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On The Table Read, “the best book magazine in the UK“, musician and author, Sean Bw Parker, talks about the work that went into his new book, States Of Independence: From Pop Art To Art Rock And Beyond.
Written by JJ Barnes
I interviewed Sean Bw Parker about his life and career, what inspires his writing, and the work that went into his new book about the history of art and music, States Of Independence: From Pop Art To Art Rock And Beyond.
Tell me a bit about who you are.
I’m a writer, artist and lecturer, born in Exeter in 1975. I’ve now published seven books, mostly on art and culture, and contributed poetry to four more. I lived in Istanbul for ten years until 2014 where I was a musician and teacher, and started writing about music. I gave a TED talk – Stammering and Creativity – there in 2013, and also lectured at Istanbul University in the same year.
After I’d recovered from the culture shock of coming back I founded and ran the Seafish music and arts venue on the West Sussex coast for a year in 2016, which hosted the likes of The Members, The Bluetones’ Mark Morriss, Eat Static and Deborah Rose.
I was also interviewed for a Sky Arts documentary on William Blake by the artist Ali Lapper. This was followed by a hiatus in which I wrote a number of works, including my seventh book, States of Independence: From Pop Art to Art Rock and Beyond.
When did you first WANT to write a book?
After I’d experienced a bomb going off outside a café in Istanbul, followed by being attacked by a pack of wild dogs in a park by the Bosphorus late at night, I decided it would be a pity to not have some record of my ten years in Istanbul, so I wrote Salt In The Milk, my first book, while I was recuperating in the summer/autumn of 2014.
When did you take a step to start writing?
I’ve been writing since the age of about 14, when I was sitting with my friend and then-guitarist Simon Saddler at the back of physics class, thinking more about the Manic Street Preachers and The Cure than Newton’s Laws. We wrote a teenage punk rock frustration song called Sexual Innuendo for our band Sweet Assassin, and I was off. It wasn’t hard, but it was shit.
How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release?
Much of Salt In The Milk was written over the ten years there, so it was about collating it, editing, tidying up and making sure it made some sort of sense as a whole. The more I write these days, the less sense I want to make though. The next one might be total gibberish. The thing is, reading back, it’s the unpolished, gibberish aspects I like the most. That probably says more about me than the book. So it took either about three months or ten years, depending on how you count.
How long did it take you to complete your latest book from the first idea to release?
I tend not to write sequentially, having a bunch of ideas lying around then seeing which one survives, like some internal Darwinistic Hunger Games. I started States of Independence after being thrown back almost totally onto my own resources on Dartmoor, and wanted to make something coherent out of that experience.
Focusing on your latest release. What made you want to write States Of Independence?
After the pretty shattering closure of Seafish, the venue I’d opened a year before, I felt a need to express creativity as that felt like all I had left. As I gradually put myself back together, it turned into a kind of toilet read for the rock intellectual set.
What were your biggest challenges with writing States Of Independence?
I had no access to a computer when I started it, so I was compiling handwritten notes, and of course no search engines, so relying on memory and the few music books on which I could lay my hands. There is also a more narrative ‘story of pop art’, which might see the light of day at some point.
What was your research process for States Of Independence?
I wrote prose memories for key tracks by artists I felt either influenced or were influenced by pop art, and then added cultural context as to how those songs might be read in the current climate of cancel culture etc. I then cross-checked various references when I was able, authorised the photos, and cannibalised one of my own paintings from art school in 1998 for the cover.
How did you plan the structure of States Of Independence?
I decided to list the tracks alphabetically as opposed to the artists’ names in order to highlight the work over the maker, in a time where work seems to be being forgotten in the shadow of whomever made it. The song is the thing.
As the book grew, I realised it would be much more involving with photos, formalising itself in the ideal that the reader will sit with the book I one hand and a glass of wine in the other, with the postmodern luxury of having a streaming platform on at the time, able to discover the song being described, and that opening up new rabbit holes of discovery.
Did you get support with editing, and how much editing did States Of Independence need?
I am a qualified editor (and proof-reader) as well as being a writer, so it didn’t need much by the time I’d finished with it. Too much editing can strip the soul out of a book. Mistakes are often good, and best left in, much like relating your past to strangers. The reader is intelligent enough, in the case of this book anyway, to be an editor themselves. It’s fact mixed with opinion of some much-loved (and hated) acts, so editing becomes less important than vibrancy.
What is the first piece of writing advice you would give to anyone inspired to write a book?
Just write as unselfconsciously as possible. If you read it back and it seems too controversial to show anyone, that’s a good thing. Let the legal department worry about that. Self-editing before even getting to the final stages is an enemy of art, and creative or interpretive writing at its best is an art, not a business. Also don’t throw anything away, however strong the scorched-earth instinct. Put it somewhere where you’ll forget about it. Years later your joy and surprise at how you used to write will astonish you. There’s no need to be ashamed of any of it, it’s genuine expression.
Can you give me a hint about any further books you’re planning to write?
There is a novel, working title ‘A Delicate Balance of Reason’, which is like some kind of ghastly mash-up of Kafka’s The Trial and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. A poetry collection called ‘A Reasonable Man, Suspended in Aspic’, a collection of essays on justice reform in the UK, and a companion to my TED talk called ‘Stammering and Culture’. We’ll see if any of them make it out in one piece.
And, finally, are your proud of your accomplishment? Was it worth the effort?
Of course, everything is! It’s fun watching it climb rapidly up Amazon’s bestseller charts, then rapidly tumble down thereafter. The radio stations are full of paid for junk, but good stuff survives and has depth of culture, regardless of genre. That’s why Public Enemy sits next to Sharon Van Etten and Joni Mitchell in ‘States of Independence’. Hopefully it’s a testament to the fact that pop music isn’t as disposable as the likes of Andy Warhol would like to pretend – the good stuff sticks around and becomes as embedded as any Beethoven sonata.
Pop all your book, website and social media links here so the readers can find you:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sean-Bw-Parker
https://medium.com/@seanbwparker
https://www.saatchiart.com/seanbwparker
https://www.facebook.com/seanbwparkerpage
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