TIH 621: Josh Curran on Narrating Daddy’s Boy, Lessons Recording an Audiobook, and the Miscreations Podcast

Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today on This Is Horror. I am talking to Josh Curran, the audio book narrator of daddy's boy and the mastermind behind the Miss creations podcast. Now we recorded this one about a month ago, near the release of daddy's boy, but I've held off releasing it because daddy's boy is not yet on Audible, however, it is on every other platform. So now is the time to unleash this conversation into the world, and if you want to pick up the audio version of daddy's boy, my favorite platform is audiobooks.com. And Spotify is pretty good for audio books too, but there are plenty of other platforms. So choose your favorite apart from Audible, because it's not there at the moment. And do let me know how you get on. And do listen after the interview if you want to know about some of the upcoming books that are being released this week. So with that said, we'll take a quick advert break and jump into it. What

Bob Pastorella 2:04
if the end of the world didn't come with a bang, but with a breach in the infernal age? Demon gate, a failed experiment, destroys all technology, killing millions, and opens a gateway to something far worse. Demons now roam the earth, and humanity's only hope lies in adapting to the ashes of a broken world. If you love the creeping dread of the mist, the poignant grit of the road and the dark humor of the cabin in the woods, you'll feel right at home in his post apocalyptic blend of horror and sci fi the infernal age. Demon gate is available now on Amazon, audible and bookshop.org, step to the gate, if you dare.

RJ Bailey 2:40
It was as if the video had unzipped my skin, slunk inside my tapered flesh and become one with me.

Bob Pastorella 2:49
From the creator of This Is Horror comes a new nightmare for the digital age. The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson, after a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends into paranoia and obsession. More videos follow, each containing information no stranger could possibly know, but who's sending them and what do they want? The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves. The Girl of the video is the ring meets fatal attraction for the iPhone generation, available now in paperback, ebook and audio. Okay.

Josh Curran 3:18
Here it is. It is Josh Curran on, This Is Horror. Josh, welcome to This Is Horror. Hi.

Good to be here. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 3:35
good to have you here. And of course, the occasion is that this is part of a number of daddy's boy themed conversations that we're having to coincide with the launch of daddy's boy. And of course, you are the sound the voice of daddy's boy, because you are the narrator himself.

Josh Curran 3:56
That's right. I mean, where do we even begin with that?

Michael David Wilson 4:03
Well, I mean, we've got two choices. Essentially, we could begin with daddy's boy. Or what I often like to do with this as horror is kind of begin with you and your early life. So, like, I don't begin every episode with you specifically, like in coons on and I'm like, What's early life, but with a guest their early life. So what are kind of some of the memories during those formative years? And are there any early life lessons that you particularly remember growing up. Okay,

Josh Curran 4:45
that's a tough one. I didn't think we'd start with my life as a whole. So I was born in Nottingham, in a little village outside it called Stapleford. I've always sort of been a performative type in. I always enjoyed the drama classes, the music and singing classes, but in the background, I was still having to work Maths and English and try and get a career that way.

Then left Nottingham and went to Lincoln to study drama and theater. So I became one of the theater kids for a little while, you know, just having the time of my life up on stage, doing that sort of stuff. But then, as happens with a lot of theater kids, you leave university and it's like, well, now time to get a job. And so I met someone there called Daniel Willcocks, who I think, you know,

I'm very familiar with, Daniel will catch Yeah,

so the first time I recall him reaching out to me was I was running a creative writing society for the Students Union at Lincoln, and I just got this Facebook message from this person saying, Hey, I'm An author. I was wondering if maybe I could come in and share some stuff about my books, or run a workshop and say, Yeah, sure. And then a couple of weeks go by and said, oh, sorry, something's come up. I'm gonna have to reschedule. So that's fine. That's fine. And then a few more weeks go by, and so so that time we reschedule for Sorry, I'm gonna have to reschedule for another time, and something's gone wrong with the book, and I'm sorry I can't do this. It's like, okay, that's absolutely fine. And then thinking this time, who is this mystery man? And then eventually, I met him at this open mic poetry night, and I could swear I'd seen him somewhere before. And then I finally remembered him. During my Freshers week, he was with this team of people who were going around doing chlamydia testing. He was little like trying to

get apropos for daddy's boy. I've never heard this Daniel Wilcock story, but yeah, this is great any

Yeah. So basically, he was one of the people just going around getting everyone to do chlamydia testing. Ah, that's where I know this author from. But then I had him as a contact, and eventually he put up a post asking for narrators for a podcast he was working on called the other stories. So I did that. I went out, I bought a new microphone, I set up everything up, didn't audition for it, and it's like, yeah, sure, you can record this, this test story. And I did, and it was, I can't remember what it was called, but it was, it was about this man who was undergoing a procedure to replace his head with a new head, or rather, replace his body with a new body. And it had this crazy German scientist. So that was sort of my first experience of really doing audio narration and audio recording. So I learned since then, I've done about 200 I want to say, episodes of the other stories, and a few of a few other little podcasts as well, one of which you wrote a story on, called miscreation.

Michael David Wilson 8:19
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you may be doing a bit of a disservice to say that you did some narration for miscreations, because that was your own creation, as I as I recall.

Josh Curran 8:34
Yeah, so after a while with hawk and Cleaver, who created the other stories, I went out. So at first, I was invited to a party, a Christmas party, at a cast the publishers, which hawk and clever were using at the time, I can't remember if they still are, and I saw they had a recording studio there, and they said that creators could just book it and use it for free. So I thought, Well, why not now we've got that. And I had a bunch of contacts in London at the time who would happily do audio drama stuff. So I thought, You know what, let's, let's make an audio drama podcast. We've got, got the time resources. And it turned as you know, it turned out pretty great.

Michael David Wilson 9:19
Yeah, yeah, I thought it was fantastic. And, I mean, I wasn't planning on jumping into miss creations right now. And I did want to talk a little bit about Daniel's passion for chlamydia testing, something I didn't realize that he had until this moment. But as we've gone to miss creations, I mean, quite a few listeners will measure if you want Well, I mean, there's always time to come back to chlamydia, so don't you worry. Yeah, we've got, we've got enough time for that. But a number of listeners to this podcast may be familiar with hawk and Cleaver's the other stories. I mean, the idea there is. Typically it's one narrator and there's some sound effects. It's very well produced. I mean, for me, I think the two kind of fiction podcasts within this genre that are the best are the no sleep podcast and hawk and Cleaver's the other stories. They're my personal favorites. But then miscreations. I mean, I think that was a level above, because not only did you have all the good things about, you know, the other stories, but you had essentially a full cast. And I think just having multiple narrators on each track, it really took it to the next level. So, I mean, you only had six episodes of that I was eagerly writing. Well, you had five and one that I apparently imagined maybe Dan pending about chlamydia. Yeah, I was hoping for a season two. I did periodically, you know, ask Dan and Luke Condor, another one of the main players for Hawking cleaver. But

Josh Curran 11:12
that's a sad story, I'm afraid. So the first series of Miss creation, it was five episodes, and I was basically just using, mostly using people from the university I was doing my masters at friends, other contacts in London to do it. And it was take it was taking up a lot of their time, because producing an audio drama takes up a lot more time and resources than it does producing a single narrated episode of the other stories. So it's getting a couple of hours of these people's times to come in, come into a studio record, DO RE records, do a bunch of retakes, and everything you saw it you were there and people coming in to do the episode you wrote. By the time it got to season two, I felt I can't bring these people. Oh, sorry. The other thing is, they were doing it for free. No one was being paid for everything, anything other than travel expenses, if that, a lot of them just didn't bother asking me for them. I felt if I did it the second time, I would have to give them some compensation. You know, even if it was just the minimum amount allowed by the acting union equity, so it would be something like, I think at the time, it would have been about at least 45 pounds an hour. So what I did was, I was getting a Kickstarter ready, and came up with a bunch of tears, set a goal and stretch goals for how many episodes we needed, and then I was ready to launch that in April 2020.

Guess what happened? Well, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, no one was I could have done it over zoom or something created, something like that, but it wouldn't have been the same. Because one of the things I really enjoyed during the recording of Miss creation was the chemistry, the cast chemistry. You could see people bouncing off each other, so all getting together to feed their energy in the room. And I've listened to some audio dramas and some stuff like that that's recorded remotely with people in different rooms, and it just it doesn't sound right, I'm afraid, like even the really high quality ones, like sometimes you get sort of the set they're recording on different microphones, and their audio is not equalized properly, and it sounds a bit weird, or there's different room background noise, and other times it's like they're just reading the script to themselves in a room, and it just, it just doesn't sound like it's two or three people having a conversation together. So I decided if I wanted to do a season two, it would have to be people in a room together, recording and then during the pandemic, I left London to live in Milton Keynes.

At the moment, I'm living near Heathrow Airport, so sorry if you hear any plane noise. So yeah, I went to live in Milton Keene because basically London landlord bullshit. They wanted to raise rents horribly, and I had a friend who just bought a house. So sadly, also during that time, I lost a lot of the contacts I had for that living in London, because they'd all moved away as well that basically moved out all across the world. So now I'm back in London, I sort of have a chance to rebuild some of those contacts again and maybe look at series two of miscreation. Who knows?

Michael David Wilson 14:57
Wow. So that was a sad story that. Had a little bit of light at the end that there could be a second series. But yeah, I mean, these things like they're not only logistically difficult to do, as you pointed out, but yeah, the financing is a whole other level when you kind of factor in all the main players. And I suppose we should point out too, because you said, you know, all the actors were doing it voluntarily, like the podcast itself, it wasn't monetized. It's not like you got, like a fat, yeah, smoking your cigar is this free labor. So it was very much,

Josh Curran 15:39
um, I bought the house with royalties from miscreation. Yeah, that's how

you wound up living next, well, not next to, I presume, Heathrow Airport. It will be decided, right that I mean living so near to Heathrow that must present another challenge when you're doing kind of voice to work in your own home. Because,

yeah, but, I mean, it's always been a problem. So actually, wrote an episode of the other stories sort of similar to that called the perfect recording, because during recording so many of their episodes, there's just so much going on outside, and it's like people decide to wait until I'm recording something to go out and either have a shouting match with someone, the cats and dogs start running around, chasing each other, children screaming. I imagine you've had that sort of experience as well when recording stuff, right? Oh,

yeah. The other day, I was doing a episode to promote the book on it on a different podcast, and it happened to be the same time that my local area decided to have a festival. So there were men literally walking past the apartment, banging drums and singing in Japanese, which you know, given I live in Japan, the singing in Japanese wasn't so unusual. If it happened in London, you'd be like, this is a really bizarre kind of festival. You might think it was a ritual, and get quite frightened what is happening. And the co host, he lives very near a train track, so yeah, he has to be pretty quick to mute his microphone because that, uh, train is a rolling but going back to, you know, writing and the other stories and and voice acting, I mean, one of the most effective early stories on the other stories with Daniel Johnson. You wrote that so I mean, for people who haven't listened to this cult classic, how would you describe Daniel Johnson. What is the elevator pitch?

A man wakes up next to his wife, Daniel Johnson, and his kids, Daniel Johnson, and goes about his normal day that everyone in the world is now Daniel Johnson, except for this man. And that is normal. That's how I'd describe it in an elevator pitch. I'm not sure if it would get approved in that elevator pitch, but I don't know how else I'd pitch it like that.

I mean, so this is pretty much my introduction to your work as a writer, and I mean, so So firstly, do you consider yourself in equal parts of writer and a actor? Are they both of a kind of equal weighting in terms of your love for creativity, and how typical is this wonderful slice of, I mean, almost bizarro or surrealist fiction, for what you do when you're writing.

That's a really difficult question to answer. Normally, I just say, I'm a creative because, like, I just, I just tend to do a bit of everything like I enjoy pretty much every sort of aspect of it, up to a point. So I love writing stuff, narrating stuff, acting on stage, acting via audio, just whatever the creative medium is. Except for visual art, which I'm crap at, I just sort of jump into it, and I'm gonna sound really pretentious saying this, but I feel it's limiting to just say I'm a writer, I'm an actor or whatever, but

so I don't care what the label is really I just say creative, and this is what i. Doing right now. I'm narrating this right now. I'm writing this right now. Sorry, what was the question again?

Michael David Wilson 20:07
Well, I mean, you definitely answered the question, because it was essentially in terms of, like writing and narrating about the kind of waiting in terms of identity. But you said your identity is as a creative so you don't even think in in those terms of like, Oh, I'm 60% actor and 40% writer. And then then the other part was how typical the Daniel Johnson story is to I suppose your your preference when it comes to writing, I mean is, is there a genre that you feel most comfortable

Josh Curran 20:49
in? Again, not really. The reason I wrote Daniel Johnson as it was because I was, it's because I was specifically targeting the other stories as a platform. I think it just like because I've written a few others for the other stories as well, and they're really the only short stories I've had published specifically for that reason, because I was targeting that podcast, which meant I had to target one of the genres they were publishing. I've had a few different ideas in sort of other genres as well, which some of which I've worked on, some of which I haven't. But I don't really have a preference. It's just generally what I feel at the time. So I feel comfortable writing in pretty much any genre.

Michael David Wilson 21:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Were you surprised by the reaction to Daniel Johnson, yeah.

Josh Curran 21:47
I think that was one of the biggest surprises. Because, like, the first sort of hint that something had happened was, like, Luke sent me a message, sort of after I read it, and just said, Luke Condor the crate, one of the creators of the other stories, messaged me saying, Josh, I really love this one. It's fantastic. It's going to be really popular, I think, which he hadn't said for any of the other I mean, he received them nicely. The other stories have written for the other stories, but this one, it's like a special message it sent. I saw initially, I thought, okay, like he likes it. It's gonna be good. And then just after it published, I just went on Facebook and saw, like, a billion notifications, and most of them had the word Daniel Johnson in them. And at one, at first I was like, oh my god, this is incredible. And then, after reading about 50 of the comments like, oh God, so much pressure. Like they're asking for a sequel already. What?

But yeah, people loved it. And it, I know it, just sort of stuck on for a while, and it became sort of a little bit of the other story's identity,

yeah, and I think for people who haven't heard it, I mean, you've given them the pitch, which, of course, you know another pitch is just two words. Daniel Johnson, it's available now. You know, given that, like it's a podcast, they don't get rid of it. It's not like quantities, where they put it behind a paywall after a certain number of years. So we will link to it in the show notes. And people can, you know, experience the magic of Daniel Johnson, but, yeah, I suppose too it's because it's such a, I mean, it's easy to quote because of the nature. It's kind of something that you can immediately become a part of and reference to your friends. So I, I haven't got the statistics, but I imagine it must be, must be one of the most downloaded episodes too, I

think so yeah, just because it's, it's one of the earlier ones as well, and it's very easy to re listen to as well. So a lot of new people going into it will be listening to that episode because it will appear near the top of like Spotify charts if you search a podcast or other podcast platforms. And also, they did a re release as well with Luke narrating it.

Michael David Wilson 24:39
Oh my goodness, because, I think, because, did Persephone,

Josh Curran 24:45
um, narrated the original? Wow,

Michael David Wilson 24:48
there's an old, I didn't even know there's an alternate version, yeah. I mean,

Josh Curran 24:55
they could key American version and the British version. Yeah, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 24:59
You need the European version now they can do every five year anniversary. Yeah, a different Daniel Johnson to narrate

Josh Curran 25:09
it, yeah, which goes against the idea of Daniel Johnson. It should be the same person doing it repeatedly, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 25:16
yeah, yeah, I guess so. And, and we mentioned miscreations before, what I didn't notice when we were talking about it was it looks like, unless I'm mistaken. Do you have a miscreations thing in the background? It almost, is it like a framed print, or is it a special kind of CD, or what? What is that?

Josh Curran 25:40
It's a small canvas, and it was a prototype for one of the Kickstarter goals. So I bought that to see what it looked like, and it turned out great. And that's now the only one, yeah,

yeah. You need to do this Kickstarter. We need to do season two. So there it is in the background.

Yeah, everyone know you might get a small canvas of the logo at the time, which, because of the rights to the logo, I might have to get a new one, so that might be outdated as well.

Yeah, it's gonna be dodgy grounds if you give away a canvas with a logo that you never have the license to. I think the Norman from daddy's boy would probably do it, but you shouldn't take your life lessons from him. Yeah,

maybe we should do a life lessons book for Norman.

I mean, you know, with daddy's boy, that the success or lack thereof will determine kind of what happens in the future. Because, I mean, everything I've done up until this point has been kind of more in horror, and even though there's always been dark humor. It's not been like the whole book was a dark comedy. So I mean, my previous book, House of bad memories, I'd say that was a dark thriller with comedic moments. But that is boy, I think it is a dark comedy with elements of thriller and crime. So if there's a demand, if people say this is what they want, then, I mean, that's got to be a daddy's boy too. And, yeah, I like the idea of dreaming. It gets so big that there's mileage for a non fiction book by Norman with his life lessons. Yeah, I I don't think that anyone should, should follow them. But, you know, it could, it could turn people's lives around if they just do the reverse as to what He tells you to do, get wild Bo to do a forward. Maybe

it's good for the public record regardless, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 28:03
yeah, of course, if it gets really big, then we need someone to record Colin's hip hop album. Finally, from tick tock to the big leagues, which you had to wrap for the recording. Are we going

Josh Curran 28:22
to get into daddy's boy now? And, I mean, we're rap scene.

Michael David Wilson 28:28
Yeah, I want to. I do want to talk more about your creative like life and how that kind of works. But, yeah, fuck it. Let's go to daddy's boy right now. So had you ever, as part of narrating a story, been asked to rap in the middle of the story before?

Josh Curran 28:50
Surprisingly, no, no. So

Speaker 1 28:54
there's a first.

Josh Curran 28:55
How shall we start from when you gave me the text of the book.

Because the other thing to mention this is also the first audio book I've ever recorded. Yeah, I've done bunch of other stories and blah, blah so on. I've probably done the length of a couple of audio books in total, but first time sitting down and just doing one solid audio book. It's definitely an experience. So you sent me the text of daddy's boy, and I got it up on the big screen and read it in a few different sessions. Some of it I read it on the tube, which I learned was a bad idea, because basically, there were just some bits which I was just laughing out loud at. And just if no one asked me, but if they had asked me, I just, I wouldn't be able to explain it to them.

Yeah, and he and ironically, even if you'd have said, well, just pick up daddy's boy. By Michael David Wilson at the. Time they they couldn't like, is this guy just crazy? He's invented a book that he's telling us he's laughing at. Let's just get away. Yeah?

So yeah, I was, I read through the entire thing in a few different sessions, and sort of in I had two processes going as I was reading it. The first was reading it for the enjoyment and the fun getting to know the characters, blah, blah. And the second process I had going on my head was, how do I record this as a book? What's this character? Who were they? How do they sound like? How do I do this? And then going through that, and we get to a point where there is a character doing a gangster rap on Tiktok. And process one, enjoying the book. Was laughing, going, Oh, this is amazing. Process Two was going, Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, it's like. And then I sort of came to the conclusions, like it's meant to be cringy and terrible in the story, so I can have as much fun with it as I want, and as you describe the character, something like not hit puberty yet. Pitch is that right?

Michael David Wilson 31:24
Yeah. I believe his voice is high as his someone whose balls have yet to drop. It something along those lines, yeah.

Josh Curran 31:34
So then I sort of had to determine how high is that, and

Michael David Wilson 31:38
you don't measure people based on how low their balls are. You can't just like, look at someone and be like, Oh, that's that's about a mid 30s bull drift, as we call it in the trade.

Josh Curran 31:55
So I think before I even finished reading the book, I just started practicing some gangster rap in a falsetto, which was an experience, and then just sort of deciding what pitch to keep it at. I think in the end, I even after my first record, I re recorded it again to bring him in line with how he sounded later. Because I think the original the very first time I recorded it, it was so, so high balls yet to drop. But when he appeared later in the book, he just sounded, and he's meant to sound annoying, but like so annoying, the listener might have just turned off at that point. So I sort of re recorded to make him a little bit lower. But still, balls not yet dropped

Michael David Wilson 32:46
or, like maybe one ball had just Yeah, little

Josh Curran 32:52
half a ball, yeah,

yeah. And, I mean, so you were talking about practicing Yeah, I know as well that you know there were when you, whenever you had to re record, you would shout the lines rather loudly, multiple times, I wonder,

shouting all of the lines, only, lines that were shouted originally. Yes,

we should clarify it. Otherwise people might not want to buy the audio book. It's like he just shouts everything. Was there ever a moment where, like you were practicing, or you were narrating, and you, you kind of knew for a fact that somebody did overhear you, or I don't know, were you practicing gangster rap and and then someone you know walks in?

No, definitely not. I would have taken a million precautions before I let that happen. Doors locked, everything closed, going around, making sure every window is closed,

making sure I record at a time where I hope my neighbors aren't in. Just yeah, I've done a little bit of soundproofing to my room. I've stuck up acoustic pads on it so fingers crossed, no one can hear me when I'm recording in there. But there's always that worry, that anxiety that someone is when I'm recording a line such as, I did have a wank to Andy Peters, I did have a wank to Andy Peters, I did have a wank to Andy Peters,

Michael David Wilson 34:42
and of course, now you're saying that in a non soundproofed room, I believe you're not in

Josh Curran 34:50
currently. So I'm sure my neighbors are all in.

Michael David Wilson 34:58
I hope that they. Heard you a few weeks ago when you did it, and it's like, oh, god, he's talking to someone else. Candy Peters wank. Why? Yeah.

Josh Curran 35:11
D, right now they've already got exhibit a from a few weeks

Yeah, maybe one of them is gonna take you aside and be like, it's okay. Andy Peters is reasonably attractive. It's fine. Don't worry, you're in a safe space. This is a progressive area. You can wank to Andy Peters, which is one of the take homes for readers. But I mean, what? What What were some of the parts that you had to retake the most apart from the aforementioned Andy Peters.

So there's two parts for different reasons. I'll try not to get too much into spoiler territory. So the first part was character called Gary. Gary only really appears in the latter half of the book, and he's this gangster working for big old tricky Ricky. And he's he's fairly low down the food chain, not as low as Colin or high as Colin, I can't remember. But when I initially recorded him, and I sort of had the idea for how to do his voice, it was I can only really describe it as generic thug. And after I finished recording the whole thing, and I went back to him just listening back, I thought, I really don't like his voice in this partly because he's got a brother Pat, and the two sounded nothing alike, as though they hadn't grown up in the same house or whatever. And it just it seemed weird. So I just went back and I re recorded him with a completely different voice, something a bit closer to Pat Swan, but a bit a bit pace here, and a little bit higher in pitch as well, just to get him more feeling like they're part of the same family. The second one was Norman, who is one of the biggest, mainest characters in the whole book. But the reason I had to re record him is my own fault in that I created a voice for him fairly early on, and I thought I'd stick to it, but what inevitably happen is I didn't stick to it, just because there's he's in it a lot. And I think when you go away from a project for a day and come back sometimes, sometimes things get, I don't know, basically, I just forgot how to do Norman's voice between some of the recording sessions, and he turns a little bit Londoner, so I didn't realize I was doing it at the time. But then, after listening back to the chapters, find that he's his H sounds aren't coming through. He's not saying he is saying E and

you know, all those other little London isms coming through in his voice. And then after relisting, Oh God, what have I done with them? And then there's other little parts, which you pointed out, where he's he's accidentally gotten his voice confused with another character called kami Ian, which is another if I circle way back to that first podcast I did with hawk and Cleaver, the one with the German scientist. I had that exact same problem going back so the German scientist at the beginning, he's quite metal, and he says, we are going to do a procedure that removes the body and do this. But by the end, he turns into sort of crazy wacko German. It's like, Oh no, the bodies have rejecting the heads of what will they do? And early on, I learned to try and go back and keep those voices consistent, but I think over seven and a half hours, it became a lot more difficult. And so what effectively did was went back through all of Norman's voice and picked out the samples where it turned to Londoner or something else had gone wrong with them, and just re recorded all of that.

Yeah, but I think it really served the story a lot, because I think as well, I mean the kind of early recordings of Norman, whilst they were good, it was almost. Almost too tongue in cheek. He was almost too larger than life. Whereas, you know, once you re recorded, I mean, obviously Norman is a hell of a character. He is a bit larger than life, but it was just kind of turned down and more consistent. And, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess what you can do for a 20 minute story, a 20 minute episode of the other stories, to maintain consistency for this kind of bombastic accent. I mean, yeah, it's gonna take its toll on you and maybe the listener as well. Warning

on this right?

Yeah, there need to be several warnings. I mean, it's called daddy's boy, which I hope serves as an all encompassing warning in general. But I think you know what, one of the things I absolutely love about you as a narrator and and we probably see it more in daddy's boy than a lot of your other work, just because of how many characters there are and how long it is, but is the sheer variety of accents and voices, which you did incredibly well. And you know sometimes, I mean, oftentimes, in fact, you're listening to an audio book, and if you weren't paying attention, it might be difficult to know, okay, which character is talking right now, but you're gonna know when Norman is talking. You're going to know when Wentworth is talking, and you're sure as hell gonna know when Colin is talking

or rapping, or rapping, yeah, his version of rap,

yeah, yeah. And I don't know you did. You did it so well as well that I I was laughing several times during, you know, the listening, and I thought, am I being a complete dickhead here? Because on multiple re listens, I'm laughing, and like, obviously, a lot of it is because your performance is so good. But I'm like, I wrote this. I know that the joke is coming and and yet here I am laughing as if I've heard it for the first time. This is

so particularly fine to do that, yeah,

and especially that penultimate chapter where it goes absolutely off the wall.

So chapter 36

as we both, we both almost know it word for word. Now I think, yeah, so when I was doing that, first read through, thankfully, I was at home at the time, not on the tube, but I was reading through it. And my first process, I was reading it, I was laughing. I was having so much fun. My second process, screaming, internally, going, Oh my God, there's so many people in this. How do I do this? And they're talking to each other, talking to different people, going off, doing their own thing. It's like so my first thought was internal panic. But rising panic is sort of a theme of the book, I think, and that's a lot of Wentworth arc as well. So I channeled that into it. I think,

Michael David Wilson 43:25
yeah, but yeah, enormously successfully and like, I can't wait for people to listen to it, and I'm not gonna have to wait too long, because, you know, it's gonna be available on Spotify, I believe when it comes out, which is tomorrow, at the time of recording and and libro FM, and the other places will shortly follow, based on their own goddamn distribution time change. So, you know, it's going wide. It's going to be available everywhere. So if it's not on people's kind of audio book platform of choice now, then it's on its way. And in fact, like I was gonna say, people will be able to listen, you know, for free, to a little sample. And yeah, I wasn't planning on talking about this, but I actually think the retail sample is something we could talk a little bit about. Because, I mean, when you put an audio book out, it's standard practice that you will put a retail sample so the Preview section of up to about five minutes, although that there have been some that I've listened to for audio books that were as much as 10 minutes, but that's definitely not the norm. It's normally between about two and a half to five minutes as that sweet spot and the typical thing to do would be. To have it quite near the start. However, there is another thing, which is, you're not meant to have profanity. And you know, I mean, one of one of the blurbs does call this a profanity laced cocktail, and I think that is quite accurate. And there's a, there's a lot of swearing. You tallied up where count? Yeah, you did a swear. Count. And we can, we can swear on this as horror. So I think fuck was number one was shit second or did, can't come second. I've not said that on the

Josh Curran 45:40
close third, yeah, yeah, in total fuck come shit and it's their variance was naught point 6% of the word count,

yeah, yeah. So that's admirable word count, or an admirable percentage, particularly if you like profanity. And so this means that, like, it's enormously difficult to find even a two minute section that does not have swearing. So we were discussing what to do, one of your solutions, which I ultimately didn't go with, and I just found too jarring. But hilarious was, you know, you gave me a section, and you're like, what if I literally bleep out the swearing, but there's a bleep every 10 seconds. And my big worry as well was like, What if people listening think this is the final product, and I don't know, I mean it, it was very funny, so, but, but I think it would be so funny that after listening, you'd probably be like, Well, I've not a clue what the fuck was going on there. But, yeah, you will be none the wiser. So in fact, what we did was we took one of the sections where there was hardly any swearing, I think you changed a few words, and I only

changed I changed one shit to stuff, yeah, and that's it. But there were some other minor swear words in there, like bloody and bastard, which we weren't sure if find away voices. Yeah, Hap on publishing would take issue with but fortunately, they didn't. They were fine with us bloody bastards.

Yeah, so I think one of your things, it was like, Look, they say that on Coronation Street all the time, and Coronation Street is referenced at least, at least a couple of times in Daddy's boys. So I don't you know if it's good enough for Cory, it's good enough for us. And as Norman says, You don't bloody think you're better than Cory, do you? Boy? No, we don't. So there it is. I wonder, what did you find to be the funniest parts of the story, or the funniest parts to record.

So the line that made me laugh out loud on the tube is, you steal candy from babies too, or do you just go up to prams and punch the kids dead in the face? Yeah,

out of context, it's going to sound really bad, which is why I didn't explain it to people on the tune. It just sums up sort of Wentworth sardonic nature as well, and his reactions to Norman.

Michael David Wilson 48:53
Yeah, I think there's a number of things that out of context would be very offensive and difficult to explain, but, but equally, even when you put them in context, it's like some might argue, I'm not sure that it's any better, but, well, I'm glad that I am. I glad, I think I'm glad I could create that moment I realize I'm saying I'm glad I could make you look like a fucking idiot and maybe be marginally uncomfortable, I don't know, but I want people to react to the book. I want these visceral reactions so you know, as the author, you being uncomfortable publicly. Job done

Josh Curran 49:42
during recording the thing I laughed the most during chapter 36 and like for the most part, during the book, during the funny bits, I could just keep a straight face because I'm in character as Wentworth, and most of the time he doesn't find. Any of this shit funny, and he's sort of, I feel he's using humor to sort of distract himself from the horrible situation he's found himself in. But then when I got into chapter 36 switching between all these different people, it just turns into a clown show. It's just for little bits. I just couldn't keep it together, and I think I sent you a super cut of some of that. Yeah, that's only like the highlights as well. I if I'd sent sent you the whole thing, you'd still be listening to it. Now,

maybe for the the audio listeners rather than the video version, but for the audio listeners. Maybe I'll put that as outtakes at the end of this episode, so that they can just hear, you know, you cracking up while trying to narrate. Now I wonder is, as you said, this is your first

Oh, wait that last bit. I think there might be a spoiler in and I think one of the third lines are recorded.

Michael David Wilson 51:02
Ah, okay, well, well, I'll listen back. And if there's like a big spoiler, then we can, we can cut it now. This is your first kind of full length audio book, but as you said, you know certainly not your first rodeo in terms of recordings you've done, I think you said over 200 for the other stories, you've acted in numerous plays. So you know, you've had your own podcast miscreations. But I wonder, kind of having put this audio book out into the world. What would you say are some of the do's and don'ts of recording an audio book, and what kind of lessons might you take forward for future projects, even things that you know you're like you will absolutely do that or Well, do's and don'ts. Again, I'm just fucking repeating myself.

Josh Curran 52:03
I'd say, do try and get everything right the first time round. You won't manage it, but at least try. I think if I'd done a bit more preparation on, for example, Norman's voice, I think maybe I could have kept it more consistent throughout that maybe practiced more throughout the days leading up to the recording sessions. It might have saved me a bunch of time in the end, going through and doing it second try and keep as word perfect as possible. Because, as you pointed out in various notes, sometimes my brain sort of sometimes auto corrected a bunch of things to how I might personally pronounce stuff. So, for example, towards, I accidentally kept saying toward a bunch of times, and just loads of other little words as well, which ended up having to go back and re record as they were actually written. Don't start a recording session immediately. Hap after having a big meal.

That is a good advice.

Yeah, I feel it should be like really basic advice for most people. But, like, I think I did it once during this session, just because I was being done and but yeah, after doing that, just sort of like your voice, just it isn't the same, just like you'd go into The sessions, just like chapter five Wentworth.

Speaker 1 53:42
I like my drag is on the line.

Josh Curran 53:47
And I think after doing one um audio book, I'm definitely not the right person to be taking do's or do's and don'ts from so maybe, maybe after my fifth one, uh, I'll put out a a statement with all the correct

Michael David Wilson 54:03
Yeah, I think what we have is a incredibly polished and professional kind of final product. And I know, you know, when people are working with me, I know that I'm incredibly pedantic and I cool kind of things out and so, yeah, I mean,

Josh Curran 54:23
you absolutely should be, because you don't, it's being released under your name and my and we don't want to put something out there which is amateurish, like in sound quality or anything. So you're absolutely right to be pedantic about those corrections.

Michael David Wilson 54:38
Yeah. Well, thank you. Not, not everybody agrees with that assessment, you know, but that that has always been my approach, and I've been very kind of direct about it when working with people on anything, you know, I want to get things right. I am a perfectionist. I. But, yeah, what, what we have done with daddy's boy is, yeah, it's remarkable. I'm very proud of it. And, you know, I'm, I'm hoping, and we, we've said, you know, hopefully, fingers crossed, working on some other things in the future. Yeah, and, and this, this isn't, you know, the first time that we've worked together in terms of you mentioned miscreations, but we did a number of things with the other stories. Like, I know that you narrated my story legend. That's one that particularly comes to mind

Josh Curran 55:36
the boy in the penguin costume as well.

Michael David Wilson 55:39
Yeah, yeah. That is, that's a story that a lot of people say. What the fuck was that? I mean, having worked with me on these things before, like, how did you react to daddy's boy when, when you read it?

Josh Curran 56:00
I thought I remember, my thought process was, this is different, but expected. It's like, I remember, sort of your writing style from the projects we worked on. I thought you'd taken it to a new level with that. But it definitely it has your voice through it entirely, like, if you'd given me without the author's name, I probably could have identified it as you

Yeah, that's a tremendous compliment. And like, I'm glad and that you know that I think recently, over the last few years, I've just been leaning more into being authentically me, even if it is perhaps ironically meant that the fiction that I'm writing is less and less commercial, but at least I'm having fun doing it. Yeah, and so you do maybe about 30 minutes ago now, before we went into daddy's boy, I said that I wanted to talk about your kind of work routine, your creative life. So I mean, you said before, you're doing all sorts of projects, but what does a typical week or a typical month look like for you? Do you have a day job alongside the different creative projects and like, how are you structuring your time? Oh,

100% have a day job. I'm not from a I don't have a rich daddy giving me money to pursue these interests, and I definitely don't make enough money off miscreation royalties, I'm afraid. So yeah, at my day job, IT technician at a university, so that that takes up most of my time, but it's so great job, quite fulfilling lots of interesting because it's so creative arts university. So get to meet a bunch of people from different backgrounds there creatively, and then go home, meet up with friends. I play a lot of like D and D with friends as well, which is creating stories together, collaborative storytelling, if you want to put that spin on it. And in the past few years, I think I've been, you know, writing and performing less and less. So this has given me a great opportunity to come back to it a bit more and put more hours into it, recording daddy's boy. But, yeah, it's, I'd like to give you some official structure, but it's, it's, there isn't one, really. It's just, if I think of something and I want to do something and start working on something, I just do it. I put some time together and do it. If not, I'm doing something else. I'm relaxing or chilling or doing something else. So in conclusion, no real official structure,

yeah, yeah. And I mean, what are some creative projects that you currently have on the go, or what are you looking to do in the future?

I'm writing what I'm writing a novel, at least, I think it's a novel at the moment, it might turn into an audio drama or something else, depending on how it goes. My elevator pitch for it is, you think that films are created with actors and sets, but no filmmakers actually go to alternate dimensions to film events happening in other universes?

Michael David Wilson 59:49
I am very interested in that, and I know that my co host, who it is like kind of 3am or something in America, that's why he's not with us. He would have. Absolutely lap it up as well. Oh, my god, yeah, you have to. You have to keep going with that one and let me know when, when it's ready. I want to read this, this. Thank you. Yeah, I'm into it. I'm not sure what it is. Yeah, what did you Oh, yeah, the Yeah, but, yeah, that is that kind of futuristic, kind of what the fucker read. It's difficult to put in a neat genre box, but I'm very much about it. It almost sounds like a black mirror episode. Oh, maybe

Josh Curran 1:00:41
it's current. It's set in sort of 2010 because it's at the height of, sort of the streaming wars, sort of between Netflix, Amazon and this third streaming company I've invented, which the main character works for. So the idea is that they're trying to get new and original shows by going to new and more dangerous places.

Michael David Wilson 1:01:07
Yeah, I'm so in for that. Please keep writing it. Please, please finish it. All right. Well, I mean, I wonder, since this is a horror podcast. What frightens you?

Josh Curran 1:01:28
I think my like, my actual phobia, is being buried alive, which unlikely to happen, but that's, let's hope not other things that frighten me. I don't want to leave it on a bad note, though, like I was going to say a changing world, which might be changing for the

Michael David Wilson 1:01:48
worse. Well, I mean, don't worry, there'll be enough questions and the episode. But yeah, I mean that that that is, like, a very reasonable fear, and I feel almost like a universal fear, and it seems like one that has happened throughout the ages, but I suppose, because we we don't know what the future holds, there's always that possibility, is this changing for The the worse, and is it going to be irreparably damaged? And as an optimist, I would say, I hope not. But yeah, I can't tell you, which hopefully you didn't expect going on this podcast, you get the answer. It's like, oh, well, so waste of fucking time. Then, well, what advice would you give to your 18 year old self,

Josh Curran 1:02:46
enjoy yourself? Because time, time goes by quickly, and you realize that the opportunity to enjoy yourself well, the opportunities to enjoy yourself will become fewer and fewer as time goes by.

Yeah, I think, yeah, he is very good advice. And if you really, really enjoy yourself with a lot of other people, then find Daniel Willcocks and get tested for chlamydia. Bring us back full circle. And I, yeah, I, I cannot believe that your origin story meeting Daniel Willcocks, because, you know, I first met you because of him, and you met him because he was going around, encouraging people next time he's on the show, or I'm on his show, because I might be on the other stories to discuss dad is boy as part of the occasional interview series that they do, I need to ask him about that is like, is this passion?

What? When did you I'm not sure if he's still

Michael David Wilson 1:04:02
doing it. He's still right. He's right now at a university campus. I mean, maybe he, he felt guilty, maybe, maybe we don't need to go there. But it's, it's implied for the listeners, he was much younger at the time, anyway, as we all were, so, yeah, it is less sinister than if he felt guilty now and was going to universities trying to see if freshers could get tested for chlamydia. There was no chlamydia in daddy's boy. There were a lot of no kind of bodily fluids and functions, but no reference to chlamydia.

Josh Curran 1:04:49
Did Norman ever have chlamydia?

Michael David Wilson 1:04:54
I'm sure that he did, but it's not explicitly stated in the text. But. But I mean, he was the talk of Bodmin beach in the 1980s so yeah, and you know, the way that Norman was conceived was the back of Helford car park. So he doesn't strike me as somebody who is particularly like, like, indulges in safe sex practices. Let's put it like that. And he had to go on, Colin, not Colin's coming years, maybe had to go on. He could have had a go on anyone. He was very prolific. And on that note, where can, where can people connect with you?

Josh Curran 1:05:45
The only social media network I'm on currently, I think, is blue sky, that and LinkedIn. But I don't really use LinkedIn that much. But yeah, if I ever post any updates, you can find me on blue sky, and

then you open for commissions or kind of narrating opportunities. If people are interested.

Yeah, if anyone can just contact me via blue sky, if you we can discuss it.

Okay, what is your blue sky? Because I know it's not the easiest name. I don't know if people are gonna be able to

well, it's quite easy to remember. It's JC, spell, J A, y, C, E, y5, 89, dot, B sky, dot social. Yeah, nice and easy to remember. Why is it 589? No, it's a number I've used for like, a bunch of different accounts over the years. Just because Josh Curran's never been available, someone else has got to it

Michael David Wilson 1:06:58
before me, just as long as you're not also giving us, like, you know, your PIN code, your password is 589 when you rest, like, add a number to this password.

Josh Curran 1:07:13
Yeah. One of my first emails included my, like, the full line of my address at the time, which I created when I was like seven, but I've since learned that's not a good idea.

Michael David Wilson 1:07:24
Oh, my goodness, yeah, there's a story to be had there, and it is a story of home invasion and trauma, right? Well, do you have any final thoughts or final request to ask of the listeners and viewers,

Josh Curran 1:07:46
I'd say, go check out daddy's boy on Spotify or audible, or wherever you get your audio books from, and if you want to listen to the first chapter for Free, I believe you can listen to that on your Patreon. Michael,

you certainly can. Patreon.com, forward slash. Michael. David Wilson, this was not pre planned. I didn't say like, you know, I'll give you an extra tenor, which Norman would probably do if, like your final thought is promoting the book and mentioning the Patreon, but, yeah, it's absolutely true. All right. Well, thank you again for joining me. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to Josh Curran on This Is Horror. Next time, I will be chatting to Paul goblish About everything thunderstorm books. So if you want to get the inside scoop on how to make a gorgeous hardcover limited edition and how thunderstorm books started, that is the episode for you. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about my plan to take this as horror to the next level and make the podcast my full time job. I've posted about this on the website, but for listeners, here's the vision, to consistently put out two episodes of the show per week, to put all video episodes up in the same week as the audio episodes for the new, upcoming book section on the This Is Horror website to become the most comprehensive and complete resource for horror fiction in The world, and for every year, a minimum of 50% of This Is Horror. Guests will be first time guests on the show. That is to keep things fresh, to make sure that we are exposing listeners, readers, to as many new voices as possible, and not just having the same. Conversations with the same people, although, of course, there will be recurring guests who are favorites, who are friends of the show, so 50% it feels like a good number to get that balance, and finally, to shout out and give more exposure to more writers on the show. Specifically, I will utilize the upcoming book section on the distance horror website to mention upcoming releases. So this is the vision. This is my focus. This is the This Is Horror mission statement. Now I won't be able to do all of these things overnight, but I want this as horror podcast to be the people's podcast. We say we're the voice of horror, and I want us to amplify all voices. Now, if you want to support the show, there are a number of ways you can do that. The best way and the most direct way is to become a patron, to become a paid tier patron@patreon.com forward slash. This Is Horror now, doing this will allow me a somewhat stable and consistent income, and it will allow me to expand the podcast. Now, another way you can run an advert on This Is Horror Podcast. Email me Michael at this is horror.co.uk If you've got a book that you want to advertise and we can talk about that, you can also leave a review of the podcast on Apple podcasts. You can rate the podcast on Spotify, and you can spread the word about the podcast and individual episodes on social media. And I would include in terms of social media, commenting on video, episodes on YouTube, and, of course, subscribing to the YouTube channel. And finally, you can do what you're already doing. You can listen to the podcast, because really isn't that what it's all about. And if you love it, if an episode resonates, share it with a friend. Now, before I wrap up and tell you about the upcoming books for this week, a quick advert break,

it was as if the video had unzipped my skin, slunk inside my tapered flesh, and become one with me.

Bob Pastorella 1:12:30
From the creator of This Is Horror comes a new nightmare for the digital age. The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson, after a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends into paranoia and obsession, more videos follow, each containing information no stranger could possibly know, but who's sending them and what do they want? The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves. The Girl of the video is the ring meets fatal attraction for the iPhone generation, available now in paperback, e book and audio. What if the end of the world didn't come with a bang, but with a breach in the infernal age? Demon gate, a failed experiment, destroys all technology, killing millions, and opens a gateway to something far worse. Demons now roam the earth, and humanity's only hope lies in adapting to the ashes of a broken world. If you love the creeping dread of the mist, the poignant grit of the road and the dark humor of the cabin in the woods, you'll feel right at home in this post apocalyptic blend of horror and sci fi the infernal age. Demon gate is available now on Amazon, audible and bookshop.org, step to the gate if you dare.

Michael David Wilson 1:13:35
Okay, so I want to tell you what is coming out on June the 24th which at the time of recording, is today in Japan. And for most of you, it'll be June 23 but by the time you hear this, these books are now out, and I'm hoping that I can make this a somewhat regular part of the show. So here we go. Books released on the 24th of June, 2025 First up, we've got brave new weird volume three. The most important meal of the day is weird. This is a tenebrous press weird fiction anthology. It is becoming a kind of classic of the weird fiction genre, so certainly one to consider picking up and Next, we've got dark circuitry by Kirk buickert, I'm sorry if I've completely butchered your surname there, but for people searching for it is b, u, E, C, K, E, R t, the tagline, in the wake of a devastating global pandemic, 60 million people take refuge in fortified bunkers across the quarantine zone. So that is a science fiction book that is out via dark matter, Inc. Like next up is, don't let him in by Lisa duel. It's from Atria Books. It is a thriller free women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller. Honestly, I know this podcast is about horror, but I am a sucker for a good thriller book, so I might have to check that one out. And talking of thrillers, we've got glass girls by Danny shokuhi Again, apology, as if I've got your name wrong, call me out. Let me know how to pronounce it. It's from Zando. It's from the Gillian Flynn books line, a former child medium is forced to face her deadly past and the ghost she left behind in this electrifying debut. Well, I want to read it, and I like Gillian Flynn. I like that there is a new Gillian Flynn books line, so Color me intrigued and goodness, talking about intrigued, how did I not know about this? And get ready for me to book you another name. This is run werewolf, run by honor to kill, inspired by the works of John Cheever and Richard Yates, plus every great werewolf movie you've ever seen run werewolf run. It's the first novel from writer, director, owner to kill. It's from pitch stone publishing. It's horror, but Oh, it sounds like there's a lot of dark humor. I am so in for that. Hook me up with a copy. Well, you don't need to do you. I can I can buy it that went very Alan Partridge. I can buy it. It's out. It's out today. Next smile for the cameras by Miranda Smith from Bantam, an actress desperate to reclaim her fame must survive the real life plot of the horror movie that made her famous in a psychologically twisted locked room thriller, God damn, that sounds really good too. That That sounds like it could almost be a black mirror episode. Next up, 10 sleep by Nicholas billards. Jordan peels, nope, meets true grit in Nicholas billard's 10 sleep, a supernatural modern day Western. Bob's in modern day Western, about a trio of young people on a 10 day cattle drive that leads them through a canyon haunted by ancient mysteries. This is unbelievable. How much they packing into this one liner, a canyon haunted by ancient mysteries and savage beasts who existed long before humankind. Wow. 10 sleep by Nicholas billards. Pick it up. The compound by isling rule, Random House, psychological thriller, nothing to lose, everything to gain. Winner takes all Color me intrigued. The no end house by Jeremy Bates, this is from Kensington in the tradition of saw and Eli Ross hostel, but with the evil supernatural twists of Stephen King, Elmer katsu and Christopher golden, two strangers unwittingly volunteer for the ultimate haunted house challenge in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, I gotta say, the people right in the blurbs, right in the one liners you are bringing your A game. Sounds brilliant. And to have something like sore and hostile, but to marry that together with Stephen King, Elmer, katsu and Christopher golden, are you kidding me? Course, I'm in the no end house. By Jeremy Bates, I I've got a lot of reading ahead. This is just this week. This is this week. Oh, my God, the rewilding. By Robert Evans, in the choir of the Scottish countryside, a young boy has been killed. Nobody is sure how or by what. Surfilla, I'm interested. I am interested the world turns red by Tim Wagoner, welcome to the meat room. That's it, but it's Tim Wagner. It's a horror novella. It's, um, a little over 80 pages. Look, we're friends with Tim Wagner on This Is Horror. We know we're in good hands. You can just say, welcome to the meat room. That's enough. Jesus Christ. What? Fantastic slate of books coming up. I hope that you're intrigued. You can get that list on this is horror.co.uk, I've put it up. It's in the News tab, so you'll be able to see it. There's also an upcoming Books tab too. Let me know which one you are most excited about goodness like scrolling down that list. I mean, where do you even begin? Obviously, Brave New weird if you like weird fiction, run werewolf. Run, because of the dark humor that has got me very interested. And both smile for the cameras and the no end house, goodness, they have very intriguing premises. So that's it for this time on, This Is Horror. Next time I am with Paul goblish of thunderstorm books. But until then, take care of yourselves. Be good to one another. Read horror, keep on writing and have a Great, great day.