quote for me where you said or sorry, yanni said, no one is going to make the decision to do the right thing if the alternative is to make money. Corporations, individuals, destroyed the planet for short-term gain, and then there's a little bit more there, but I'm just going to fast forward a bit through the paragraph. But the world has now reset. I have seen it. We are finally all equal, like. Those are the moments where I think folks will sometimes say we shouldn't have any of that in a story, but that feels real, um and it's true now.
Speaker 2:I mean, we mean, whichever side you are on on, for the, for the global warming, uh debate, I'm, I'm, I am quite on one side of it. Um, I believe that, um, that we got. I could say, the world is gonna. If we do x, the planet will be over in 50 years. But the men, the multi-millionaires and billionaires who own a company that creates x will continue making x literally, literally make their money I, I, oh, yeah, they've renamed it, yeah, um, however, it's that, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I mean, is that I've been that? That's it's our political stance? I don't know, it's, it's more from I, I, it's just the way I see things and it's also the way that if, especially if, you're in the apocalypse, you can, then I mean, actually he's doing this retrospectively and as as, as, also as the world is actually descending into, into chaos and society is, you know, coming apart, it seems that he can then say these things because he can say well, even up to the, you know, 11th hour, no one tried to stop this from happening. You know, and that's you know. It's the inconvenient truth of it all, isn't?
Speaker 3:it and it's the deeply. It's a deeply personal story because it results in the loss of his wife and kid, um, and the grief throughout the whole story and the stories of the memories that are always with him, from the beginning to the end, come sort of, come up every once in a while, are really powerful and like shows the motivation for why he has decided to have this vengeance, um and you. He definitely got me to agree with him. I was like, yes, go kill this guy, yeah, please, yeah, um, in the fictional sense only, absolutely 100, 100 and the, the.
Speaker 2:I think the issue for me was always that that's what his journey was going to be, but I needed other people to be in the story to counter it but also, you know, to to somehow ground yoni. Who could? You know at times, you know, yoni, yoni literally just walks through towns and kills everything that he sees, or just walks through a town, doesn't, you know, interact at all with anything there. And you know, because he's determined, um, that's some nasty shit too, uh, to people. Um, I think he kills more people than than infected. Um, but I wanted other characters in there who would act as a counter, and obviously I think he starts. I didn't want him hallucinating his wife and child. I didn't want him to have them as some sort of angel on the shoulder kind of thing. So I had to put a character in there that would act as some sort of conscience, and and craig acted as as some sort of conscience or they had to grow into that. Um, it's a secret, I actually killed him in the original um, you know when he basically because, because I think there's one point later on in the book where Yanni genuinely thinks that Craig is going to actually ruin his opportunity to complete his mission.
Speaker 2:And he actually does kill him and I had it like straight out strangling he's dead. Such a shame. Leave him by the side of the road, drive off, because that was the place where Yanni was at the time. It was kind of like very matter of fact getting things done and that was just a tick in a box. This idiot is going to stop me from doing my job. Killing tick and my editor went bananas. Absolutely she goes. You can't kill Craig and I was like why not, because my brother-in-law is called Craig?
Speaker 2:And I went that's not a reason for me to not kill him. And so I had to go back. And so I had to. I had to go back and I think it's I'll actually finished it at this point.
Speaker 2:And so I was like, and he'd he'd keep hallucinating Craig after that point it's sort of like the angel on the shoulder kind of thing, and, um, I think he also at one point even the the uh imaginary Craig even says and not your wife and child kind of thing, because that was something I wanted to deal with as well, because I wanted him to, because I think Yanni is becoming less and less the husband and father that he was at the beginning and he knows that. So he's kind of pushing himself away emotionally from who that person was the closer he gets to his goal. But yeah, I did kill Craig and then I didn't want to bring him back and have him survive. And then I had to because I was getting moaned at all the time, but I didn't. He may not survive because you know he kind of gets put somewhere and left Spoilers, although, to be fair, I actually do actually bring him back for the next book.
Speaker 1:Yay, so Craig's alright. That's very good Spoiler.
Speaker 3:There's a lot that's not all right without saying much more.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean and you're right, I think he changes Yanni and I wanted him to change over the four, the four acts as well from being kind of this hurting, still recovering thing, so he's going to meet his brother to actually life's actually kind of this hurting, still recovering thing, so he's gonna meet his brother to actually life's actually kind of okay in the zombie apocalypse to okay, now I'm in the zombie pocket saving all these other people to. I want to get back to what I want to do and that is kill the prime minister great now you can't get on an airplane, the way you just said.
Speaker 3:That reminded me of like when I first heard because, dan, you, well, you, uh, the earlier version, the first two, uh, the first two, and I listened to it when it was on um the Zompocalypse podcast and I you could do your own audio book, just putting it out there.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of it's a lot of effort, but you have a great voice.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I have a face for radio, as they say. It has crossed my mind several times. It is just so much effort and you know it's 120,000 words. You know, get one wrong you have to go back and start this section again, and it just makes me progressively angry and my voice changes depending on. You know how bored I am and or I'm watching something on TV or I've been talking to somebody else, and so even my inflection would be different during the course of it. It has crossed my mind, excuse me, choked to death there.
Speaker 1:Do we need to call an ambulance?
Speaker 2:Those peaches just didn't want to go down.
Speaker 3:Are you?
Speaker 1:sure they were peaches.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did shake it. It did sound like putrefied meat, but no, it was peaches.
Speaker 3:I have thought about it. There's a face I'm making every time you say putrefied meat. I had to get that on a t-shirt, but um putrefied meat? Okay, I will not be buying that anyways, I think that's excellent.
Speaker 2:It's zombie related. Um, yeah, so. So yeah, I have thought about doing the audiobook. It is just too much effort. I think I'd rather focus on the two Knights of Elysium books and get them out so the universe can expand and people can enjoy more Torben, and then maybe I will at some point. You know, I could do the damn brown and bring out Angels and Dem out angels and demons. No one reads it. Da Vinci code Everyone reads it, goes back and you know we works. He doesn't. Demons, again, I may do I. You know it's tempting, it's. It's just a lot of effort, I think, to do Unless I just pay someone to do it.
Speaker 2:I've kind of ag of agreed to do that. I could do it myself. It's like anything around the house. I could pay someone to do that. I just don't want to. I could do it myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could put shingles on the roof, no, but no, Although my 85-year-old grandfather did re-shingle his own roof and it was very upsetting to the entire family while he was doing it.
Speaker 2:You was very upsetting to the entire family while he was doing it.
Speaker 3:Well, he wouldn't be sitting. You shouldn't all be sitting there on lawn chairs. We were not. We were not. We were helping, but he refused to not be a part of it.
Speaker 2:Uh, that would be some.
Speaker 3:That'd be something to watch yeah, this is after the man had already fallen off a ladder a few years ago and broken his leg. So we were like what you gotta?
Speaker 2:do is you gotta position lots of those little you know children's trampol the house. So if he does fall off he just bounces back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what if he?
Speaker 3:bounces higher. That is something I wish I'd seen, honestly.
Speaker 2:Well, you need to clearly you need to tether him somehow. He can only bounce so high.
Speaker 3:All right. I feel like if this gets snuck somehow some roofing in your next story I'm not sure how you would do it. This gets snuck somehow some, um, some roofing in your next story.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure how you would do it, but I just I require a shout out in your thank you notes, if you include it uh, I I do believe the knights of elysium have a flat roof I was gonna say I don't think it'll work unless there's like, maybe, building a shed outside, but I I did want to talk to you a little bit more about your protagonist, um, and you mentioned that you think inclusion is important in your stories and it's really awesome how you make it a very clearly Jewish character who is really proud of their culture and aware of their place as a bit of a cultural minority inside of the UK. And I'm really curious to hear about your decision to do that and why you think it is that so often in the genre we're just defaulting to like Christian or secular protagonists.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's predominantly because the people who are writing them are Christian or secular. I'm Jewish. I'm part of a Jewish family, jewish community. A part of London I live in is particularly Jewish. In fact, gold is Green, which is five minutes up the road from where I live. If you threw a stone, you're guaranteed to hit one. So when it comes to it, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:Let's not do that.
Speaker 2:Can we even?
Speaker 3:make that joke. That was bad Sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll delete that.
Speaker 2:Don't delete it. I'm Jewish.
Speaker 1:I can make the joke.
Speaker 2:If I was in gold, as green as through a stone, I would hit a Jew. It's a very Jewish. It's not. It's not orthodox, you know. It's not big hats and curly four locks, it's secular Jews, you know. And so I am Jewish. I'm proud of the accomplishment of the people that I know and also it allows me to add elements to the story in particular.
Speaker 2:The Jewish story in particular is about being moved on and not having a place to stay. So obviously, israel and Judea and the Babylonians took us over and then they moved us away, and then the Romans and then the Greeks and before too long you're being dispersed throughout the world. And then you moved somewhere you think you're not. You're there and safe, like the uh, the safaris in in spain and portugal. They were there, but then spanish inquisition got rid of them all and and that's before we even get to the modern age and everything that happened with the Hoshua, so the Holocaust in the last century.
Speaker 2:But it has the elements that he's moving on from place to place, and the Jews who moved on from place to place, away from Israel and Judea and throughout the world, retained who they were and what they believed. Originally it was just priests in the temple and it became rabbinics. So we had rabbis who helped curate what everyone knew, and so everybody, as they moved around the world, had their faith and, regardless of, they've burnt our temple down again. Oh, it doesn't matter, we, we can worship at home, kind of thing. And and I wanted parts of the story anyway to have him rely on his faith because he, he knows this is what's happened to his people and they've had to move on and move on.
Speaker 2:And I think there was a bit when he's at, uh, bodium castle where they're expecting the soldiers to turn up and move them on again and he's like, well, we can move on again and we will survive and we will endure, because we we do human beings endure. And and I wanted him to endure, uh, but based on history and his understanding of his people, and I thought it was just an extra element to the story rather than you know, I think a lot of heroes they'll go. Oh, I'm going to dig in. You know, they're just about to be beaten by the bad guy, and then they have that last oomph, and then they we're fighting to the death.
Speaker 2:And then it's like you think they're going to die, and it's that you think they're going to die. And then, in slow motion, they stand up, a la Jean-Claude Van Damme, and do a roundhouse, even though they were dead a second ago.
Speaker 1:Stop describing my book.
Speaker 2:I apologize, but I did love that bit. I didn't like that, but yeah. However, I just wanted him to have depth and I think faith and knowing the history of of your people with if they're jewish or any, any of your, any of your history, gives your character depth rather than one dimensional. Doing the quotes toxic masculine christian baseball bat wielding m16, carrying hero john in brackets add something macho stone maybe, john stone I'm writing these notes down so.
Speaker 2:So to answer your question, I wanted to. I wanted to give him the depth and the complexity that you get by having uh pride in in your, in your lineage and your people I really loved it and I think we need, uh, more of that.
Speaker 3:Or like I love when people write from a perspective that is theirs and not this, just like white male power fantasy, that it's sort of this christian, secular christian well, sort of christian but also secular vibes, because I think, when you, when you did that, like it's not just depth but it is a reminder and Bodium Castle was also a reminder of this for me that, like we have as human beings, we are from different cultures, we have different histories and certainly some groups, and including Jews, have been directly and violently oppressed and still survived, and keeping that culture, I think, is part of what enables people to survive things. Because it's like we've already been through it, uh, been through an apocalypse. I'm sorry, I'm not jewish, I'm sounding like I'm sounding I'm I mean, we isn't humans.
Speaker 3:Um, I've been through it, that's fine it really reminded me, like just the fact that there was a castle that they actually used, um, and that there's this sense of history with yanni, of what people have already been through. And this is just another moment, this is another difficult moment, uh, that it is going to change again, and I think that that's an important thing to remember. When stuff is life is hard because it feels always like the end, like the apocalypse, but it's just a moment. I mean a lot of people die. I'm not trying to, but it's just a moment. I mean a lot of people die.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to say, you know, the 95 percent of people who were zombified? Yeah, exactly, but I wanted, I mean I, I wanted, I wanted it to seem, not not just with bodhi and cussed, but also with with the lesion that people will rebuild and people will will, and and it's it's uh, it's human nature to to endure. And again, the main character had this whole history and the personal elements of being Jewish and his history, which he could see in what everyone else was going through, because his people have been moved around the world forcibly and then thrived in some places. And even though they thrived in one place, they get moved on again, kind of thing, and it would happen again. And now it's happening to everybody.
Speaker 2:So he can sort of understand that these people are struggling, but it's not the end and uh, and that you know, I think that's why he wanted to stay with them as long as he could, or he was actually going to stay with them until, you know, he discovers what he discovers, whatever. Whatever it is that he discovers, what he discovers. Dun dun dun, dun dun dun. Whatever it is that he discovers, I think we need that long view.
Speaker 2:Well, it is, and I think, my issue always with the Walking Dead and it kind of happens in this book a bit. But even though he's gone and done his story, I actually left all of the other communities, the Freeman of the South, as they are. That whole giving things nicknames is a bit stupid. Now I think back on it, but it allowed me to group them and allows people to group them together. It's that they're thriving, they've created a community and they've created a town and they've got structure. And he tells them you need to give them a national holiday because it gives you something to look forward to and things like that, because people will continue to live and it's not the Middle Ages, we're not going back to dung for dinner. Let's retain things that keep us human and our humanity. And even though he goes and creates the rest of his story and does whatever, the other people are living and thriving and are a bigger community. Now, with teachers and doctors and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:I tend to find there's too much. There's no, there's no kids in the apocalypse, or there's no pets in the apocalypse and there's no old people or disabled people or anyone with special needs in in the apocalypse. They tend to just write it out because it's easy. It's too easy and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to keep as much in as possible because it's I wanted this to be realistic, I guess my point is and you can't say, oh, only the strong survive. That's a bit of a wanky thing, doesn't it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very wanky, if I may borrow that phrase.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But a lot of people will write only the strong survive. Yeah, and only the strong could mean anything. This person may you think. You know, my friend's son is 13,. Autistic, brilliant, absolutely brilliant child. If he survived maybe he's immune, but he would struggle by himself in the apocalypse but he would thrive in other ways. And I wanted to just make it realistic and have more of a breadth of people who survive. So I wanted communities that would survive, because communities would survive and they're not all going to look like, you know, woodbury or any of the bits from the Walking Dead which are just mad maxified.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that realism. I think I was reading recently about how there's evidence of our prehistoric ancestors doing things like if a child was born without, like, physically disabled, unable to walk, and yet this kid lives until it's mid-teens, which somebody took care of them, right? Somebody loved that person, and I the again. That like stereotypical version of the zombie apocalypse is so individualistic and so like only the strong survive that it's not real, and I also think it sends a shitty message about how we should be as a species and a people. So I appreciated that. One of my favorite moments was just yanni teaching some kids how to play uh, three blind mice by the castle that was lovely yeah the idea of it hurt my ears is oh yeah, you know, you know that's not sounding good yeah, yeah
Speaker 2:oh, exactly of all things, but we all had to do that as kids here. But there's this bit, I think there's a bit where he, he meets an old man and his son he's got a son who is, um, I think I gave him, I gave him Tourette's and and something else, but it would have been and yoni says I'm sorry, I can't save you, I can't help you, because they were too much of a risk at that point of the story to him. But then they actually made it to Bodium without you know, by themselves anyway, and I wanted those kinds of people in it. But not just they're going to end up dead, you know, they actually do survive, and in fact the old man is the father, is actually a chemist who's actually very useful at other things, and so I just wanted it again.
Speaker 2:It comes back to that inclusivity word, isn't it? I wanted to be inclusive and I wanted people to. I wanted it to be a breadth of people. You know, these are the people who could survive and it's not always going to be the same cookie cutter. You know, rick, grimes, clones, thank you. Sorry Rick, sorry Rick.
Speaker 3:No, we need more of this kind of book.
Speaker 2:And it's the kind of book that we enjoy reading and talking about on the podcast. So appreciate it, because it's it's the other ones that we just don't end up talking about on the podcast. It's it's not realistic, I'm sure. I'm sure they're good too. Yeah, stormy, they can't box box. Stone is um john stone, john stone, toxic, toxic, toxic john, stone, toxic john, if it's self-aware and making John Stone John Stone. Toxic, toxic. Toxic John Stone, toxic John.
Speaker 3:If it's self-aware and making fun of it like zombie verse, it's a self-aware, stupid movie. I'm here for it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, sort of like uh, duke Nukem was the computer game. You're literally just this idiot running around, you know being that, exactly, and just shooting pigs in the face.
Speaker 3:But if John Stone doesn't know that he's John Stone, I don't like it. That's what I take on Bridgerton.
Speaker 1:Exactly, community is how you survive the zombie apocalypse. And I kept on thinking about something that a previous guest, jl Draco, likes to say, which is it's not the survival of the fittest, it's the survival of the friendliest.
Speaker 2:Possibly.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, sometimes you've got to choose the other option.
Speaker 2:I think, something we often do in our podcast. We talk about the practicality of surviving the apocalypse. Don't leave the fucking door open.
Speaker 1:What's fucking wrong with you?
Speaker 2:Use door wedges. A lot of the stuff in this book again is practical survival advice. Yeah, and I wanted to do that. I often talk about this with my aunt and Brian, as well as Michael. It's like let's just be real here. Use padlocks, lock things up. You know door wedges under the doors kind of thing. Why it's simple.
Speaker 1:I was making notes. Survival tactics yeah, so many great ideas Like just carrying around extra door wedges in your pocket. Genius, it's genius. It's like it takes up almost no space.
Speaker 2:You can make them. If you don't have them, it would literally stop a door from opening. You know, even if the latch is gone, wedge that under the door. It's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:I also. I really loved the color coding of the padlocks and the keys. Yes, I thought that was the smartest idea and I'd never heard of it anywhere else.
Speaker 2:Like where do, where do your survival ideas tips um, often, often, often, being stupid myself, I've got a ton of keys in this drawer. What the fuck are they for? And if only I'd colour coded them, I'd know what the it's watching a lot of zombie movies, obviously, and you're just screaming at the door. How are these women wearing boob tubes and short shorts? And it's a blood borne scratch virus you've touched on another pet peeve.
Speaker 2:Yes, why, why, why are you leaving the door wide open when they're all over the place, kind of thing? And it's, it's a lot of shouting at the tv and going well, that's stupid, how would I get around it? Well, not wear a bra and the short shorts for a start? Um, but yeah, I mean the color coding thing was. You know, it's, it's you start thinking about the actual story.
Speaker 2:You know what would I do if I was in this story, and I'm very, I'm very, eye for detail. And so it's like well, I need to go, I want to stay in this house and I want to make it safe. Let's stop people from getting in, but let's also stop people from getting in the gate. Let's chain the gate up and let's lock it. The gate, let's chain the gate up and let's lock it, but what if I've got more than one lock? Blah, blah, blah. Um, and it was just that it was literally coming up with survival techniques to help yoni survive the the situation. And you know, there's there's some comedy in there that isn't necessarily practical, like the indian food thing but him getting the indian food, though, and all of their, you know their precautionary, you know the tactics they had of going from one door to the next.
Speaker 2:And then you know, and all of that stuff, um was again, let's be as ultra cautious as is humanly possible but still get, you know, still achieve our target and and and that's what I, that's kind of what I did, and you know, I'm not a survivalist. Um, I don't live in a bunker, I live in, I live in a rather leafy, expensive part, expensive part of london, um, actually his expensive part of london. And so I, it's just oh, if this happened, how would I? How would I stop that from happening? And it's just oh, if this happened, how would I? How would I stop that from happening? And it's just, whether it's right or not, I don't know. Um, I think door wedges I was actually going to that was the first merchandise that our podcast was going to create. It was a limited edition the undead symphony door wedges.
Speaker 3:If you're stuck, I'd buy one, I'd buy many I'd buy one, I'd buy many.
Speaker 2:You need to have like a pack of 20, exactly because they're cheap to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and then you put them in your backpack, did you? I want to know, have you tested the hugging the the toilet with the pillow?
Speaker 2:I haven't. Okay, I haven't. I'm kind of tempted to test it just to see if it makes a lot of noise. But I don't want my pillow to touch the toilet, so it's a conundrum that was just me leading up to the joke of whether you have, like you know, the regular flush or the mega flush, and and craig didn't want to die because of a mega flush um but that was actually that.
Speaker 2:That whole bit about the staying in the hotel room is. I I do travel a lot for the racing and and so I stay in a lot of those kind of hotels and and I'll tell you what it was. There was, um, there was a richish charlie brooker who did um. Uh, who does black mirror. Uh wrote a zombie store, a zombie show with riz akmed. Uh, who's in tons of stuff. Um called what was it called? Not called reality z? That's the oh, is that reality z? I?
Speaker 2:think that was brazilian yeah, the brazilian is the remake, so there's it's an english show. It's based on the tv show big brother um, which you know. It's just a reality show. You know. We get cameras watching people sharing a shared space for like weeks and we vote them off, kind of thing. And it was, it was that show and and they don't know the zombie apocalypse is happening until it's coming through the door at them. And the Brazilian version is much, much better, to be fair.
Speaker 1:But I was actually watching the Brazilian one.
Speaker 2:I was watching the Brazilian one, reality Z, again, they're also much prettier and the people as well as the zombies. And I was watching it and at the end one of the guys is the zombies are coming in and I was like, okay, how would I survive that? And if you got time because I think it was the non-street bathroom he was next to grab your duvet and pillow, run into the bathroom, lock the door, stick a door, wedge under it and now the zombies can go and kill everybody.
Speaker 3:Uh, because you can take a nap while they're doing it, yeah you, can you well?
Speaker 2:and I was thinking okay, so if I just run in the bathroom and close the door and lock it, I'm now in a bathroom. Okay, I can't have that story. However, the water's going to run out sooner or later, so quickly fill the bath, fill the sink, so then you've got water, which is the thing that's going to keep you alive the longest. And I thought okay, then grab the bedding. Okay, take the bedding in, and if you actually have time, take some food in too. And so Craig was, you know, managed to spend months in that toilet by himself. And then I did think about what's going to make this funny.
Speaker 2:Him not being able to use the toilet's going to make this funny, and so it was that, so I haven't tried muffling a hotel toilet whilst doing a mega flush but I may have to at some point.
Speaker 3:I think your next ultra marathon. Please report back.
Speaker 2:I actually have one. At the end of the month I'm staying in a Hilton, so I can actually try. I might even film it. Please do.
Speaker 1:Send it to you guys, Hi.
Speaker 2:I'm doing the mega flush experiment. One.
Speaker 3:This is a viral reel on Instagram for sure. Great way to promote the book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Very, very limited amount of zombie novel fans that are going to be watching me flush a toilet somewhere in Richmond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just have to make sure you put a wedge under the door too, so that you can sell merch Always, yeah, always. Bring a wedge under the door too, so that you can sell merch always have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always bring a wedge and I'll be.
Speaker 3:I'll be in my t-shirt that says putrid me on it you said putrefied, which somehow seems worse to me than putrid, even though it's yeah like it's intentional we want to putrefied. It's definitely putrid well, darren, this has been a lot of fun, and I'm just realizing that we are. We are hitting our time together today, so we want to make sure that our listeners know where to find you, your podcast, your books.
Speaker 2:Okay, the podcast you will find on all of the podcasting platforms because my hosting service puts it on all of them. For me, it's called the Undead Symphony. Actually, again, that's me being a bit lazy or smart that I picked the host that does that. Um, social media. Um, if you, if you go on to x? Uh, that's actually michael, not me, because I refuse to deal with that particular south african. Um, agreed, instagram. Um, I am on instagram. I am the instagram for the undead symphony. Um, I don't mind dealing uh with zuckerbug, uh, because I don't personally do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that for now, uh the book.
Speaker 2:The book is available via via kindle, uh direct, so it's actually on amazon. So if you want to buy the book, it's on amazon, it's actually also on kindle and if you have kindle unlimited, I believe it's free for you I will double check that because I got to read the beautiful physical copy that we got.
Speaker 2:So and I am too, other the physical copy. Just before before we go, I did create a different cover, but that was sort of silhouettes of the story on the and it was. On the background was actually a, a piece of old musical manuscript of a symphony, but it just didn't look right. So you know, you go on Shutter Shock AI, tell it what you want, you hire somebody on Freelancer to put it all together for you and bam, you got a good looking book. There you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really well done. Yanni looks terrifying to me in this, but in a good way, like he's gonna go kill a prime minister?
Speaker 1:yeah, he looks like he's on a mission well, this has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad we finally got to do this. I feel it's funny. I'm sure you hear this all the time, but as a podcaster, I feel like I've talked to you before because I've listened to you um, but it was great to actually have a conversation. So thank you so much for coming on and looking forward to the future books too.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much. It's been, it's been a pleasure talking to both of you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, thanks everybody. Thanks, darren, but also thanks everybody for listening to the zombie book club podcast. Also, you can check out the undead symphony podcast. It's out there. You can find it Same place.
Speaker 1:This podcast is wherever you listen to that. If you want to support us, you can leave a rating, a review. You can leave Darren a rating or a review. I'm sure Darren would really appreciate that, as would we Get us both at the same time. Just have them in separate screens and just cut and paste the same exact one. You can just write one. Be like they were both great. That's the end.
Speaker 1:Excellent zombie podcast no notes excellent zombie chat, five stars if you want to, you could send us a voicemail up to three minutes, no longer than that, no more than three minutes, but also, you know, you can make it shorter than that too. That's fine. I'm at six, one, four, six, nine, nine, zero, zero, zero, six. It's like a burner phone, like we're selling drugs in the 90s. Um. You could also sign up for our newsletter and uh, like we're selling drugs in the 2020s and uh, you could stay in touch with us that way. Or just follow us on instagram at zombie book club podcast, or join the brain muncher Zombie Collective Discord. All those links are in the description down below, where there's also a way to leave a rating and review. All of it's down there.
Speaker 3:And the Undead Symphony is also hanging out in the Collective Discord. It's a fun place. Come join us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come and join us. The end is really nigh these days.
Speaker 3:It is at least for this episode. Alas, it was great to talk to you.
