97 The Fifth Beatle Guest Post by Author Scott Nicholson + Kindle Giveaway

The Fifth Beatle

By Scott Nicholson

http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com

On the way to my international-bestselling writing career, I did a warm-up act as the most famous international rock star the world has never known.

Yep, I did the guitar thing.

I was a late bloomer, not picking up an instrument until my freshman year of college, when I hung around with a few people who played and suddenly realized that rock stars got chicks. Well, it wasn’t just rock stars, it was dudes with guitars. Any guitar would do. I signed up for a classical guitar class but dropped out after one session when the instructor gave me 20 pages of sheet music to memorize in a week, not realizing I couldn’t read music.

So I cashed in my financial-aid check and got an electric guitar, finding it much easier to get stoned, crank up the volume knob to “11,” and let distortion ripple throughout the universe. Plus you could put words to rock music.

My first band was “Bad Acid,” a dorm-room improv act that luckily never had a gig. I then dropped out of college and joined a “real” band, Direct Osmosis, playing bass and doing some vocals. Over the course of a few years, I learned rudimentary drums and keyboards, since I always had the band practices and gear at my house.

The Friars was the band that had the most success. I wrote a lot of songs, ranging from quirky, sardonic pop to quirky, sardonic rock. It’s the type of music I guess they call “college rock” now, and the thing that was the most fun about it--eclecticism--was also the thing standing in the way of building an audience. We played regional gigs for a few years but didn’t know how to take those next steps into getting recording contracts, groupies, eight nights of shows a week, and comparisons to the Beatles and REM.

I was never interested in learning cover songs, which probably didn’t help build a stable of bar gigs. Just making up songs is a lot more fun, though it’s often a tougher sale unless you dedicate every waking moment to pursuit of success.

In retrospect, it’s just as well, because I wouldn’t have liked that lifestyle as a long-term creative endeavor. I did like recording and probably wrote 500 songs, though I never made polished master recordings of everything. This was before the digital age was prominent and I usually just made sketches on four-track tape, though I have preserved a few mp3s of the songs, like my anti-Satanic song Circle of Flames. Electronic doodles.

I still pick around on guitar and write the odd acoustic tune here and there, but find my time and energy are best spent on writing. But I also still take a break from the keyboard once in a while and go downstairs and jam out something like “Heart Like Vaseline” or “River of Naked Need.”

As they say, don’t quit your day job.

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The Red Church on sale for 99 cents, or get your signed paperback directly from the author for $8.95 at Haunted Computer. For every book of mine that hits the Top 100 during the tour, I will throw in an extra Kindle 3 giveaway. Tell your friends. Amaze your neighbors. Shock your therapist.

Scott Nicholson is author of 12 novels, including the thrillers Speed Dating with the Dead, Drummer Boy, Forever Never Ends, The Skull Ring, As I Die Lying, Burial to Follow ,and They Hunger. His revised novels for the U.K. Kindle are Creative Spirit, Troubled, and Solom. He’s also written four comic series, six screenplays, and more than 60 short stories. His story collections include Ashes, The First, Murdermouth: Zombie Bits, and Flowers.

To be eligible for the Kindle DX, simply post a comment below with contact info. Feel free to debate and discuss the topic, but you will only be entered once per blog. Visit all the blogs on the tour and increase your odds. I’m also giving away a Kindle 3 through the tour newsletter and a Pandora’s Box of free e-books to a follower of “hauntedcomputer” on Twitter. Thanks for playing. Complete details at http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/blogtour.htm