As those of you who follow my (somewhat lackluster) progress on here, I’m in the middle of writing my sophomore novel, The Broken. About events involving a band in the nineties, and the fallout of a tragedy they are blamed for, music is, clearly, an integral part of the story and plot.

What you might also know is that, a few months back, I took up my trusty guitar and started playing around with some riffs to see if I could replicate the sound of nineties nu-metal, the intention being to get a feel for their sound as I wrote their story.

This has since blossomed into seven complete songs, totaling twenty-nine minutes’ worth of music. I never really anticipated this coming to pass, but something triggered my long-dormant composition bug, and I’ve been steadily building up a library of music that, for all intents and purposes, is by The Broken.

And it occurred to me the other day that, having put all this work into writing and recording music, it would be a shame for no one to hear it. I can’t pretend to be the best musician in the world, nor the best lyricist, but I do have a first-class degree in composition, and at the very least I know enough about song structure and the recording process to create something that, whilst perhaps not brilliant, is at least listenable.

This got me thinking about sharing my music with others, and I wondered: what if I released a book and an album together – as companions to each other? I could even time it for them to go live on the same day, and people could listen to the band as they read about it!

I feel like this could be a really interesting way for people to get to know the band on an even deeper level than described in the book. I wouldn’t even particularly care if people bought the album, or it was provided for free; the point is to allow readers the opportunity to discover (or rediscover) what rock and metal can mean to people, and how it can destroy lives – or save them.

What do you think? Would you be interested in a book that came with an album? Let me know in the comments!