Vernon Reid is the founder, songwriter, and lead guitarist for the rock band Living Colour. Jeff VanderMeer is the science-fiction author behind the best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy, recently optioned by Paramount Pictures for a big screen adaptation. When we heard that Reid is a big fan of VanderMeer's books and that VanderMeer loves Reid's music, we put them together via email for a discussion about music and literature.

Jeff VanderMeer: One thing that made me so thrilled that you liked the Southern Reach Trilogy is that my intro to rock music was in the form of three cassettes I bought as a teenager: the Kinks, Def Leppard, and Living Colour. The second was that I have to have music as a soundtrack to writing fiction. I listen to it at other times, too, but it helps me write. And contrasts of music that's kind of raging and then more melodic. Does fiction help you write music? And what in fiction do you like to encounter?

Vernon Reid: I once wrote a power trio instrumental entitled "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" based on a harrowing short story by sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison. Fiction has always evoked pictures and provoked ideas and sounds in my mind. James Baldwin, who was a powerful writer of fiction and non-fiction was a haunted witness of American dysfunction. In his short play, "The Amen Corner," there is a sentence spoken by the female protagonist, an anointed prophetess whose carefully constructed facade of a life comes apart when her estranged jazz pianist returns unbidden: "It's an awful thing, how love never dies". When I read that sentence, I thought, That's what this play is about. Turns out, that is the very first line Baldwin wrote. I'm moved by reflections, retractions, deconstructions, and complete abductions of reality in fiction—Lovecraft, Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov, Butler, Gibson, Delany. Do you play an instrument? What would you play if you could?

VanderMeer: All musical talent is absent in me, to the point of being unable to play board games that require you to hum a tune while others guess what it is, since all my humming sounds the same. Musical instruments have always seemed like alien artifacts to me, even as I really admire anyone who can play one. If I could play an instrument, it would probably be a cello or an electric guitar. But in reality, to be safe, they'd need to put me on cowbell or triangle. An infinitely better subject is your music, and your approach to playing guitar—it always kind of mixes up different styles. But what's the most fundamental difference between your early albums and this new album, Shade?

Reid: The early Living Colour records were very autobiographical. Vivid, for example, was very much a chronicle of downtown New York in the '80s—take a song like "Desperate People" and it's Straight Edge stance; it was inspired by the overdose of the painter Jean Michel Basqiuat—he was Our Guy! He had done it, cracked the art world on his terms. His death was devastating. We were part of an ecological mosaic of bands, performance artists, punks, visionaries, and assorted sundry ne'er-do-wells of every strip and polka-dot. Rock was mutating, Hip hop was emerging. There were so many places to play to tables and chairs. Crazy. I would say Shade is partly about the blue that comes from finding oneself in a world that is no longer recognizable yet known all too well. As far as guitar goes, it's weird to have such a challenging activity in my life for so long—I love it. It kicks my ass every day.

VanderMeer: You mentioned being interested in doing a Southern Reach podcast. Do you see that as writing fiction? Have you ever written any fiction yourself?

Reid: Well, I believe that in Area X, you've created a fascinating and terrifyingly magical Mythos. The chronicles of Ghost Bird and Control and the Director are a springboard to examining the other unnamed missions—and the way Area X adjusts to unravel people, or save them according to its whim. I think the Southern Reach could be an amazing anthology podcast. I've written poetry and songs. I think about stories and characters constantly [but] I'm daunted by fiction in a way that freelance reporting on deadline for the Village Voice never did. What bit of media first attracted you to writing?

VanderMeer: My parents read to me a lot as a kid, and I started writing very early, probably spurred on by Aesop's fables. Then they gave me The Lord of the Rings way too early for me to fully understand what I was reading, which was actually kind of cool. It was almost better—comprehension's overrated when you're reading. If you get it all first-time around, where's the fun in that? So some of it being left mysterious left room for me to extrapolate, so to speak, and in some ways when I re-read the books it was disappointing that I could then understand it. Later, Angela Carter's fiction blew me away and really instilled a passion for writing, bolstered by [Vladimir] Nabokov. But in general, I can't point to any one thing. I just always loved books and writing. I'm curious now, though. Let's play What If: What if you were a fiction writer, and let's say you had the freedom to rewrite part of the Southern Reach trilogy. What are the top two or three things you'd change to make the story your own?

Reid: I found the almost romance of [the characters] Ghost Bird and Control very frustrating—they clearly love each other—it's sad because she's either post-human or not that into him. I feel myself constantly on edge about the way Area X is expanding and warping the world as we know it. I love the dimensional doorway aspect. At the end of Acceptance, I thought "There's GOTTA be a 4th book!" [So] is there gonna be another Area X/ Southern Reach book?

VanderMeer: Something about that amateur Séance & Science Brigade group really attracts me. You mentioned how a podcast could be kind of the "further adventures of." Well, I could see writing a novel or two just involving the Brigade, only vaguely touching on their involvement with Area X but exploring other aspects of what they're up to. That would be fun. And I'm working on a long story that might wind up being a novella titled "The Bird Watchers." It's set a day before Area X comes into being and involved Old Jim from Acceptance. Turns out Old Jim might not be as old as you think…or even "Jim." So, the Southern Reach wheels are still turning in my mind. But an out-and-out Area X novel set after Acceptance…not sure about that. But I'm also doing a lot of reading right now, to recharge. Anything you've read in the last year that you think I'd like?

Reid: If you haven't read them, The Last Policeman trilogy (The Last Policeman, Countdown City, World of Trouble) trilogy by Ben Winters—it takes the premise DOA, and puts us ALL in the hot seat. Incredibly moving books about the World breaking down, and one man On The Case. The Martian by Andy Weir—hard sci-fi about a world focused on saving an astronaut left behind on Mars. A fantastic tale of mental & physical endurance—nail biting throughout. The Peripheral by William Gibson—suffice it to say, Gibson takes the idea of Time Travel sideways. Masterful. If you have a chance, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. The Machine Of Death podcast (old but AWESOME).

VanderMeer: Black Mirror is great and I've been looking forward to picking up the Winters and the Gibson. I've been splitting my time recently between a re-read of Richard House's great novel The Kills, some nonfiction by John Gray, Tatyana Tolstaya's wonderfully bizarre post-apoc novel The Slynx, and Melville House's edition of The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture. You know, a little light reading.

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