The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Rainbow Like You by Andréa Fehsenfeld Interview

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

A Rainbow Like You by Andréa Fehsenfeld Interview Andreafehsenfeld.com Book Song on Spotify Link An iconic rock star with everything to prove. A determined teen runaway with nothing left to lose. When their fates intertwine, the most unexpected journey unfolds. Adrian ‘Jazzer’ Johnson’s gilded rock and roll career is the stuff of legend. From out of the dive bars of Long Beach, this high school dropout rocketed his band to the pinnacle of success. But after a whirlwind decade ended with him broken and questioning, Adrian disappeared. Now back on tour after a year in exile, Adrian’s still struggling and under pressure to deliver his next hit. The last thing he needs is to find a teen runaway hiding in his tour bus. As it turns out, Hastings Sinclair is a synesthete who can see music in color. But her offer to help color-blind Adrian unpack his creative block upends their lives in ways they never imagined. Because Adrian’s troubles run deep—beyond what any song can fix—and Hastings hasn’t been upfront about hers. When calamity strikes, a perfect storm of fates unleashes and caught in the crossfire are Adrian’s band mates, a fame-shy beauty he falls hard for, and a scheming journalist with a vendetta. With everything he values suddenly on the line, can Adrian reconcile his own brash history? Or will he be forced to face the music in a way he never has before?

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. The Chris Voss Show.com.

Hey, coming over with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to see the video version of this. You can see it on video as well. Most of the podcast syndication is all audio but uh you can have the visual stimuli stimuli that's always a good thing to have i hear it's kind of fun you go to youtube.com forward slash chris voss hit the bell notification button or for the show to your friends neighbors and relatives at uh the chris

show.com or the cvpn.com you can also go to goodreads.com for the chrisvossshow.com or thecvpn.com. You can also go to goodreads.com for just Chris Voss. See all the good stuff we have going on there. Also, you can take and go to facebook.com forward slash the chrisvossshow and see all the different posts and different things we're doing there. We always interview the most brilliant people, CEOs, and authors on the show. And today we're interviewing an incredible author on her latest and newest book, Andrea Faschenfeld.

She is a woman who kick-started her entertainment career with Freeform Productions, an independent company she built into an award-winning multi-service TV and digital content producer. She's delivered over 200 productions for Fortune 500 companies, major networks, and global brands. After developing several scripted and unscripted TV concepts in 2015, she chased her ultimate dream, writing with fiction. Her debut novel, Completion, was released in April 2018 and is now being adapted for television. Her second novel, A Rainbow Like You, we'll be talking about today. Welcome to the show. How are you? Thank you. Great. I'm doing great. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. So you've got the book out now, A Rainbow Like You.

Give us the plugs on where people can find it on the interwebs and order it up. Yeah, right now it's available on Amazon, of course. Barnes & Noble picked it up in the U.S. You can find it in stores there and online. And it'll be in Chapters Indigo sometime later in november there you go uh a rainbow like you uh tell us about this novel and kind of give us a kind of maybe a heads up sky view of what it's about well the the book is about um this sort of struggling rock and roller adrian jazzer johnson and he has just come off of a year in exile and he's back on tour with his band and he finds this teen runaway hiding in his tour bus. So the story ends up being very much

about the journey of their interaction and what, how they impact each other as the story moves along. Nice. And so it's about their adventures, what they get into and everything. What led you to want to write a novel on this topic? What motivated you about this subject matter? Well, that's an interesting question because there was sort of a big macro question that I thought about when I started writing this story, which is, what does it mean to be a musician in the year 2020, COVID notwithstanding? And from there, all the kind of micro themes trickled out of there. I thought about digitization and how all these entertainment industries have been impacted,

you know, publishing, film and television, and also music. And musicians, I think, have gotten the short end of the stick because tragically, sadly, with digitization and all these streaming services, most musicians only make pennies on the dollar for their core product, the songs, which is a bit of a scam. And unfortunately, the only way they can make most of their revenue is through sort of relentless touring and selling merchandise on tour. And then from there, I sort of shone a spotlight on, well, what is the touring life all about? And it's actually really hard. You know, it's this very nomadic, isolating experience, and you are always

grappling with these really extreme emotional highs and lows. And while you're on tour, relationships are always under strain. You know, you have like, not just the bickering and the infighting with the band, but everyone's trying to maintain, you know, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, etc. You know, and it ends up being a really intense environment and then for me as a writer it was kind of a gold mine because I thought I loved to find settings that have a lot of that natural tension so this pop boiler environment on being on tour just felt like gold and all I really needed to do is find the characters and the journey to set against that great backdrop wow now I noticed there's a guitar in your back ground there. Those of who aren't watching on YouTube, you've got a guitar in the back. Is there, is there a little bit of you in this story? Well, absolutely. And one of the personal

reasons that motivated me to write this story is that I caught the concert bug as a teenager and have since seen over 400 live shows in my life going across the world seeing all these great bands play in iconic musical venues and I always thought in the back of my mind gee what's it like to be a musician what's it like to be on tour so this book is a little bit of my homage to all the musicians who have rocked my world there you go that's a lot of concerts to go to uh have you ever tried writing your own music or putting anything out? Well, it's funny you mentioned that because released with the book was an original song, which is also called The Rainbow Like You. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music. And when I started writing the story and the main character of Adrian and the

runaway Hastings started to interact on the page, I knew right then that there was going to be a song with the book. I didn't know how, I didn't know why. And I kind of approached it in a bit of a Pollyanna stage in terms of, oh, I'll just find a producer, I'll find a singer. And that ended up being quite the journey unto itself. But the song rocks. It's really good. I've had so much good feedback on it. Now, do you sing on the song?

Do you perform on the song, I'm sure? I do not. I actually went full method on this and I've attributed the song to the lead character in the story, Adrian Johnson. And I will tell you right now for any author who's thinking of creating a song for a book and you're not going to be the singer, watch out because I spent all of January, February and March of this year trying to find a singer wow is it anybody we know that's uh seeing or or playing on the well he's chosen to remain anonymous because again I've attributed his voice to being this fictitious character Adrian and um but when I was really in a dark moment come March because I thought oh I've been pitching that there's going to be a song with this book.

Everyone's expecting it. And I thought, whoa, where's my singer? And then he came out of the blue and there was just, I immediately loved his voice. And because the character in the story, Adrian is a huge Jimi Hendrix fan and the band Size of a Scandal encores with Jimi Hendrix songs songs when this singer sent me his demos he plays in a band and they do a lot of cover songs and one of the songs that they covered was a jimmy hendrix song at that point it was like the heavens all aligned nice so how often does i mean this seems pretty unique i mean i we do a lot of books and authors on the show

uh this is the first one that i've ever interviewed. That's got a song that comes with it, which is really cool. Is, is this a, are there many other books that come out this way, or is this kind of a unique novelty that you came up with? It's absolutely a novelty. And it's, it's been really cool actually, because whenever I talk about the fact that there's a song with a story, that's one of the first things that people's eyes just light up. They just go, wow, that's, I've never heard of that. And that it's an interesting selling point, but it's also a launching pad to kind of discuss a little bit about the story. And the cool thing about the song is that, you know, people love music. You know,

music is the fabric of our lives. And it's been interesting that this story has come out in a time when there are no more live shows to attend. And just in my discussion with people, it's been a real, it's been a real drag because live shows create so many great memories for us. You know, it's not just the anticipation of going to a concert, but then, you know, the night of, you're out with friends, you're getting a little bit drunk, and then you're seeing your favorite band, hear your favorite song. I mean, those are things that you remember for the rest of your life. And all of a sudden, not having that outlet, that experience, like for me, it's been a real drag too. But for everybody else, it's been interesting hearing their stories and how much they really want live music to come back.

Wow. So do you package the song with the book? Like if you buy the hard copy of the book, or do you get just a link to the Spotify link? You know, I'm not one of those musicians who rely on all the music streamers. So, you know, CDs are kind of a thing of the past. You know, even my laptop doesn't support CDs anymore. So that felt like a whole kind of

dinosaur world to live in so no it's all streaming i think this is cool though this is definitely a feature of of you know extra you get a book and a song if you will yeah and it's like i said it's been uh the feedback has been fantastic and it's it's definitely a unique pairing and um if it's in you and you want to do it go for it but again it's it's all a unique pairing and um if it's in you and you want to do it go for it but again it's it's all sort of project dependent and like i said i knew when i was starting to write this story that there would be a song and that's just how it happened so getting into some of the characters about the book uh let's talk about some of the lead characters and and how you flesh them out develop them and and uh some of the things that readers are going to be looking forward to learn about and see in the book? Well, great. Well, I'll start

with the first character, whose name is Adrian. When I started writing the story, I also knew intrinsically that I didn't want this to be a sex, drugs, and rock and roll story. And I kind of blame my industry, the film and television industry, for, you know, perpetuating these sort of stereotypes, these archetypical characters that you really see. And, you know, you kind of hear about a book set in the music industry and you think, oh, you're going to have this like this rock god character. You're going to have like the tyrannical manager, blah, blah, blah. So I thought like, nope, don't want to write that story. I need to come to the table with something fresh, something unique. So as I developed Adrian, I really kind of kept that at my forefront of my mind in terms of what kind

of layers, what kind of quirks did I want to give him? And I think that's really come through in a great way. And just the reviews that have come in early on the books, they're surprising. Adrian has really resonated with people because he's not your standard rock and roll star. I imagine there is some bit of cliche to a lot of rock and roll stories. I mean, the way they go down. And as they go through the adventures, was there anything you learned about rock and roll in your research on it or traveling or was there anything that stood out to you that the reader will be like,

aha, it's going to be very interesting. Well, kind of the Hollywood hook of the story. And I always encourage writers to, to synthesize what the Hollywood hook of their story is, is the fact that Adrian is colorblind. He has a very rare form of colorblindness called tritanopia and Hastings, the runaway that he finds in his tour bus is a cine site so she has chromesthesia which is a sound color association she can see music in color

so when she finds out that he's struggling and is colorblind she kind of offers to help and that's really like i said the hook that brings them together although that from where it goes from there is very kind of unexpected wild ride wow wow Do you see this book as a series or is this going to encapsulate the sum total of it and you move on to something else? No, right now I'm developing it as a movie. I have some interest from a couple of players already. It's definitely more of a standalone. I know that the trend is to try to create TV series, but I think with this, with this story, it's more of a movie type format. There you go. It could be in theaters near you.

I mean, books always turn out as great movies. Well, usually I suppose, you know, it depends on who directs them and all that good stuff. I think who's the horror writer, Stephen King.

He probably, you know, he'd probably agree with this book. Well, you know, the funny thing is it takes it takes so long and of course coming from the industry i understand all the different parameters and you'd think it would be easy to kind of bring it together but you know that whole industry has

really suffered too and before you could be you used to be able to like stuff tom cruise or leonardo dicaprio into a movie and it would be a blockbuster but all the parameters have changed these days you know people's tastes are fickle it's and it's also a blockbuster, but all the parameters have changed these days. You know, people's tastes are fickle. It's, and it's also a little bit of why television has supplanted film is because, you know, there's only so many stories you can tell in an hour and a half, two hours. And people now are so used to these really rich and complex worlds that you find in TV because you're able to explore so much more. Yeah. Through a series, do you mean? Yeah. Through a television series, just because you buy, you know, you have more episodes to play around with. Yeah. I know, uh, I know, you know, Netflix and Amazon have opened up so many

different venues of, of places to put beautiful movies and TV shows. Uh, I mean, I've seen so much great work come out of both those things that,'d never seen on, like, say, a network television series. So maybe hopefully something along those lines plays out. Yeah, absolutely. And Netflix just opened up actually a branch here, a big branch here in Vancouver. And Vancouver is like one of the top production centers in North America anyway. So it was kind of a good fit for them. But they're also really active in New Mexico.

They've dumped millions of dollars into that state and it really increased infrastructure. And my first novel, Completion, was organically set in New Mexico. So I'm kind of crafting the show and pitching it to them. Was there a lot of differences or things you learned in going from the original novel of Completion to this novel? You know what? One of the things where I see the parallel is I love exploring elements that give me kind of a wide creative berth to explore. So in my first novel, Completion, the lead character is a pyromaniac. And when I was exploring pyromania, it was so

intriguing because there's sort of a fine line to what defines a pyromaniac versus an arsonist. And pyromania is actually an impulse control disorder, kind of like kleptomania, where people get these emotional rushes and intense experiences. And the only way they can try and kibosh them is through the act of either stealing something or lighting a fire. But because there wasn't a ton of information on it, it was interesting because I could kind of adapt it to how my character was interpreting it. And so in A Rainbow Like You, the character of Hastings has synesthesia, a version called chromesthesia. And the medical community, it's still a mystery to them how synesthesia develops in humans. They don't even really know. so again when when i was interviewing people who

had chromesthesia which is that sound color association everyone seemed to interpret it just a slightly different so it was great for me because then i could give hastings this character her own interpretation of how she experienced it i think most people if they want to experience music and color they they got to take some shrooms right i may or may not have been a proponent of that in a former life i've heard that uh so but but you know this is the beauty of rock and roll uh and how it changes is there a genre that the music uh of the band is is in yeah well so size of the scan is in? Yeah, well, so Size of a Scandal, which is the fictitious band, I crafted them in my mind

as kind of this mega band, a little bit like what a U2 would have been at the height of their power in terms of very popular and their music kind of transcending a variety of different audience profiles, but firmly in the rock and roll arena so is there a love story in here yes but it's not between adrian and the runaway obviously because that

would be a bit creepy um but uh as the the story progressive adrian does meet a a love interest which of course further complicates matters i'm sure because you know when when you're in a band and you're young and it's rock and roll, there's groupies. And I think we all, we all know how that scene goes. But the interesting thing is that the problem was that, that Hastings ends up being on this tour bus with Adrian. So it's like, then it becomes a little bit of cloak and dagger. Ah, so there's some of that going on all right the uh you know i a lot of great bands that i followed uh some of their most successful times have contributed to their

highest divorces i remember metallica talked about how when they made the black album and they went on like just this i think it was like almost a two-year tour and they're like by the time everyone was done with that tour everyone was divorced and every relationship had been destroyed and it was just the fallout from from what most people would be like well you're hugely successful and your personal life is crumbling apart and and so definitely these sort of stories and things that i'm sure you put in the book or are uh really impactful and and give people an insight to the good, bad, and ugly of, of success in rock and roll. Well, it's interesting you bring up that point because as I was writing the

story, I stumbled upon this fascinating article, which talked about musicians and depression specifically from, from being on the road. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, it's, it's a tough life. And so Adrian, of course, one of the things he's struggling with at the start of the story is the demise of his long-term marriage. And a lot of that is attributed to being on the road. And, you know, not everyone processes that kind of environment in a positive way. And for fans, it's completely different because, you know,

we're so anticipatory. It's like, my band's coming to town. But then you don't think of, well, what does it mean for these people? They have to come from this high of the show. And then they get like shuttled into this bus and then you're kind of driving for 10 or eight hours. And you're like, how do you get rid of all that energy? Just why a lot of them turn to drugs and alcohol. Yeah. I mean, I think of so many of my great rock god uh idols that uh you know into heroin and

drugs and everything else and and uh one of my favorite songs of course is bob seger's uh uh on the road again no uh uh uh i i'm not sure the title of it but you might know i don't know if you were ever a bob seger's fan but he had that famous song uh that um on a long lonely highway east of omaha uh uh i uh i i can't remember the title it's not coming here i'm horrible titles but i'm great with that are you uh exactly wow okay i got called out i got called out bob see i've lost the bob seger fan crowd now uh but uh uh you know you think i'd remember that i can't remember the chorus this song i can remember the beginning of it and uh you know he talks about being on the road and how lonely it is and and, and back in those days, you'd walk into a diner and people would be like, who is that a woman or a man? Um, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know,

back in those days with long hair and, and in the sixties and seventies, but, uh, uh, you know, he just talks about the loneliness of the road and, and, uh, how you try and pass the time and everything. So, uh, it's interesting how it goes. What are some other aspects of the road and and uh how you try and pass the time and and everything so uh it's interesting how it goes what are some other aspects of the book that would be um that would encourage readers to go out and buy this well i think again you know anyone who's a music fan um will the story will resonate with them and it's interesting because i was on a cirrus xfm uh radio show a couple weeks ago. And the guy who hosted is sort of a legend in the music industry.

He's worked with all these major bands. And he threw me the hugest compliment and said that it was the most accurate portrayal of the music industry and being in a band that he has ever read. So I'm taking that compliment to my grave. There you go. Run with it. Run with it. But, you know, it's just, it's just one of these wild, unexpected rides. And you know, the whole combination of this struggling musician and

a teen runaway just has so many opportunities. And I think that's going to be the most surprising element for readers because again, you hear about that as sort of the lead into the story and you think, well, how does this actually work? What's going to happen between them? And it just goes into some very unexpected places. Awesome sauce. I just pulled the Google.com cheat and it was Bob Seger's song, Turn the Page from 1973. You have redeemed yourself. I don't know. I guess Bob seeger will never be on the show at

this pace um so so did speaking uh to that topic did you do any research did you talk to any people in rock and roll or people that were tour managers etc etc was there any of that research that went into the book absolutely and that's probably the the greatest joy to me when I get to research. And I actually knew quite a few people in the industry, people from artist managers who dealt with big names like Nora Jones, guys who'd been tour managers, musicians, singer-songwriters. Some of these people wanted to be publicly acknowledged, and then there were a lot of people like tour bus drivers

and rare guitar dealers and venue managers that wanted to remain anonymous but they all provided me some great juicy details yeah i've had some friends that ran tours for ozzy osbourne sharon uh the band's family tour they did uh oz fest and stuff like that it's a hard road uh and i think in one tour they they uh i think it was the smashing pumpkin singer basically overdosed it was either smashing pumpkins or pearl jam uh someone had overdosed on the show or on the during the tour uh and it was crazy and you know trying to get um trying to deal with all the things and you know sex drugs and rock and roll and lots of drugs um and so it's it's, it's a pretty wild ride,

but it's cool that you've taken people down that journey and they can see how it, how it goes in the end. Does, how does the book end? Do you want to tell people on how it ends or do you want to keep that a secret? Well, no, it's one of the, one of my hallmarks as a writer is that I have some great twists in my story. So if I reveal the ending, then it would take away all the fun. But I will bet you $5 that you can't best the ending.

That's awesome sauce. I love that. I hate it when I watch a movie or read a book where I'm just like, I guess I got this ending turns out, you know, most movies are, I can easily do that where I'm just like, you know, it's, I mean mean good versus evil and you know good wins and and usually that thing but i love i love in endings that have a twist to them where you won't see them coming so um anything more we should know about the book and and things that would entice people want to go out and grab it yeah well there's a great lgbtq character she's

a secondary character and she's the lead singer of this sort of scraggly punk outfit called up yours and she was a ton of fun to write and i've actually written an entire bonus chapter on her which is going to be available on book funnel but she was um you know when you're when you're writing stories you want to have these main characters but it's so much fun to populate stories with really memorable and colorful secondary characters. So that's something that I really strive to do as well. And the tour manager who is in the story, his name is Sven. He's this real uptight Swedish dude, but his kind of journey and character line ends up being really interesting and just how it's all interwoven.

I think people are going to be really surprised. Definitely. Definitely. Well, guys, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you very much for coming by and telling us about it. Oh, no, not a problem. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. And give us your plug so people can look you up on the interwebs. Absolutely. Well, my website is andreafasenfeld.com and that's spelled F-E-H-S-E-N-F-E-L-D for my last name. And of course, A Rainbow Like You is available on the Amazon platform through Barnes & Noble,

and it will be in chapters here in Canada come November. And if you want to listen to the song, then you can find it on Spotify or Apple Music. And the song was called A Rainbow Like You, and it's attributed to Adrian Johnson. There you guys go. Check it out, A Rainbow Like You. If you guys go check it out a rainbow like you if you want to see the links to it you can go to the chris fosh show.com we'll have it on

up there and several other podcasts we'll also put a link to the to the song so that people can check that out as well and of course get you know get some traffic going there seo all that good stuff uh thanks to my audience for tuning in be sure to go to goodreads.com for just Chris Foss. Also go to youtube.com for just Chris Foss. Go to facebook.com for just thechrissfossshow.com. I feel like a record right now just repeating itself. Everything is the Chris Foss or Chris Foss. Anyway, guys, we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be safe, wear your mask, vote, and we'll see you guys next time.

Rock on. Rock rock on i love that