E is for Empty, Running On. I wanted Dave, the main character from Dead Man Singing, to have a big hit single as a millstone around his neck, one that he hates playing live but can’t drop from his set because the audience expects it. I wanted it to be from the early 80s at a time when his root...

Music is at the heart of Dead Man Singing. It’s not just that the main character is a faded, jaded rock star, I also tried to make the music an integral part of the storytelling. You don’t have to know the songs in order to enjoy the book, but if you do there’s a whole extra dimens...

D is for Del Amitri, one of the great under-rated bands of the late 80s/early 90s. You can find their music all over Dead Man Singing: it’s there in one of Dave and Cindy’s first meetings and the group crop up sporadically throughout the book, culminating with an account of one of their ...

‘He strode onto the tiny stage in the poky, smoky barn of a room, met with a smattering of applause rather than full-throated cheers.’

Dave Masters’ experience at the very beginning of chapter 1 of Dead Man Singing was strangely similar, yet hugely different to mine on Sunday 1^st O...