Editor’s Note: Stateside Madness welcome guest blogger Steve Hockensmith, New York Times bestselling author and American Madness fan! If you’re interested in writing a guest blog about your own Madness story, just drop a comment and get in touch. – D. Trull
Whenever I sit down to write, Madness is looking over my shoulder. Literally.
Just behind my chair, on the wall opposite my desk, is a mounted poster of the Nutty Boys. It’s surrounded by framed honors of various kinds for my mystery stories and novels — mostly finalist for this, runner-up for that. Which might seem like strange company. A Certificate of Nomination for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America alongside Suggs, Chas, Kix, Woody, Barso, Chrissy Boy and Bedders? What connection could they possibly have?
Inspiration — that’s what. The award certificates are there to remind me that I actually know what I’m doing. Or at least that I’ve known what I was doing enough in the past to convince people I do it well. That kind of confidence boost can be pretty important when you’re not a bestseller and a painful case of Imposter Syndrome is just one bad writing day away despite more than 20 books in print.
The Madness poster has a different but related message. Not “You can do it!” Instead, it’s “Do it your way!”
I’m a genre writer. I write mysteries, Westerns, zombie stories, kids books. The kind of stuff snooty literary types look down their noses on for being formulaic and trite. And I wouldn’t deny that a lot of genre fiction is formulaic and trite. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be quirky, funny and clever … just like my #1 fave-rave most beloved band of all time.
Madness works in genres, too. The band’s songs have drawn from pop, ska, reggae, rock, funk, soul, dub, disco and even country and gospel. But one thing’s remained consistent through all the genre hopping: Madness has always sounded like Madness (even as the band’s sound shifted over the years). You were never in any danger of hearing a Madness song and saying, “Who is that? Depeche Mode?”
It’s the same with my favorite writers. They have personality. They’re distinct. Idiosyncratic. Kurt Vonnegut always sounds like Kurt Vonnegut and no one else. Raymond Chandler sounds like Raymond Chandler. Larry McMurtry sounds like Larry McMurtry. Those guys wrote a lot of genre books — science fiction, mysteries, Westerns — yet no one could ever accuse them of being cookie-cutter.
Ditto Madness. Succeed or fail, they’ve stayed true to their unique impulses, influences and voice. They’ve stayed true to themselves. And now here they are in 2024 more successful than ever, touring far and wide with a #1 album finally under their belts 45 years after their first one came out.
To appropriate a phrase from another music legend, they did it their way. Succeed or fail, I plan to keep doing it my way, too. And if my faith waivers at the keyboard, all I have to do is glance over my shoulder for a reminder to say mad — and stay me.
Steve Hockensmith is the author of the “Holmes on the Range” series and (with “Science Bob” Pflugfelder) the “Nick and Tesla” mysteries for kids, among other books. He’s been a Madness nut since 1984, when a showing of the “Wings of a Dove” video on MTV had him begging his mom for a ride to the mall so he could run into Camelot Music and buy Keep Moving immediately. His latest novel — the nutty Western action/adventure Hired Guns — is out now from Rough Edges Press.
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