The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Color Cult by John Martin Tilley

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

The Color Cult by John Martin Tilley https://www.amazon.com/Color-Cult-John-Martin-Tilley/dp/1837942250 When Daniel Smith sets out on a crime-as-performance-art spree (known as the "Crime Artist" around town for blowing up cans of paint in bank vaults) fueled in part by the sudden death of his mother (who revisits him, spitefully, as a ghost), he never expects to be forcefully joined by two adherents to his youthful idealist cause: Zach, a sharply honest androgynous blonde, and Lucy, an insouciant voluptuous beauty. On the run from the police as well as from the aching doldrums of life in Lincoln, Nebraska, the three are determined to "change the world" by expanding on Daniel's original series of art crimes. A folksy cast of characters brings together a surrealist romp of a book that toys with questions of art and life, humor and sex, beauty and the absurd. It's a snowstorm, it's a rainbow riot, it's a blazing mad costume party. Read it, if you dare.

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it. What do you want from us? Jesus, people. 16 years, 24 hours episodes, and bringing the Chris Voss Show. And we're just going to keep bringing you more because we're out of work and we live in a van down by the river. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss Show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from bookstolifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. Anyway, we have an amazing gentleman on the show

and he is not out of work and doesn't live down by a van in the river like I do. He is a novelist who has written his book August 29th, 2024. It is called The Color Cult. John Martin Tilly joins us in the show. We're going to get into with him, some of his insights and some of the work and art that he does with his life. The Color Cult is written by John Martin Tilley was born he was born and raised in Kearney Nebraska did I get that right John did I pronounce that right? That's Kearney but it's weird yeah there you go Kearney Nebraska I learn new things on the show every day. He is the editor in chief of Humphrey magazine, a magazine of decadent whimsy. And now I'm hungry

for dessert. Anytime I hear the word decadent, I think of, you know, some sort of dessert. Anyway, John, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to get to know you better on the interwebs there in the sky? Oh, my main one would probably be Humphreymagazine.com. Um, that's my big one. And, uh, yeah, I guess that's pretty much it. There you go.

So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book? Uh, the book. Okay. The color cult. It is about a guy who kind of goes crazy and becomes known as the crime artist in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he is doing these sort of weird, crazy, and he is doing these sort of weird crazy like performance art pieces that are actually or they're crimes but they're performance art pieces so like he'll instead of robbing the bank he'll blow up a can of paint in the bank vault or something like that that are like these weird crime statements and then he meets this this pair of weirdos kind of, and it's this girl and then this

kind of this androgynous gay guy who work at this gas station and he goes into the Rob the gas station. They want to join his cause and, um, they, he's like, no, it's my thing. Leave me alone. He's kind of yeah, and they they slip a lit cigarette down the the gas gas nozzle and blow up the gas station and they've now joined his cause and they're sort of running from the police and figuring out their next move and that's sort of

The snowball that rolls down the hill that is the novel. So that's how I always describe it, how the initial setup. It sounds like a fun storyline, everything and anything, and lots of crazy people because those make for great characters, I suppose, right? Yeah. I wrote it in a mad dash when I first moved to New York City, and it became this sort of homage to Nebraska.

So it was sort of like all these little funny characters that are existing in the world of Nebraska, which is ultimately like cars and Walmart parking lots. And it's just very, it was funny moving to New York. I ended up writing this, this homage to Nebraska, but I had been writing it for a long time anyway. So it was just the last draft I'd written. There you go. Well, that's, you know, I don't know how rural Carney is, but I know parts of Nebraska are pretty rural. That must've been quite the maybe culture shock move from there to New York, baby? Yeah, well I always tell people I had lived in other countries before, so I had

taught English as a foreign language way back, and I was just like, well New York is still the United States and it's not a whole another culture so you don't have to learn any language so it was like it's still the United States yes wow there you go well I guess I guess it is still here there you go so So you write the book and how long did it take you to write it? I, you know, it's funny. I wrote it throughout my 20s. I started it when I was probably 19 or 20 years old. And then by the time I finished it, I was probably 20, either 29 took about eight years to write. Um, and it was a funny period because I had to sort of work in smartphones into the narrative because during that time we went from flip phones to smartphones. It was a very strange transition.

And then it's even reading it now. It's again, it's an homage to Nebraska, but it's also sort of an homage to the early 2000s and like Existing in a world before smartphones, which is very weird to say but it was just like well It was just different and I kept having to edit the book to Fit the time because I wanted it to be current, but even after all the edits, it was like, well, I don't know. And the inclusion of this character

that was very androgynous sort of preempted this whole non-binary idea. And it was like, if I were to go in and edit it even further, I would probably have to make this person non-binary. But I was just like, you know, how many edits can I make? It was very strange. And I was, it was less of a political thing with the non-binaryness. It was more of an aesthetic thing of this person who, you know, I was playing with drag and I was playing with gender myself. And I just heard this this there was this really interesting controversy at the time

around this model named Andres Pagic and there was he was this incredible model but he was walking in all the women's fashion shows and he was just beautiful but he didn't need it but he was walking as a woman and fashion has always loved androgyny and Andres Pagic appeared on the cover of a magazine and Barnes and Noble said this needs to be in a black cover this is this is pornography because he was in full makeup as a woman but was shirtlessless. And it was very confusing. So it inspired this whole character. And I would honestly argue that that was really probably one of the beginnings of this whole non binary conversation that we're now having with that controversy with that magazine, because the fashion was playing with that for a long time. And anyways, I

sort of just made that into a character. I said, what if this person existed in Nebraska in the middle of, you know what I mean, like working at a gas station, like what would that look like? And then it sort of folded into this, this whole contemplation of art and aesthetic and image and, you know, beauty, et cetera, and all of that.

How does that all fit into the, you know, the Midwest? I don't know. Ah, there you go. Now, I don't know if you know, sometimes in novels you can't, we can't give away too much of them because we want people to buy the book and read them. They're not like a historical novel or kind of knows how it ends. But can you disclose to us where the title, the color cult maybe means or what it alludes to?

Well, you have those three characters that are sort of bind, bind it together, bound together from this initial sort of crazy, they blow up this gas station, they're on the run. And, um, there is a sort of instance where, you know, the big question of the book is how do they get around? Cause they end up crashing their car and the, the, the one character goes to, she, she goes to, she's trying to help the cause and she goes to the Walmart parking lot and she just starts, you know, checking to see if the cars are, have any, are unlocked and she ends up getting this car and there's

a little kid in the backseat and it becomes this very weird whimsical thing where she convinces him that she's a fairy and all this stuff. But he ends up being like, oh, so you guys are kind of like a cult almost. Like, you want to bring color and art and beauty to this very drab world of the Midwest, where nothing is very colorful to this day. So it sort of derives from that. It's kind of a joke in a way. is very colorful, I mean, to this day. So, um, it's, it's sort

of a, it derives from that. It's kind of a joke in a way. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's this idea of being in this sort of cult, but it's, it's sort of just the funny little, the group that, and it's, it's kind of a, a moniker from this, this, this precocious child. a moniker from this this this precocious child Well, thanks for an interesting cover Yes, I actually shot the cover myself

Yes, yes, I did a lot of it myself I I shot the cover that's my friend's niece Who I always I wanted to use her in some Capacity because I just thought she and it was so interesting too is that speaking of childhood it was just you know she was such a I it's hard for me even to look at her and not think of her as this three-year-old when I was in high school who stole the last puzzle piece and then came back and had the last puzzle piece that we were all looking for and her name's Brack and she's just this beautiful girl and I just was like, Oh, she'll be great for the cover, you know, so we just took a projector and projected the title onto

her face and just took a photo. It's kind of an unedited photo. So yeah, it's perfect. We do a lot of novels on the show. I mean, we probably had hundreds, five, 600, 700 novels on the show. It's we probably had hundreds five six hundred seven or novels on the show It's perfect. It looks like something would come from Simon Schuster or Penguin Random House you know it probably adds to the kind of the Fabric or the character of the book so tell us about the characters in there. There's a Daniel Smith I believe and and some other people QT's a little bit more out to us on

some of these characters, flesh them out a little bit? Yeah, Daniel, to be honest, it all started as me. I was in art history class in college, and I had a crush on this boy. And so the original, he had the same name as me. His name was John. And so the original draft, he had the same name as the gay character. But Daniel has experienced, you know, he's kind of going off the rails a little bit.

His mom has just died, and they don't know if it's a suicide or if it was an accident. And this is all honestly in the very first chapter. So she is she then I there's this very, I was rereading it actually to my friend. I we have this tradition of where we read aloud and we'll lay out and tan in the sun and I just read to her and I was reading the book and I was like you know this is so funny I didn't realize lately I'm very obsessed with camp the book is very campy it's very funny and sort of silly and whimsical and insane I have the idea of who framed Roger Rabbit as a sort of aesthetic idea of who framed Roger Rabbit as a sort of aesthetic channel to go down.

But the characters, Daniel is a he's this guy and he's sort of this army guy and he's, you know, kind of a campy version of this straight guy who's just like, I'm going to do this. And then there's Zach, who's the androgynous blonde who's sort of my stand in, I guess, where it's the André Béjic. He's this model, this ethereal-looking, you know, is he a boy? Is he a girl? We can't quite tell just looking at him. And then there's Lucy, who is this, you know, very soft-dig, this woman, and she's very bored. And she's based on some people I've known in my life who just sort of are very, I don't know, monotone and very bored, like kind of Margot Tenenbaum or something. And she has, she's from Lincoln

and she wanted to move to New York and she's sort of stuck in Lincoln and her dad has cancer. He was building this museum that's all about bugs and it sort of had to come to a halt right before it was ready to be finished. And the museum is this big beautiful wild museum of all, you know, there's the butterflies and then there's like colony insects and then there's arachnids, which I guess aren't really insects, but you know, whatever. They're fun for a museum and the only one that they need to

finish is the arachnids. Anyway, they end up hiding out in this museum and it's just, I don't know, I, you know, again, it's a lot of what I was playing with were the ideas of art and how it fits into our world, and museums are a big part of that. So it was kind of a funny sort of toying with how a museum functions by having these people in this sort of abandoned museum, and that it's not even an art museum, it's bugs. So it was sort of this pointing towards the natural world or something like that,

or looking closer at things like just a bug and how beautiful a bug could be. I don't know, I'm kind of into, I love bugs. And then also Lucy has a grandmother who runs a taxi service, and she is this sort of chic older woman. Again, this was before Uber, so I pictured this woman running a taxi service, which is not uncommon in Nebraska. At least back in the day, there'd be these little sort of rinky-dink, you know, taxi services for when you need a, you know, a designated driver or whatever. And she's this chic older woman who I'm obsessed with that type of person,

this older woman who's just very put together and chic and fabulous and wears little cardigans. And I love that sort of idea. And I'm always thinking of the entire span of a lifetime as well. So you have this older woman and then this child who's a toddler and you have everybody in between. It's just yeah, so Eleanor is sort of this cool, she gives them rides because how are they going to get around? They wreck the car right off the bat. She's sort of their link to the outside world. And she sort of understands what they're doing because she's, you know, participated in the 60s revolutions and stuff like that. So, yeah, yeah.

And then there's a sort of a mat cap rag tag bag of, you know, weirdos that you would sort of run into in Nebraska or anywhere really. They're just American characters, I suppose. American weirdos. Yeah, or not even weirdos, just people. It's interesting the characters of people's, maybe that could be a title for your next book, American Weirdos. I don't know. Sounded like a good title. I mean, you know, I don't, it could be, I don't know.

You know, I don't, it could be, I don't know. So, uh, were there, were there any real people or events maybe from your life and your journey that you kind of put in the book and, you know, they maybe inspired you or became characters? I know one novelist we have on the show. She, she puts in and kills off characters that piss her off in real life. Well, I don't know. Well, um don't know. Well, well, actually, yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny.

The, the, the child that she accidentally, you know, kidnaps, um, when she steals the car. I have this nephew and he is very, um, he's really unique. He's very precocious and he just, it's hard to describe because he's almost like, he was just at such a high level very, very, very early. Like he could remember things from when he was like one, when he was like two or three, and he just had this very intense memory. He learned how to speak very early. Like he was speaking full sentences by two. He was very precocious. So he kind of crept his way into the novel.

So I ended up having this young child who's very precocious. And I was like, oh, that's Landon, my nephew. It was kind of funny because I sort of watched him grow up and sort of, I like to think I helped, you know, where I could, you know, I was sort of the third parent for Landon when I was here in Nebraska. And he was just so funny and strange. And it's just, I love the mind of a child

because they're so open and they really believe in this magic. And I was trying to tap into that with the book where she, for a moment, she sort of convinces him that she really is from another world or something like that. And she builds this kind of fantasy, which children really do sort of buy into, which I love. So I'm always trying to tap into that. I've been told I'm very, very childlike. I mean, Humphrey magazine is very, is very child. It's my other project, of course, it's very childlike.

Tell us about that. Tell us about that. Oh, Humphrey. So, well, the fantasy is that Humphrey started his own magazine. He's my cat. Actually, I have one of the editors right here So all the editors are puppets. I wasn't even planning on bringing him on the show Is that Humphrey or some free cowboy cowboy boy, oh my cat

Yeah, he started the magazine and all the editors are puppets and that's that's cowboy he is the literature editor he's southern and then we have auntie for fashion and The art fart for art. So Yeah, and then each each physical issue I'm really focused on print cause I love print. I'm like, bring back print. I love print. Um, it's very focused on like a theme. So our upcoming theme is fake. Um, but we've done, uh, fame luxury and body. So this will be issue number four.

There you go. So you have four issues now with the magazine. Well, I'm almost, I'm almost done with four. Yeah. Okay. How could people subscribe to it or, you know, get it? It's kind of the next issue is, you know, supposed to be in Barnes and Noble. So hopefully that works out. It is available on my website. It's on Humphreymagazine.com. I'm kind of focusing it as more of like each one is an individual sort of art object, kind of like toilet paper magazine, which I'm a big, it's kind of an insane magazine if you know, you know, but they don't really, it's just like each one is almost like a collector's item or something. So I'm kind of thinking of doing it that way. So you don't really, it's just like each one is almost like a collector's item or something.

So I'm kind of thinking of doing it that way. So you don't flush it when you're done. No, I mean that part of the tow. I was thinking toilet paper magazine and my joke and I'm like, so do you read it and then you use the pages for toilet paper? They would love that. Honestly, they love that. But I mean, honestly, like a lot of advertising now is sort of inspired by toilet paper. It's a very influential magazine within like the art and fashion world. Look it up. It's very cool.

Okay, our art and fashion. Very cool. So, if you could leave people that read your work with one message, what would it be? Oh gosh. I guess what I would say is, you know, that I always say I'm very serious about being silly. So I always say if you're going to take something away, it's it's it's that play and playfulness and whimsy are important, and that we need it and frivolity is not actually that frivolous, you know, like I love the idea of, you know, we sometimes and then that's what the whole book is about, really,

it's about yearnings or beauty in a place that is very empty and very Almost like a blank page. So it's kind of like yeah be serious about being silly, but you know, have fun Have fun You know experience joy where you can because that's that's all there really is, you know, that's I Guess that I hope maybe, you know, I could say heat ups work. Certainly be suppression and darkness and stuff, by people like that.

Right, you know, like just be mythical, be crazy. Yeah, enjoy life. Take some time to look around. Do something crazy. Yeah, be silly. Paint your face blue, I don't care. You know, sometimes I drink water and I put some Mio in it. I like living on the edge.

You know, I put that, uh, put the flavoring in there and it's got some caffeine in it. Boy, I'm on the edge right there. That's, that's, I mean, that's, you're really, you're really playing with fire. I'm pushing it. Yeah. I'm pushing it. I'm pushing it. I'm 57.

You know, you gotta, you gotta watch what you've pushed. Oh, you don't look a day over 50. Oh'm 57, you know, you gotta, you gotta watch what you've pushed. And you don't look a day over. Oh, Oh, God bless you. The, uh, uh, what was the other question I had for you here? So what are you reading now? What, what books do you like to read? What do you enjoy? Oh gosh. Um, I'm, I, I'm not a big fan of what I'm reading right now, but I mean, honestly, I have it right here. It's called Little Man What Now?

And it's this very, it's a cute, actually here, I have it. This is the cover. My friend gave it to me and it's actually I believe it was published in Germany during the Nazi regime so these Nazis that are characters and it's but it's kind of like they're just living it's just a man and a wife trying to get by and watching the I, it's kind of pre Nazi era. So it's, you know, the, the, the, the look before, I mean, one of the main causes of Nazism was the economic downfall of Germany. They could, people were starving. So that's kind of what the book is about is this, this couple sort

of caught in this downward spiral of the economy and it kind of sucks. But it's very cheerful and funny at the same time. It's kind of a funny book. I don't go in for, you know, I don't love dipping into, I've definitely put a moratorium on like Nazi literature because I'm just like, I don't want to read about it. I'm sick of it. I get it. I get what happened. But this is a very strange I get it. I get what happened. But this is a very strange book from within that time period. Very, very interesting. But usually I'm very snobbish about what I read, honestly. But I guess I follow literary worlds or something. I was really into Katie Kitamura recently who wrote Audition. I might write a review for that for Humphrey. Who else was it? Oh, Harry, I want to say Hari Kunzaru is a genius. He's absolutely insane. I can't even get over. He's become one of my, I mean, he's probably one of the most important novelists living today.

Him and probably is 86 and they're both British. So he's a genius. He just wrote Blue Ruin, which was a really great read of the art world. Absolutely incredible book. And then White Tears, of course, which was, in my opinion, should be required reading for everybody. Like, you should read White Tears. It's really amazing. It's a very good, it's kind of like the last word on race relations in the United States. And it's written by a British Indian man, like absolutely incredible. And it's from the angle of blues music, which is a really great angle to approach

the slave narrative of, you know, the black experience in the United States and then the white appropriation thereof. It's incredible. So it's a really, really beautiful, incredible book that starts out and is very much about music. Amazing book. Absolutely incredible. But yeah, I'm always reading stuff these days because of Humphrey. So, you know, me and cowboy, we've got to read our books. So,

you step on the books. Yes, because I have to write all my book reviews, even though my least favorite. Yeah. Books are Nazis. That's so 2025 right now. Well, it's not even that's the thing is it's not about Nazis. It's just from the era. Yeah, from the air. It's just not. It's just casually Nazi characters because it's written during that period. It was published in characters because it's written during that period. It was published in like 1915 or something like that, or 1920 in Germany. So it's like, there's just casually mention of Nazis.

I don't think they knew what was coming quite yet. So it was like, it's really, oh, this classic 1933 novel provides a vivid picture of life in Germany just before Hitler's takeover. Yeah, it's like right before it all hit the fan So it's like oh, yeah, the Nazi Party and the Communist Party and like blah blah blah. It's it's it's weird It's a weird little book my friend my friend gave it to me. She's like, this is a it's kind of funny and sweet Actually, it's a sweet

It's just about survival I should read it figure out what 2026 is gonna be like. Anyway, I'm just kidding. It's a weird time right now. I mean it's honestly kind of similar where it's like, yeah, you have an economic spiral and you're just people are just trying to survive. So, there you go. Last question, why do you feel art is connected to chaos? Or do you feel that way? The PR company sent me that question for you. So I'm not sure. No, yeah, I remember that question, art and chaos. I think anyone who is an artist is a little chaotic. And there's a sort of being you're touched touched into something that is a little crazy. I think art almost encourages a little bit of letting go of control in order to be in touch with the muse, you know?

So you're just kind of like almost at the mercy of something beyond you. So whether we wanna call that chaos or the muse or nature or something, you know, I've been thinking a lot about order and chaos, you know, because what is chaos? Chaos is kind of just the natural world, entropy. Things are always trying to tear things apart.

And that's what artists do. They sort of look at something and they frame it in a way that makes you tear it apart or think about it in a new way, or look at it from a new angle. And they're sort of looking at the world we live in and saying, well, what is this world and why is it the way it is?

And with that comes a little bit of chaos, a little bit of, you know, when you start to rip the seams apart on the world, you know, Pandora's box happens and that's how it is. So I guess that's a little bit. Yeah, definitely. I already have a taste of life and that's kind of how life is.

There's a lot of chaos going on. Yeah, I mean, really, yeah, life is chaos, ultimately that's kind of how life is. There's a lot of chaos going on. Yeah, I mean really, yeah. Life is chaos ultimately. Oh, you should see my bank. It's hard to keep it together. It's hard. Joe kind of fell flat in it. You should see my negative bank account.

Maybe it's funnier if I say negative bank account. There you go. I think that works. Anyway, so give us your final pitch out. Tell people where they can order the book, where they can get to know your magazine better.com and all that good stuff. Um, well, the book is very easy to find. Um, it's on Amazon and everything.

You can just Google the color cults, uh, or my name. Um, uh, the magazine Humphrey magazine is also very easy to find. Um, if you just Google it or go to Humphrey.com, magazine is also very easy to find if you just google it or go to humphreymagazine.com I'm also very easy to find And that's pretty much it My Instagram is madam starlight That's my drag name So, yeah

There you go. Well, thank you very much for coming to show We really appreciate you coming and sharing the story and we'll look forward to your next book John Yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it And thanks for us for tuning in pick up the book where refined books are sold the color cult out August 29th, 2024 Thanks for tuning in go to good reset com for just Chris Foss 2024 thanks for tuning in go to good reads.com for just chris fos linkedin.com for just chris fos chris fos won the tick tock and he all those crazy places in it be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time and that's