The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Different Approach and Other Stories by Alex Grant

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

A Different Approach and Other Stories by Alex Grant https://www.amazon.com/Different-Approach-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B0FF3PZ1QT What happens when the ordinary turns disturbingly extraordinary? A Different Approach and Other Stories * is a darkly compelling collection of thought-provoking tales from author Alex Grant—stories that twist the familiar, challenge perception, and expose the fine line between normality and madness. Each story explores the unsettling undercurrents of human nature and modern society. From moral experiments gone wrong to eerie childhood memories and the consequences of casual cruelty, Grant’s writing balances sharp satire with haunting realism. These are not tales of monsters—but of people, choices, and systems pushed to their logical extremes. In this captivating collection, you’ll encounter: A chilling new form of justice where punishment truly “fits the crime.” A council worker who signs a seemingly routine contract with horrifying consequences. A man haunted by a childhood vision he cannot explain. Ordinary lives unravelling in unexpected, often darkly comic ways. Grant’s stories are unnervingly plausible—anchored in everyday details yet spiraling into moral and psychological unease. Witty, unsettling, and profoundly human, A Different Approach and Other Stories invites readers to question not just what happens—but why. If you enjoy the moral unease of Black Mirror, the dark irony of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, or the quiet dread of Ian McEwan’s early works, you’ll be riveted by Alex Grant’s unforgettable short fiction. About the author Alex loves reading novels, but having grown up in the punk era, he also values writing that is sharp, direct, and entertaining. However, his stories are far from the literary equivalent of a simple three-chord thrash. Instead, they are layered and thought-provoking, inviting multiple readings to fully appreciate their depth and complexity. An economist by profession, his interests span the criminal justice system, the spiritual dimension of life, and playing bass guitar. He also enjoys the croquet game as quintessentially English as it is vicious.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, folks, Voss here from thecrisVos Show.com. You know, the early season that makes official welcome to big show. As always, we're 17, almost 20 years now. We just turned 17, I think, on the 31st of August this year. So in a day or so, is that what it?

Oh, it's today. We are 17 years officially old this month, and we are the oldest living podcast still in existence. I have a handful still left that are, one to two new shows a day. Nobody's that crazy and they're so old, they probably can't deal with the brain damage we do. But we love our guests, we love our audience,

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the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, an amazing young man on the show, we're talking about his book called A Different Approach and Other Stories by Alex Grant. We're going to get into him with on the show. Find out all the deets what he's up to in life and maybe some ideas and how he can make your life better. Alex loved reading novels, but having grown up in the punk era, he also values writing, or let's see, writing that is sharp, direct, and entertaining. However, his stories are far from the literary equivalent of a simple three-cord thrash.

Instead, they are layered, thought-provoking, inviting multiple readings to fully appreciate their depth and complexity. An economist, economist, by profession, his interests span the criminal justice system, the spiritual dimension of life, and playing bass guitar. He also enjoys the croquette game, quintessentially English, as it is vicious. Welcome to the show, Alex. How are you, sir? Hi, yeah, very good, Chris. Good for here. Yeah, wonderful to have you, sir. And then people could find your books on Amazon or wherever fine books are sold.

Let's start off here. I'm going to go off script. Give us like a 30,000 overview of the book and what's inside. It's a book of 10 different short stories. And when the publisher originally said to me, okay, yeah, what genre is it? I went, they're all different. And they went, yeah, yeah, well, we need a genre. And I said, yeah, but they're all different. So they're, okay, romantic.

No, no, no, no. Are they science fiction? There's one with a bit of science fiction in it. Are they horror? There's some violence in a couple of them, but not really. And you can just imagine the publisher rolling their eyes going, for God's sake, tell them what the book is about. But it's genuinely difficult to do.

And in the end, I came up with what is written on the blurb on the back of the book. And I'm reading it here. The stories blend unsettling drama with dark humor and moral complexity. They're dark, daring and plausible. I wrote that. I'm really pleased with that. But then you can still imagine them going, yeah, but what are the stories basically about? They are about moral dimensions, moral situations,

and they cover lots of different themes. As I say, there's a bit of science. in one. There's one about a punishment system. There's one about childhood fears. There's a couple about spirituality, not religion or anything like that. But there comes a time in everyone's life and what am I doing here? What's life about? They're not philosophical essays on those. In fact, they raise far more questions. So you can see why I had troubles trying to sell it to the publisher on a simple genre. There's a lot of different stuff. that. It looks like they put under British literature, anthologies, British humor and satire literature,

British contemporary literature. Yeah, yeah. But you would say these 10 stories, so it's basically a book of short stories. Is that a good analogy? Yes, it is. Yeah. Cool. Short stories are wonderful because they're short, so you don't have to spend five years reading more in peace. but there also there's an economy to it right where you have you're trying to keep it short so you've

you've got to be able to tell a story very quickly establish your characters very quickly and lay out the plot right is that a good analogy yes it is I used to be a teacher not an English teacher so it's not like I've spent my old life trying to write the great

novel that was never going to happen but yeah you never know there's still time man yeah possibly I'm not sure I could develop a great long story like that, but little snippets of things come to me, which can be put into stories. And that's kind of how they came about. Like that if you want. Yeah.

Talk to us about how it came about. And what made you finally decide to publish it? There's two things, really. How it came about, I see situation. that could be made into a story in simple daily things. You might have somebody walking down the road and they've got their head down and bumping into people and people are moving out of the way.

And I'm thinking, why is that guy like this? What's the backstory here? Is he angry? Is he happy? Is he trying to get home quickly or not? Why? I had another example, simple, I was on the bus the other day

and the bus, the door's shut and the guy's getting ready to drive off and somebody comes up. to the door, oh, please let me get let me. Please don't. Now, I think the driver really should drive off. I think that's what he's supposed to do. But he opened the doors. And he let this guy on, oh, thanks, mate. And I'm thinking to myself, what might have happened if he hadn't done that? And the guy had walked off. And what's going to happen that he has now got on the bus? So I see little things like that, potential for stories in all sorts of situations like that.

all the time almost. And we tend to write what we know. So we write what we see. But having that vision, it sounds like you're a little bit like me, where you watch, you kind of people watch people a little, because people are interesting,

the stuff that's, that's right. Another source is, I can't remember where I've read this, but it was somewhere online, and a guy was saying, an author should never say, that they get an idea for a story from a dream.

Okay. that is a point of view but there's one story in the book that came to me when i was asleep now this is going to sound daft but i don't think it was a dream it was very very odd and it's the least polished story in the whole book because when i woke up i just thought what was that about and i wrote it down i did not change any names i didn't change any the situations or anything i just wanted to get it down as fast as possible. So maybe I'm missing something that the authors shouldn't do that. No, I think it's, we have a lot of authors that tell us what their origin sources of stuff.

You write what you know? It's like that line from, what was the line from the cannibal movie, Silence of the Lambs? What you see every day is what you focus on. Yeah. Cobb way of putting that. But that said, the killer, she linked the killer to the neighborhood of where the girls were, were disappearing. She's like, you, you, I don't know if it was the killer guy that said it. But, yeah, basically what you see every day is what you fixate on. And yeah, that's where we all

get our data. That's the beautiful part of authors like you, is you guys, we all have different experiences. Some are similar in our, in our things. We all probably run through the same thing over life, maybe. But seeing things and then writing about them and going, hey, this is, This is it. That's the great harboringer stories. I was watching all the old lead guitarist for Ozzy, Osbourne Black Label Society and stuff. And he's talking about how he was showing how some of his riffs and songs that he made were variations of very popular songs. He's been written 20 or 30 years earlier. And he's like, yeah, if you think about it, we just changed the chord progression a little.

And that's the same tune. Like one of his heavy metal songs was basically Sunshine in your, sunshine in your mind or sunshine in your life or something. And so a lot of the material we learn, we end up improving it, adapting it, changing it, and then we put it out. So yeah, you're right. Yeah, I think, I think it's going to say, you Americans, don't you have a saying something? Sorry about that.

No, you're fine. I know how we are. I know how we are. Anything you under the sun or something like that. Yeah. I know what you mean because, as I say, I play bass guitar. I've tried very hard. I read a lot of authors,

lots of lots of different things, tried not to consciously copy and steal from anybody else, except what, there's one story. There's a pastiche of an HP Lovecraft story. I'm a great fan of H.P. Lovecraft's gothic horror. And although I can't possibly try and write him, and let's not forget that pastiche means

an honest, loving tribute or worse that it affects to the author. I've tried very hard to build up his sense of what is going on here, what is happening here, what's the action that this person's just done? What's that going to cause? Because running through many of the stories in the book, not just that one, are the fact that quite small actions, changes, mundane things, as I say, like getting on a bus and what have you, can have massive consequences which may be funny, tragic, horrific, or whatever. And that's not new. Of course, that's not new.

But I've put lots of them in situations, which I think people are going to find very interesting and wonder, as I say, what's going on here? Would I have done that? Yeah. This sort of thing. We often talk about how you don't get an owner's manual to life. And so books and stories are the things we learn from.

And you've talked in this book about human behavior, human lessons. oh, sometimes if I do this and think I'm going to get a certain result, there could be a Pandora's box where I end up in a bad place instead of good. Exactly. I don't know if you're a fan of the clash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a great guitarist, the one guitarist on the band there. He's had a great solo career.

Yeah, Strummer used to have he had more than my guitar, but he had two stickers on his guitars. One said ignore alien orders. The other one said, the future is unwritten. And it's that second one, I think, that applies to this kind of book. The future is not set there, at least not as far as I see it. And actions that you take can cause changes. Now, I think he was making it in a political statement by it.

But, hey, you know, the future is right? As you say, you can open a Pandora's box without knowing it. And effectively, that's what happens in that, the story. Where does anything start? Yeah, and the future is unwritten. I love that. That's the great thing about learning stories, learning lessons, learning about life. It can help save us from some of the pitfalls, or maybe it can help you dig out of the pitfalls if you find yourself falling in one of them, our holes. Was there a particular story in the collection we can maybe tease out a little bit that you found was enjoyable or challenging to write? Yeah, the very first one, TAP, which is TAAWP, the authorized punishment plan. and this is a big hit straight away. It's like the bands of any bands opening number.

This is a story about how a new government has come to power and has changed the criminal justice system so that it's focused on punishment. So it's an eye for an eye kind of thing, which again, not new, but this is not new concept, but it's really quite explicit. So you beat somebody up, you get beaten up. You stab somebody, you get stabbed.

If it took 20 minutes for the emergency services to get to the person that you stabbed, the timer is set, and 20 minutes later, they come to you. If you die in the meantime, you die. If you kill somebody, you're killed in the way that you killed people. The story, obviously, quite apart from the morality of that. And there are people in this country. probably in America who genuinely want to see something as extreme as this. Not me, not me.

It's not my manifesto, certainly not. So there's a moral element of that, but it's also how those who are carrying it out behave. And you mentioned challenging to write. It's a big change, if it came about, it would be a big change. And you'd have thought that the judiciary would have said, kicked back about it and saying, we're not doing this, we're not sentencing people to this, you'd have thought that prison governors who, until now had focused on incarceration and now

focusing on brutal punishment, how did this all come about? How did it change? So I had to develop that side of it in order to make it work. I could have just said, I suppose, the new government introduced a radical new system and there was massive change and then we'll let straight into the story, but I thought that would be a bit of a cheat, a bit of a cop-out. So this, how does, how the hell did this become permissible? Yeah. It was, was quite challenging to, to build in. And then how do you keep it on a short story economy? How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you make that work? Because that could be tough. Some trying to cram a whole book into a short story, basically. The only way I can answer that is, the idea.

years come to me almost ready-baked. I know there's a start and I know there's an ending. I can see what that's going to be. How it's going to go with who's doing what and who says what in what situations. That's what takes the time for me. But it's not like I kick off and think, where is this going to go? I can honestly say that. I start something and I know where it's going to finish, but I'm not sure how we're not sure how we're going to get there. So hoping I'm answering your question, it may be that we get there quite quickly, or it may be there are, there are long and short short stories in the book. Some are much longer, that's not really true, a bit longer than others. But that's just what they are what they are. There's no point in me

trying to pat out an idea where I already know where the thing's going or chopping down something where I think, no, there's a lot of good points I want to get over here. Yeah. So that's cool that it comes to you where you get the beginning and end and you just fill in the middle. That makes it probably a little easier because some people, they just start the journey and they don't really know where the ending is and they've got a water down. We're all different. I mean, some of the characters are drawn. None of them are real characters, but some of them have character.

characteristics from people that I have known and their amalgams of those people. And I can put those in and use them in a situation. But I don't sit down at 10 o'clock every morning with a nice cup of coffee and think, for two hours I'm going to write here. I'm going to produce something today. It just doesn't, it doesn't happen like that. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an author. What inspired you to start writing?

When did you start writing? etc. I've had ideas for a very long number of years. There's a childhood fear story in there which must go back 60 years to when I was very young. Others are like maybe 40 years ago. You know in Star Wars when one says there's a long time, a long time. So it's like that. And I scribbled down ideas on bits of paper and kept them in a folder. This was long before, computers and laptops and things like that. And all the times I moved over the years, I have not lost this folder. And when I retired, I thought, I'm going to dig them out.

And I'm going to start writing from these. Obviously, by then, some ideas had gone on to electronically. But I thought, I've got time now. I am going to develop these. and now I've got faith in my stories as well. And in fact, it says in the book, I think it's under dedication to my sons who, they're now in their 30s. When they read the stories, they said, Dad, they're good and they're weird. It's a bit like me, I suppose.

We're all a little bit weird, right? Yeah, that's true. So I was pleased from that point of it. Actually, if you'd better bear with me for a second, I'll answer your question in another way. One of the things I like doing is reading biographies. And I just read the biography of the Who's bassist, John Entwistle. Oh, yeah. And he died, I think it was 2002.

And he was being interviewed sometime shortly before his death. And the interviewer said, the Who have been, what was the word, dissected? I think it was all analyzed so often over the last 30, 40 years or whatever. What was The Who really about? and he said, making a very loud noise and having fun. Now, he didn't actually use the word very. He used the swear word, and I think we can all guess what that was, but making a very loud noise and having fun.

And when you introduced me just now about three called thrashes and things like that, I've got to admit there was a little bit of an element of that. It was me thinking, I can do this. I'm going to get, I'm going to have fun. I'm not going to agonize over stories. They're crafted. They've taken me time to write. I haven't beat myself up about it.

I thought, I'm going to have fun writing them. Hopefully people will have fun reading them. And then everybody's having fun. The who then changed rock. I'm not saying I'm changing short stories, but there's another alternative as to why I wrote the things. Yeah. Yeah. It gives it's entertainment.

People love it. People like all that sort of stuff and get into it. So what has been the most rewarding part of your journey so far? I was very pleased to have it published. I've done two book fairs in the same place and some people came back when I was there again and said, we bought your book last year. Now in all honesty, I couldn't remember, but they said, I really enjoyed it, particularly, there's one as I mentioned earlier about childhood fear.

And they said, oh, expressions are like, you nailed that. I had a very similar experience. to that. And that, it was, it's really nice to have that, that kind of feedback from, from people. And as I said, I was always convinced that they were going to work. So I'm, I'm pleased with that. Has writing changed the way you look at people in the world around you? Sounds like it has.

Not really. Like I said, I'm still, I'm still always on the lookout for a story. I'm more alert. So as I say, why is he doing this? Why is she doing this? that and that you can use situations in a literary context if you need to. Otherwise, I'm just little old me. Yeah. Being able to have this, there's so many people that they just operate in tunnel vision mode. And some people just don't have a whole lot going on upstairs that they

have an awareness beyond themselves. But being able to look around the world and see how it operates and and be curious about things. I think that creates a whole different experience of life that's richer. I call myself a story collector, a griot. They used to call them in Africa. They were the back then humans couldn't write a lot of stuff down that would stay good, especially if it's a rainforests or whatever. And so it's a little hard for paper to survive some of the things there. And so there would always be an assigned historian who would keep all the stories of the tribe and then pass them down to another person. And I guess somehow they made sure he didn't get eaten by a lying because,

you know, there goes your stories. There goes your historian. What's the history of the tribe? I don't know. We got eaten a few years ago and we're just starting over. But collecting stories is amazing. People all have different journeys, different, different forks in the road of life and they choose one.

And then they go down some of the things we've talked about with short stories and telling stories and stuff. It's been pretty interesting. And I think it changes the way you look at people and you look at life. You search out stories. I love meeting people and talking to people because they're interesting. And I'm sick and bored of myself. I've had enough of me after 58 years.

So what advice? I'm sick of my story. I know where I've been and I'm sick of being there. I find other people more interesting because I'm like, yeah, what did you do? How did you do this ride? What advice would you give to aspiring authors who are thinking? about writing or publishing their first book? I'm flattered you ask that question, but I'm not sure I'm the person to ask.

It's going to be a rather standard response. You know, believe in yourself. You, you, it's difficult, but if you believe in yourself, you know, I said I used to be a teacher. I used to mark work and on it you'd say this bit is good, but this bit isn't very clear. this you need a diagram here, you need this stronger conclusion, and then it would be a really good essay or something. I'm not sure that approach would work with an author. I don't, I don't, maybe some publishers do much more hands-on, but you might think to yourself, no, this character is, it's meant to be like that. No, this situation is supposed to be ambiguous. I don't want to

clarify. I want someone to think about what's going on like that. And I must say, the, the publisher was very good. They never said to me, oh, what about changing this or rewriting that? I wouldn't have listened anyway. Believe it in yourself. That sounds a bit obvious. For a lot of people, writing is daunting, and that's why authors like yourself are valued in the way they are, because it's a hard project to do. You've got to write the book, then you've got to edit it, you're going to read it like 100 freaking times to where you're about ready to lose your mind, editing and finding all the dots and commas you miss. And even reading it out loud when you try and do the audio,

when you read it out loud, you go, I should phrase that differently. That sounds stupid to say now. But there's a big editing process and the publishing end. It's a hard, daunting test to do. That's why very few people are able to become authors. But thankfully, there's a very democratic system that's come with Amazon where you don't have to be with a major publisher.

You don't have to do all that BS and pray for rain. You can just go make your rain. And so that's great that way. But yeah, a lot of people, I think they lose confidence somewhere in the between. And it's a rigorous process. It's not easy. I'm a strong believer that everybody has a story. I'm not saying a book.

I'm not saying a book in them that could be used for a story or a film. In fact, I hope nobody steals this idea. I thought writing a story about how it's compulsory for children in school. to write down their story. Now, it doesn't have to be a novel. Of course not. It could just be a page or two pages or three pages, but they have to do it,

just like they have to sit exams. They have to do it so that every human that goes to school produces something, and it all goes onto some massive database so that researchers can research into it and look at how people are. It's just an idea that I've been throwing around, but who knows what great ideas have never made it anywhere

Because as you've just said, some people may go, it's too hard. But, yeah, I don't know. Who knows? Yeah. It's a challenge. It's hard to sit and write. There's so many different polls that we have of attention and stuff on what we're doing. So what do you hope readers take away from your book when they read it?

To state the obvious, I hope they're going to enjoy it. There's a lot of different situations in it. as I said and you read out, there are morally complex situations. There's also something in it which is not usual in a book of short stories as far as I know. And that's at the end of each story. There's a reflective question. Now, you see, but this is not me and my teacher legacy. It's not like a question that has to be answered in an exam.

kind of it's it's there as a kind of prompt if you like to think about the story now it would be awfully pretentious of me to say oh i've written a book of short stories to make people think now no they're there to enjoy but some of these stories they don't tie up neatly and the the best way i can And by the way, I put this in and I said to the publisher, this is unusual. I know in some book club books, you've got a list of questions at the back so that everybody can read the book and share it at the meeting. But these are specific questions at the end of each story. And they said, put it in if you like.

And I said, is it too strange? Or I might say weird again, actually. And they said, no, if you want to put it in, you put it in, which I did. Now, I appreciate that not everybody wants or needs a prompt to think about a story. They just wanted to read it. But, and somebody said this to me, and I really want to get this over. When a story ends, that's the end of the narrative. Where you've got this question, which is drawing the reader in,

the question then becomes part of the narrative because you're being asked a question about the story. So, as I say, some people might say, say, I don't want this. I don't want this at all. But that being drawn into the narrative of the question and that the reader's thoughts becoming part of the narrative is a different approach to reading. Now, that's not, how clever I am to tie that in with the title of the book. It's just something that fell into place. It is a different way, a different approach to reading short stories. So I think, I think that certainly the feedback I have had, people like that,

hey, if you don't like it, ignore it. No problem. No problem at all. Yeah. Ignore it. Yeah. Either in dry. But there's so much to learn, like I said, I love stories. When I was a kid, I used to read a lot of short stories. And it was just amazing to me. There were short story in compilations. I think, didn't Hemingway did some short stories. Somebody I read. And I was just, I was in the library, checking out short stories. And they're a lot of fun. And their economy is interesting, too, because you have to basically write a whole book into a short format and do all the things. What's coming up next for you?

Is there anything on the horizon? Any writing you're working on? I am working on some new stories. But as I say, I don't sit down every day and think I'm going to write. The ideas will hit me. I will jot them down. and then just at the moment, once the juices get going in my brain, if you like, I tend to run at it and work in short, intense bursts.

There's two stories which are complete. There's about five which are, I know where they're going, as I said, I know where the start, I know where the end is, but I haven't fleshed it out properly. In all honesty, I can't see that being finished for another six months or so. at the moment I'm pleased with what I'm I've achieved so far

very happy with the very happy with the feedback that I've got from now anything more I should have asked you before we head down the road on the show I said I play bass guitar and here is my one of my heroes D.D. Ramon there

I think there are parallels between you were mentioning music earlier. I think there are parallels between music and writing. Certainly, I'm part of the rhythm section, the bass and the drums locking in, and we give direction and we give stability to the song. Foundation. Absolutely.

And within that, you've got the guitarist and you've got the vocalist and the keyboard and the sax player or whatever, And they're like the characters doing the colorful work, if you like, in there. But you need a solid foundation. You need stability for that song to work. And I'm proud to be a bass player doing that sort of role in the band. Base playing. Maybe you could do a book about bass playing somehow.

I'm from the punk era. so I'm not virtuoso. I'm more bashed out. And it usually sounds pretty good. The Clash, Stray Cats, I think, is other people that, they were a punk band, right? Straight Cats? Stray Cats.

It's about the same time. What's the guy's called Slim Slim Gym Phantom? Is it the place of there? I'm not sure. Let's see here. Stray Cats. We'll pull it up. Stray Cats.

It looks like they're still touring, too. Yes. Yeah, they are. Brian Selzer, I think it is. Yeah, the Brian Selzer Orchestra, too, is that that was what I was referencing earlier. I got my bands mixed up. You were saying The Clash, but yeah, the Brian Seltzer Orchestra was just amazing. But they are still touring. Most of them have kept their hair rather better than me, but even if they're at the same age. Oh, my favorite band is Rush, and they're like 72 right now, and they're out there touring.

and Kenny Lee and Alex and they're out there touring and the first couple shows were kind of a little hit and miss and they had to skip a couple over laryngitis and throat stuff but it seems like now they've settled in the groove but they had taken

11 years off touring and playing so they kind of had to relearn all their stuff again but they still got the stones out there I believe the stones are going to go on tour they just put it on an album yes they have I saw them with my son or I think it was 2019

and it was they were really, really good. I couldn't believe it. People who say, oh, these old farts should retire. I had a few beers and I thought, I presume we're going to edit this bit out, but anyway, I thought, I need to go to the toilet. I'll tell you what, I'll go when they play a duff song or one I don't like.

And of course, every single one was absolutely brilliant. Give me shelter, a street fighting man, miss you. And I'm staying there glued to the stage, but thinking, I need to go to that. They were really, really good. Yeah. Yeah, it's just amazing. I think he's 83 now. Yeah.

I think I heard. And they're still out giving interviews and they're doing the thing. And it's funny, The Who, hope I die before I get old. And now a bunch of geysers out. I'm a geyser so I can say. that. Yeah, no, no, that's, I haven't seen the who my son got tickets. Actually, I got tickets and he went with his girlfriend instead of taking me. But the thing that's, that's, that you better never break up with him, man, after that or otherwise you're, he did. Yes.

So, I was a bit annoyed that I didn't get, get the tickets. But yeah, yeah, that was, that was, that was good. I did get to see the Ramones, actually. Only the ones in 86. I live in a place called Milton Keynes, which is about 60 miles north of London. And there's a big, it's called the Bowl. It holds about 60,000 people. I saw Zizi Top there, actually, as well. I'm jealous of you. They're such fun to play.

Dusty Hill. You might go, oh, there's three chords in bum-de-bum-dibum. God, you've got to have that rhythm right. Otherwise, it doesn't work. It's fantastic. Oh, it's fantastic. It's very sad that. What's his name? Frank Beard died just last week.

Yeah, you know what sucks about that? What? I had tickets to go to the concert. It was last week. I think it was last week or the week before. I had tickets to go to the concert here in Utah. And he died the day of that concert. And so I never seen Zizi Top.

And so I was hoping to see both of them as the original members. And he died on the day of the concert. And they had to cancel the concert because clearly they they got a morning and all that stuff but it really sucked i was within one day of seeing him play and now i'll never get to see it luckily i got it was oh was it 1980s or 1990s it was a while ago but it was all all three of them it was the tour where they had a live what's it called a live car crusher that the cars were being and squashed into the cubes and coming out the other it was there i can't remember what it was called

something or other, but it was, that was a hell of a spectacle. I never realized that he had such a problem with drugs when he was younger. I was reading this stuff. He took a lot of heroin or something. I never, I can't be good news for a drummer, can it? For anyone, really? I don't know. There's a lot of back in the day, they were doing a lot of different stuff.

Yeah, I just read as well, Chris Stein's autobiography, Blondie guitarist, and I didn't realize what a drug problem he had either. I knew she had a drug problem, but most of the book seems to be dealing with him smoking spliffs and hunting out dope and what have you. I never realized that. And it needless to say, as I would say, as an ex-teacher, messes up your life. It doesn't do any good. It made some of the best music that was ever there. Some of these musicians, when they clean up, their music kind of creativity kind of dies off.

I remember when Metallica got clean and. and clean up their act and I think James went to rehab and he needed to go to rehab he was clearly out of control and his family had had enough of it and I think his wife was threatening to divorce him

with the kids and he went to rehab but the next couple albums really fucking sucked ass that's an understatement and they went through the wilderness for a lot of albums that were subpar I think the latest album 72 seasons

I love and I've enjoyed cover to cover A to B sign but there's kind of this thing with drugs and my psychiatrist said this to me I'm like why can I play piano really great when I'm blasted drunk out of my mind and I can create all these beautiful music but I can't do that when I'm sober and he goes part of it is you have a very logical reason left sort of brain and when you drink it suspends that brain that's controlling everything and you can feel and it's true I if I sit down and start playing the piano I'll get hit with this wave of emotion that I normally don't feel. And it's part of that drug is it gets you into that creative state of a feeling and stuff. And playing the same songs over and over again on stage, probably after a while, you need a little bump to get to. Yeah, you sometimes need a little something.

Yeah. I'm talking about alcohol, yeah, to do this. This can sound like spinal tap now. It's a fine line between being stimulated and then completely bombed out your head. Yeah. Or a few lines. actually. If you get my drift.

I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you mean. I don't know what that means. As we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick your book and where they can find it and all that good stuff. Yeah. It is on Amazon. It's on Apple Books. It's at Walmart.

It's on Google Playbooks. It's on Kobo. It should be easy to get to get a hold of. And I hope you enjoy it. It is a different approach. Yep. So thank you very much for coming the show, Alex. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, I've enjoyed it. Great. Maybe you should do a book on the Ramones, either fictional or documentary. You could make like a fictional book. You don't even have to use the title. Over here, there's a load of books that I have on the Ramon. So that's kind of been done today. What I do have is Adi Ramon, limited edition,

Fender bass guitar 10 years ago. and they are really through listening to the remones and then of course the remones are a very unique sound and DD only ever plays the root note at the chord or be it at phenomenal speed

and rhythm and then I realised what fun it was I didn't get on I have got a six string I'm not going to wander across the room I'm going to trip over the wires but I have got a six string over there and I just didn't get on

with it, but bass is fun. The old joke about how do you know the stage is level, the bass player is dribbling out of both sides of his mouth. Ha, ha, ha. But actually, like I said earlier, we're pretty important to the band. Oh, yeah. If the bass player and the

drummer are not locked in and providing that foundation, as you said, forget it. It's just awful. It is indeed, it's the backbeat. It's the foundation of the whole band. Yeah, it really is. drummer and the thing. So thank you

very much for coming to show on, Alex. We really appreciate it. No, I really enjoyed it, Chris. Thank you. And so am I. It's been wonderful to have you. Plus, we caught up on the Ramones and stuff. It's too bad. They can't tour. I think they've lost a couple members, haven't they? All the original members are at debt. See, there's a small pub,

which used to be my local, as we call it, over here, about three miles away. And maybe five or six years ago, I did see Richie Ramon in there. And he gave a really spirited performance about 80, 100 people. But you can't help thinking how are the mighty fallen. I've gone from stadiums to a small pub in Milton Keynes.

But he was fine. I have a picture taken with him. CJ, who took over from D.G., of course, it is still touring. Marky is still touring. I'm not sure I'd want to go and see them, really. Marky was a great drummer, but just a... say, oh, I've seen the drummer. It's not like

seeing the band. I'm glad he's still playing stuff. Yeah. Thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Folks, order up his book where refined books are sold. There'll be a link on the Chris Voss show. A different approach and other stories by Alex Grant. Thanks for us for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com

Forchess Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com for chest Chris Voss. Chris Voss won on the TikTokity and all those crazy places in the net. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts.

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