G is for gigs. Dead Man Singing begins with Dave Masters taking the stage for a gig at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, a far cry from the sell-out runs at Hammersmith Odeon which he enjoyed in his 70s heyday. Subsequently, the action criss-crosses the country at a series of gigs where Dave is variousl...

Mods and Rockers, Soul boys and New Romantics, Punks, Rastas and Casuals. Music was a tribal affair when I was a young man. Things are a lot less regimented now, with fans mixing and matching their listening to a much greater extent. I think that’s a good thing – after all, there’s...

F is for ‘Feel Like Going Home’, a song with a huge role in the early part of Dead Man Singing. I first heard the song when Mark Knopfler’s Notting Hillbillies covered it on their album Missing: Presumed Having a Good Time, but the original was the work of Charlie Rich. Rich was a ...

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...