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Where KILL FOR LOVE Came From…

It isn’t always possible for a writer to identify the exact moment or incident that, possibly years later, prompted him to start writing his novel. But in the case of KILL FOR LOVE it is.

Although it took decades to form, more than anything KILL FOR LOVE came out of my years writing about rock music not least about John Lennon and the Beatles. That isn’t to say that any character in KILL FOR LOVE is based on anyone, either living or dead. None of them are.

But during the years when I was involved with John Lennon it often struck me that he was regarded by many almost as a cult leader. It was something he thought absurd, as can be seen in a remarkable moment in the documentary film Imagine when a young man turned up at his house, Tittenhurst Park in England, convinced that the ex-Beatle had all the answers.

Quickly and bluntly John disabused him of any such notions and then told his staff to give the fellow something to eat and send him on his way. But it was a disquieting moment, one that returns to me every time I think about another Beatles fan, Mark Chapman.

Suppose, I began to think, another musician was to find himself the subject of the same degree of uncritical veneration and interpretation. Can we be sure he would react in the dismissive, iconoclastic way that Lennon did?

While these thoughts were spending years mulling in my mind, another one was trying to get through. It went like this: why is it that musicians are the most sexually desired people on earth? In a purely evolutionary sense, successful sportsmen, politicians and rich businessmen should get all the women, not weedy little rock stars. But, as a trawl through the biographies of all the most famous rock stars will reveal, they are the ones women of all classes pursue the most.

Is it possible, I began to wonder, when at rock festivals I would watch the devoted honouring their idols, that some voices put to music work like subconscious triggers, that those guys up there on the stage possess powers they hardly understand themselves.