He Wrote the Book

© Ben Thacker

Earlier this year, first-time author J.J. Colagrande published the novel and companion website, Headz, a tale set in, and about, the heady, surreal world of music festivals. I recently sat down with Colagrande to discuss the festival culture and the novel that it inspired. Take a look, and tell us - How do music festivals inspire you?

Why did you want to write a novel set in the festival scene?

It’s a crazy, beautiful, one-of-a-kind setting. It’s so energetic and inspiring. This is a thriving counterculture with its own flavor, economy, rules, cliques, crews, and spirit. It’s undeniably unique. I love this setting, especially for a fictional landscape. And it’s nothing new. I think it all sprang from the pen of Jack Kerouac, and then Tom Wolfe touched on it in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, the Grateful Dead carried it in to the 90’s then Phish picked up the torch, and now it’s all about festies. We’re talking about concerts that draw 100,000 people, consistently, mostly under the radar. It’s a great setting.  

Did you write the novel for the people within the scene or for outsiders – sort of as a window in?

Both. I went out-of-my-way to make it accessible to people of all ages and ethnicities. If your grandparents wanted to know what these concerts were about, they could get an idea. They wouldn’t understand the lingo, but they’d realize that this is the now, just like when they were young, they had their own thing. Still, for the headz in the scene, the information is so authentic the goal is to have people feel like this is them, or is reminiscent of people they know.

Why the companion website?

Two reasons. First, I wanted to have something free floating around the internet. Second, there was a lot of good writing that didn't fit into the narrative arc of the novel, but still seemed relevant information to the culture. So, to honor the scene and the characters in the book, I put 58 deleted scenes onto a website, like a DVD does with Bonus Features. Also, the website is going to evolve. Soon, we will be launching film and music and audio features so we can take the fictional experience to a whole new level. The publishing industry is changing. It feels very right to have something online.        

Who are your influences - musical and literary?

I’ve really dug on Hemingway, because of his Iceberg Theory, which states that there are many things under the surface.  But I’ve also studied Kerouac big time. I spent three days with Kerouac’s archives, which are on display in the NYPL. It was dope. They put me in a big room alone with Kerouac’s working Mead notebooks so I can read his scribbles in his own writing. I’m also big on Carlos Castaneda, Oscar Wilde, Tom Robbins, Nabokov, Knut Hamson, John Coltrane, the Doors, the Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Phish. I need to catch up with the kidz and get with the Disco Biscuits and STS9 . . .  

Can you describe your writing process? Were you, like, the only guy at the show with a pen and paper?

This particular book took five years to compose, edit, and revise. Then it took two years to find a publisher. I wrote, on average, 4 to 6 hours a day, every day. Sometimes I wrote up to 10 hours a day.

I write while listening to music. I must’ve listened to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme two thousand times. I also listened to a lot of Medeski, Martin, and Wood, and also classical music, like Chopin and Stravinsky. 

Whenever I go to a festival I’m always amazed at how many festival people there are. I always wonder where they all came from – I never see them at the grocery store or the gas station. I assume that most people are presenting their “festival personas” at festivals and that they have jobs and houses and ironing boards just like the rest of us. But some, as your novel suggests, live these kind of underground lives. They are very much like the commune hippies in T.C. Boyle’s Drop City. What do you think is the difference between people who play hippie for a day and people who truly emerge themselves within the festival/hippie lifestyle, as your characters do?

There are headz everywhere. I’d prefer not to use labels. Most of the characters in the book are under 22 years old, and in that regard they’re coming-of-age, and in many ways, lost. I think this question is kind of jaded because, if you read the book, the characters are not immersed in the hippie lifestyle. They’re living their lives and the festival is sort of a utopia for them, a home away from home.   

How much is it about the music and how much is it about something else – escape, maybe?

If we call it escape, it sounds too grown up. One of the themes of this world is to stay young, to be playful, and to maintain the spirit of youth. Rock stars don’t have to grow up. Going to a festival gives headz a chance to be a rock star. It’s also wanderlust. You know. The journey is the destination thing.

What’s the coolest thing you ever bought at a festival?

The coolest legal thing? I would have to say this Dr. Seuss t-shirt. It was The Lorax.  It had a graphic of the Lorax and it said “I speak for the trees.” I loved that shirt, but I spaced it somewhere.

What do you think it the best festival running in the U.S. right now?

I want to say Bonnaroo because they understood first how to incorporate the jam band music festival vibe with all music: hip hop, indie, the deejay culture, even mainstream, plus they have a circus atmosphere. That's the equation. Still, Rothbury is probably the biggest thing going this year. But the biggest isn't necessarily the best, so you have to shout out festies like All Good, Camp Bisco, and Gathering of the Vibes. I'm not leaving out the West Coast. The whole West Coast is like a festival.

What's the best festival performance you’ve seen?

I’m a Phish kid at heart. When Phish gets into a groove, it’s a rocket. They do it on the regular, when they play live, so you have to tip your hat to them. For the novel, I was inspired by a Mars Volta performance at Bonnaroo. I studied the lead singer’s mannerisms and onstage persona. He’s so animated and filled with this mad mad energy. He mirrored Thelonious to a tee, so that made it into the book.