The NME once described John Moore as being on 'a lifelong mission to corrupt the nation's youth'. Starting out as drummer with the Jesus and Mary Chain (where he replaced Bobby Gillespie), he later smuggled smut into the mainstream pop charts as a member of Black Box Recorder, alongside his then-wife Sarah Nixey and Luke Haines. Further cementing his notoriety, he was responsible for reintroducing absinthe to the UK.
Now, Moore has turned his hand to fiction, with his novel Bad Light. Bad Light is the story of George Carstairs, a man who is tired of London, and, naturally, tired of life. Driving away from the city, he has no direction in mind. Listening to the radio, he hears the news that England have won the Ashes, and in a brief moment of euphoria, he crashes his car. Waking up, he finds himself in the mystical village of Ebury Percy - a village of witches, hidden by magic, sanctioned by Winston Churchill for their part of foiling Nazi invasion plans.
Bad Light has been described as 'Dad's Army led by Aleister Crowley'. It is currently 25% funded via Unbound Books, publisher of The Wake, one of the best books of 2014. Pledgers can receive rewards ranging from digital copies of the novel to one off artworks, rare vinyls, and lessons on the musical saw. For more information, go to the Unbound website.
- How would you sum up Bad Light, for someone reading about it for the first time?
Bad Light is the ultimate airport novel, if you were flying from Croydon Aerodrome in 1932. It is an English Magical realism story of a man, living in the wrong era, who crashes his car off the M4 and finds himself in paradise. It has been suggested that it is no more than a thinly veiled psychological cry for help from the author, giving voice to his troubled soul and sexual fantasies....this is rubbish! Bad Light is a skilfully crafted fable of tradition versus modernity, greed versus generosity, bullying versus heroism, and real ale versus white wine spritzers. It is the tale of a hidden, magical village that goes to war...a psychic Dad's Army.
When it reaches the silver screen, as it soon will, expect to see Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton, Timothy Spall, Charles Dance as Father Deverell, Steve Pemberton as Jack Skuttle, and Daniel Radcliffe as George Carstairs. It will be hailed as the saviour of the British film industry. There will be no CGI.
- The NME said you were on 'a lifelong mission to corrupt the nation's youth' - how does Bad Light fit into that?
Enrich! Enrich! Well, It does sometimes seem that way, but it's not true. All I have ever done is try to alleviate my own boredom. I have been fortunate, in that one or two things have come off, Black Box Recorder and Absinthe, mainly, which although hardly making any money, allowed me to continue along the dual carriage way of excess towards the palace of wisdom roundabout.
- When did you begin work on Bad Light?
Now there's a loaded question. I began writing late one September’s afternoon, after England had won the ashes, at The Oval, and my tenure in the marital home had expired. Bad Light had stopped play in both cases. It was quite a momentous day, one way or the other.
- The extract published on the Unbound website hints at witchcraft, magic, and satanism - is this indicative of a long term interest in the occult and macabre for you?
Well, I wouldn't say I was one of these borderline personalities that crops up on Channel 5 documentaries getting rather excited at murder scenes, but I do love a bit of occult. I like its naughtiness, it is generally some terrible old miscreant who manages to persuade local ladies to get naked in the woods. I like graveyards and skeletons, and tales of witchcraft. The idea of spiritualism is hugely appealing to me, not whether the astral plane really exists, but the fact that so many people believed it did, and could be fooled into believing that a sheet of muslin soaked in egg white, pulled out of a medium's bodily cavity on a piece of string, might actually be the ghost of their husband.
I do believe in certain kinds of magic, and have experienced some very strange, and unexplainable...if you rule out drugs and alcohol, phenomena. I do not have a pentagram on the floor, no black metal records, and I do not smear myself with bats blood and dance naked in the moonlight, very often.
- You've previously been part of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Black Box Recorder, as well as recording your own solo work - how does the way you've approached writing your novel differ from the experience of working in a band?
Well obviously it is a solitary experience, whereas being in a band is a joint venture. Not wishing to give away or diminish the secrets of the songwriter, you can bang out a song in five minutes, or certainly the main body of one, whereas the novel requires a bit more preparation. Also, people are generally of the opinion that I write good songs...they might not be popular, but they are something, and those I foist them on for ego massage, usually say nice things about them and don't suggest changing this bit, or adding something else. With the novel, everybody is a bloody writer, and think it would work better if this happened, if that happened earlier, and if it was ten thousand words shorter...and the problem is, they're almost always right.
- What's your writing day like?
Oh dear, you've asked the wrong man. It depends where the old mood is at. With Bad Light, it was quite intense. I wrote in five hour stretches..which seemed to last fifteen minutes. I was lucky enough to write much of the first draft at home...my mother's home that is, having been sacked from the martial home, and she would bring cups of tea, reheat cold ones - we're great recyclers, and leave plates of sandwiches by the door. With subsequent drafts, I was left to my own devices, and the comfort levels dropped somewhat.
Taking today as am example...I am writing to you, so it counts, I woke up early, went back to sleep, woke up late, made coffee, smoked roll ups...Actually present tense, I am and will be for some time to come, still in my dressing gown. I am actually mulling over a novel at the moment, so will think more than write, which may well involve a walk up to Hampstead Heath to the bench which bears my name...it's another John Moore, but we share it.
- Who are your favourite modern writers?
Well, if you mean modern as in, still breathing, I'd have to say not many. I very much enjoyed the last Howard Jacobsen, and I am rather partial to Will Self, although he is so prolific that I need to do some catching up. I tend to read HG Wells novels and short stories, early twentieth century dystopia is where it's at. I love the dusty collections of ghost stories and detective stories, readily available in most chazzos ( youth slang for charity shops.) My flat is filled with books, so by John Waters' reckoning, if somebody comes back to it, I am going to get very lucky indeed.
- Elvis or The Beatles?
I would say Hildegard of Bingen and Vaughan Williams, but Ebury Percy loves both the Big E and The Fab 4. In fact, both have played concerts here at the village hall to raise funds for the war effort. Perhaps I'm breaking a confidence here, but Mr Presley, Lennon, and Harrison actually live here now, and can be found, most afternoons, propping up the bar of the White Lion. Strangely, Elvis is now a thin man with a West Country accent, whereas Lennon and Harrison are round and bald as coots.
- What are you working on next?
Well, if things go as well as they've been going, I think a part time job at the newsagents is what I'll be working on next, or maybe some shelf-stacking at Lidl. I have written a musical about The Kray Twins, called The Blind Beggar's Opera, which is supposed to make me a fortune, but it's taking a while. There's a play about The Colony Room lodged somewhere in my cerebral cortex, along with a new novel. Seriously considering banging out some erotic fiction, and some ghost stories...and going to Hollywood to write scripts, and getting a series on Radio 4, doing some modelling for the silver fox vest and y fronts catalogue and becoming a stand up comedian.
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