Interview with Martyn Waites
Summer 2003

Jon: Little Triggers, Candleland, Mary’s Prayer; these are some very visual titles. Do you decide on titles before you write the book or after?

Martyn: It's a bit of both, really. Some writers just start writing and think of the title later. Some get the title then the book follows. If anything I veer towards that camp. Or at least come up with a title and make it fit into the story somewhere. The titles are all song titles. Mary's Prayer was a hit for a Scottish band called Danny Wilson in the late Eighties, Little Triggers was an album track on Elvis Costello's This Year's Model and Candleland was the title of Ian MacCulloch's second solo album during his Bunnymen hiatus. Born Under Punches, the new book, is a song by Talking Heads off their Remain in Light album. And the novel I'm working on at the moment is called The White Room - a hit for Cream in the Sixties before Eric Clapton became the tedious bloke he is now. The novels themselves may not fit the feel of the songs themselves, or the themes of the song, (for instance, Little Triggers was Elvis' first stab at Country and Western and Born Under Punches is a huge, sprawling art-funk workout) but they do have a certain linguistic resonance for me which I like to think I've appropriated well. And yes, I do trawl through my old record and newer CD collection looking for titles I can steal. I want to use Love Like Blood, the old Killing Joke song, at some point but my old editor says that books with the word love in the title don't sell to men. Although I really think I'll have jumped the shark if I have to resort to using that old, perennial Motorhead favourite, Die You Bastard.

Jon: When I saw Ian Rankin this spring I asked him to recommend some authors, and the only person he mentioned was you. He said if we liked his books, we would love yours. So, that being said, how would you describe your work?

Martyn: That's inordinately kind of him. Is this the lengths he'll go to to get me to buy him a drink? When I wrote Mary's Prayer, I wanted to try and appropriate the American noir style but set in a contemporary city in Britain to give it added resonance to myself. So I suppose it was a very deliberate attempt to create a Brit Noir novel. As my work has progressed, it's encompassed a lot more social issues and even political ones. Where I come from, Newcastle, there's a very natural confluence between art, social issues and politics and my work fits into that very well. I've been variously described in reviews as 'the new Dickens' or 'George Orwell crossed with NYPD Blue' (I've also been described as 'Mickey Spillane on a bad day' but we won't dwell on that), so I suppose that's how it's evolved. It's been pointed out that I'm a writer with a social conscience which is usually the kiss of death to any career and an indication to stay away from bookshops in droves. I don't think that's true as that's a tag which is very difficult to live up to. It makes me fell I should be spending my time saving whales and rainforests (or saving whales in rainforests, even) when really you're more likely to find me down the pub or playing with the kids or at a gig. It makes me sound worthy, dull and preachy and I hope I'm none of those things. I write novels, something for people to read on the train or in the garden. Yes, I want a reader to at least consider the issues I've put forward, but I also want them to be entertained and transported by the story, care about the characters and (hopefully) enjoy my use of language. I didn't want to be a kind of 'issue of the week' writer but I do write about things that get me angry which is why my books touch on things such as child abuse, poverty, social inequality, homelessness and AIDS. Laugh a minute. Born Under Punches is a novel which examines cause and effect - how the choices and decisions (or absence of them) made by one generation impact on the next - taking the miners strike of 1985-85 as an example. And it's a thriller. It's not worthy, preachy or dull. Honest.

Jon: I understand you are spending a lot of time in prison lately. What’s the story behind that?

Martyn: Ah, it's my day job. Or one of them, anyway. I'm currently Writer In Residence in HMP Chelmsford. Before I became an actor, way back in the Eighties, I used to teach drama to teenage ex-offenders in Newcastle. It was a job I wasn't qualified for ( I blagged my way in to it) but something I was eminently suited for. I loved it and wanted to do something similar. About three years ago I was offered a residency in Huntercombe Young Offenders Institution to work with juvenile offenders. I jumped at the chance and stayed there working two days a week for two and half years. I absolutely loved it and hope to go back there and do some more work with them. Prison, if you've never been inside one, is a very intense environment. It deals in heightened extremes so the slightest triumph is magnified, but then so is the slightest upset. It confirmed every prejudice I ever had about the inequality and arbitrariness of the judicial system but at the same time made me want to stay and work there all the more. I try to use writing as many things in my groups in prison. As a tool for advancement, for therapy, for art, for fun. So much of the prison regime is geared towards not thinking, not expressing, not creatively communicating, so I try to change that. For some people it's the first time they've actually expressed themselves and be listened too. As one guy in one of my writing groups said to me yesterday, 'I wish I'd done this years ago. I wouldn't be in here now.' But I don't do this as some touchy feely liberal. I know there are some people who should be kept in prison, hopefully for the rest of their lives, (and I know this first hand because I work with them) but for the majority it isn't the case. It's the old Eddie Bunker maxim - if you weighed what was done to them with what they had done, it would be interesting to see which way the scales tipped. After two and a half years I thought I'd done my time (so to speak) with the juveniles so moved to an adult prison where I am now. I love it. It's also led to other things: working as a mentor to local unpublished writers, hoping to knock their novels into publishable shape and working one to one with a fourteen year old boy in care who's excluded from mainstream education but a very talented writer. Being given a chance to actually effect a positive change in someone's life is a real privilege. And I haven't tired of telling the kids to answer the phone by saying, 'Daddy's not in at the moment, he's in prison.'

Jon: What is it about Newcastle that makes it a great place to write about? Quite honestly, the only thing I know about it is that A really liked drinking Newcastle Brown Ale.

Martyn: As I said earlier, it's one of those places where art, social issues and politics converge in a very natural way. It's an ex-industrial area which has struggled to reinvent itself as a service industry area. It has the largest proportion of call centres in the country (or had until recently) because apparently people find the accent very reassuring and pleasantly lilting. Apart from mine, of course. It also has quite a flourishing arts scene with Baltic, a new contemporary art gallery, attracting the kind of cross-class audiences that Tate Britain could only dream about. Very accessible, very un-elitist. Physically, it looks like a film noir city. Parts of the quayside could double for Brooklyn in the Forties. There's the football team, Newcastle United, which has the most fervent support of any team in the country (myself included) and it's been voted one of the best party cities in the world, along with Vegas, Rio and Dublin. And there's the Newcastle Brown Ale. Hate the stuff myself , but there you go.

Jon: For people who haven’t read your series yet (what ever their excuse may be), who the hell is Stephen Larkin, and why do we want to know what he’s up to?

Martyn: Stephen Larkin is a burnt out investigative journalist. Although I don't employ a first person narrative, he's the man-camera protagonist through which events are filtered through to the reader. When we're first introduced to him in Mary's Prayer he's a pretty miserable, misanthropic lost soul. With good reason, admittedly, as he's lost his wife and son through his own actions. Each book, however, sees him go through some kind of personal journey where he slowly regains his ability to interact with others and even find himself, as it were. He only plays a supporting role in my fourth book, Born Under Punches and he's not in The White Room at all. Am I killing him off? Am I getting rid of a potentially lucrative franchise? I don't know. I just knew it was time for me to write some other stories. So I did.

Jon: Who are some of your favorite authors? And why?

Martyn: How much time have you got? Talking about my favourite authors is probably my second favourite hobby (after talking about myself). There are loads. My favourite writer of all time is probably Graham Greene. He did it all, crossed boundaries and genres as he felt like it. Even his duff books are worth reading. Then there's the usual crime lot: Hammett, Chandler, MacDonald (Ross, that is), Jim Thompson etc., through to Pelecanos, Woodrell and Sallis. Mostly, I don't read crime novels, so outside of Greene my all time faves: Hubert Selby Jr, Nelson Algren, John Fante, Charles Bukowski, James Lee Burke (I LOVE James Lee Burke) and Russell Banks. Of the contemporary British writers, the two who I find most interesting are Neil Cross and David Peace. As far as graphic novels go: Brian Azzarello is something of a genius. But then so is Will Eisner, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison . . . I can go on for hours . . . Anything to avoid writing the next book . . .

Jon: You said that Greene is probably your favorite author. Just last night my wife and I watched The Third Man, which he wrote. Have you had an aspirations to write for films?

Martyn: Well, I kind of have and I kind of haven't. I'd like to write for films if it was straightforward - ie, you don't have to do the soft shoe shuffle round producers offices and prostrate yourself before them in order to get something made. I couldn't be doing with that. I've got an idea at the moment that I may write up as a film treatment or it may be the next novel after the one I'm currently working on. What I'd like would be to get in with a like-minded group - a producer, a director - where we could all work together. Rather like the Trainspotting/28 Days Later crew. I've got someone in mind as a director and we often talk about working together, but it's a question of us both being in the same place at the same time. If I've got a deadline he's doing nothing, or conversely, if I'm doing nothing he's working at the National Theatre. Or even worse, we're both busy.

Jon: I've noticed a similarity in a lot of the crime novels from the UK. The protagonists usually drink a lot, have a sense of humor about themselves and others, and they also have a touch of tragedy and sadness to them. I think this makes them much more human than a lot of the American protagonists. Why do you think UK writers have that ability? In person all the same writers seem to be pretty happy people.

Martyn: Yeah, but my wife wouldn't agree with you! (And neither would Mark Billingham's - they get together and talk, you know. Swap 'miserable bastard husband' stories.) An ex-editor of mine said something similar after I'd handed in my second novel, Little Triggers, which concerns a paedophile ring and child abuse, "He's always so cheerful when he comes into the office." She wasn't there when I was writing it, mind. I think it's probably something to do with that famous English reserve (not that I've ever considered myself English), I suppose. We get it all out on paper and can live happy, fulfilling lives. Supposedly. Either that, or it's the way we really see ourselves but the PR people won't let us be like that so we put on a happy face for promotional purposes. If we were miserable it wouldn't sell as many books. John Connolly, bless him, once famously described me as 'the nicest man in crime fiction, if not the world'. It's hard to have something like that to live up (or down) to so I try not to.

Jon: You mentioned some graphic novel writers in question 6. Did you read comics as a kid? And on the same subject, would you like to meet Alan Moore, or do you think he's as scary as his pictures?

Martyn: I read comics as a kid and still do now. I like to think that, as I've matured, so have my reading tastes, but sometimes that's not true. I still like to peek at Batman on the shelves and do buy the occasional Batman graphic novel. In fact, writing Batman would be my dream job. (If anyone from DC is reading this . . .) But yes, I devoured comics by the truckload when I was a kid. More so than novels. I still read graphics - Will Eisner is my all time fave and, as I said earlier, Brian Azzarrello writes stuff that leaves me gasping. 100 Bullets is wonderful. It should be read by anyone with even the remotest, passing interest in crime fiction. I've met Alan Moore a couple of times. He's not that scary although he's probably got Japanese airmen who don't know the Second World War's over still living in his beard and hair. I met him at a comic store in Birmingham in the Eighties when he was doing a signing and I was trying to do anything but go to college. Very funny bloke (as in genuinely witty) and, of course, a bit of a genius. I met him again at an arts event in Birmingham where he talked about his great plan that would revolutionize the future of the comics industry - Big Numbers. Yes . . .

Jon: It's obvious that you really love music. Who are some of your favorite acts?

Martyn: Well I have to say Mercury Rev because I'm listening to them as I'm writing this. I'm a huge fan of The Flaming Lips. I honestly think you're life isn't complete until you've seen them live. I know my life won't be complete until I get in that pink rabbit costume onstage with them. They write the most beautiful music. It makes your heart soar and moves you to tears with the beauty of it all. I've never heard anything so life-affirming. And all the songs are about death. Go figure. I'm also a huge fan of Tom Waits. A true iconoclast. Johnny Cash, REM, Sparklehorse, The Willard Grant Conspiracy, The Go-Betweens, Steve Earle, Nick Cave, Springsteen, Ryan Adams, Morrissey. Loads of stuff. Plenty of Cuban music too. And of course, Elvis Costello. The top man. Got all his albums, see him on every tour. Can quote him chapter and verse, and do on many occasions.

Jon: Have you ever been a musician?

Martyn: Not a successful one. I was once bass player in a band called Dennis who split up on stage mid-song when I had an arguement with the lead guitarist and he stormed off. I stayed with the lead singer and, together with an ex-Hawkwind guitarist, formed a glam punk band called Pin Up. We were well into the whole New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers thing. The only time in my life (apart from on stage in panto) when I've willingly worn eyeliner and crimped and backcombed my hair. God, I looked a sight. Derek, the lead singer, kept most of the band together, renamed themselves Gin Sling and had a couple of minor hits in a kind of sub-Motley Crue kind of way. They broke up because they couldn't stop sleeping with each others girlfriends then having fights about it. I by that time had cut my hair, affected a miserable look and became half of an early Eighties synth duo called Tractors Are Go. The other half is now chief architect with Gateshead Council in the North East of England. And he's still trying to live it down. Then we decided to become a full band, recruited some others, and became The Fire Escape (I think - things go a bit hazy at this point). Then I left to go to drama school and seek fame and fortune as an actor. The keyboard player told me recently how great my songs were and they still played them after I left. He also told me how much better the band became after I left. So there you go. It wasn't to be. But the urge is still there. After a couple of drinks I want to get the guitar strapped on . . .

Jon: Did Born Under Punches require a different kind of research or writing than your previous work?

Martyn: Yes, a lot more. Because I was dealing with a very specific point in recent history, the miners' strike of '84-'85, I had to make sure my facts were correct. It was much more specific. I also went to the places I was writing about, soaked the whole area up. The earlier books were done with a few facts a figures to back me up but mostly out of my head. The facts in Born Under Punches are spot on. My new book, The White Room, is even more researched as it revolves around real people - T Dan Smith, the corrupt ex-leader of the city council for Newcastle Upon Tyne in the Sixties and the child murderer Mary Bell. Hard work. I think I'll go back to making it up after this.

Jon: What is something that is guaranteed to make you laugh out loud?

Martyn: The Simpsons. Undoubtedly. And Steve Martin. Especially his early stuff. In fact (with the exception of Bowfinger) only his early stuff.

Jon: Here's a weird scenario. BBC is running out of ideas and wants to film a series like Survivor only they want to use crime authors on the island. Who do you think should be on the island, and who would win?

Martyn: Any of the, really. Stella Duffy, because there needs to be one person shouting orders to the rest, and Stella excells at that, Val McDermid, because he's very good at organising (she did this year's Harrogate festival), Mike Ripley because he can find a bar ANYWHERE, John Connolly because he's good company. But not me. Definitely not me. Stella would probably win. Because she's good at things like that.

Jon: Are there any pictures of you from your music days, and who do I have to pay to get them?

Martyn: I think there are some pictures but I'm afraid I don't have any of them. I remember someone showing them to me (and God, they looked ridiculous) but was really into the whole 'being an artist' thing and thought that publicity was part of the bougeouis capitalist society, and stifling me as a frankly stupid looking individual. So I haven't got any. Sorry. Usually my mother keeps things like that (photos, reviews, interviews, etc) but even she hasn't got any of them. She would be open to bribes, though. It's a shame, she's missed out there.

Jon: This may be a weird question, but what the hell, Any idea why I can't sleep more than three or four hours a night?

Martyn: If it's anything like over here over where you are, probably for the same reason I can't. The heat. Although I have trouble sleeping in general too. Usually the stress of bringing in a book as good as I want it to be in the time given before a deadline keeps me awake. Or wondering where the next cheque is coming from. And what I have to do to get it. Take your pick from that lot!

Jon: You've also done some acting. Anything that I might have seen?

Martyn: That depends. I've done blink-and-you-miss-me parts in Inspector Morse (copper), Spender (villain), The Bill (one or the other, can't remember) and other stuff which you probably haven't seen in the States. I've done loads of commercials but only for the UK and tons of theatre. The only thing I've done for American TV is an episode of The New Adventures of Robin Hood for Warner Bros. That was a great laugh. I was dressed in leathers, Lycra and a long, dark wig. I looked like a pre-surgery Cher. I played a wrestler called Vincent who had a judo fight with Friar Tuck. The director used to be Ron Ely's stunt double in the Tarzan TV series. It was filmed in Lithuania, a country with more stunning girls per square foot than probably any place else in the world. And cheap. Dead cheap. But then so was the series. John Bradley played Robin. You'll never hear of him again. It was one of the best filming experiences I've ever had, totally surreal, and probably the only time in my life when the words 'Guest Starring Martyn Waites' will grace a TV screen.

Jon: Is it true that you have no hobbies?

Martyn: Absolutely. I mean, I read, watch TV, go to the cinema, but that's all from a writer's or an actor's point of view. It takes a hell of a lot for me to switch off and just enjoy stuff. I can't do it, can't reach that kind of waking dream state thing you're supposed to be in. It all feels like work. I mean, I'm interested in the old pulp writers but I don't consider that a hobby. I feel it as some kind of duty to honour writers who weren't properly honoured in their lifetime (admittedly some with good reason) by keeping reading their books. Keeping their memory alive. And I love going to live gigs. But that's not a hobby. Just a way of life. If I want to try to relax I drink, eat with friends, or play with the kids. And watch Newcastle United, my football team. But that's not a hobby. That's a religion.

Jon: What was it like reading the first reviews of your first book?

Martyn: It was great reading the good ones. And since they were all pretty much good, I enjoyed it. I still do if they're good. It was also a blast seeing the book in the bookshops. It's funny though, it's never the good reviews you remember as much, it's always the bad ones. And I've had some bad ones. I've had some good ones too, but I've had some bad ones. One of my books was described as the kind of thing Mickey Spillane would have knocked out on a bad day, and there was one in a British crime magazine called Crime Time that had the reviewer incoherent with rage. At least I think he was incoherent with rage, perhaps he was just illiterate. It's equally great when you get that kind of reaction too. Any kind of polarization, good or bad. It means you've struck a chord, that you've got some kind of reaction out of a reviewer rather than indifference.

Jon: Are there any deep hidden secrets about you that no one knows but you'd be willing to share now?

Martyn: I was once a member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. If you can't remember (or don't want to be reminded) what Doctor Who was, it was a BBC programme from the Sixties and Seventies that concerned an eccentric time traveller floating round the universe in a police box battling various paper-mache and rubbersuited baddies, assisted by a selection of pneumatic 'assistants'. I'm sorry. I was very young at the time. And when you were a kid growing up where I grew up, it was either that or nicking cars and joyriding. So, since I've never been into cars much, Doctor Who it was.

Jon: What would you say would be the hardest part of being friends with you, and what would be the coolest?

Martyn: I'm terrible at keeping in touch. I used to work in a marketing company for a few years, manning phone lines and I consequently have a real aversion to using the phone now. I never answer it at home, leaving it for the answerphone or one of the family to get. I do mean to get in touch with people but I often can't bring myself to pick up the phone. It's a real phobia. Maybe I should seek treatment. On the plus side, I suppose I'm a good laugh. And I always get my round in.

Jon: What's the one thing always in your refrigerator?

Martyn: I was going to say fresh air, but I do go the supermarket sometimes so that wouldn't be true. Milk, definitely. And cheese. I'm a big cheese buff. And things to make sandwiches with. Interesting sandwiches. I think there's a real art to making sandwiches so I always keep interesting meats and pickles, mustards, cheeses, bits of salad stuff and faffy bread around. Gourmet stuff.

Martyn Waite’s Books:

Mary’s Prayer (1996?)
Little Triggers(1998)
CandleLand (2000)
Born Under Punches (2003)