From the end material of ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage:
Finally – the long-awaited music section. As you will know, there’s almost no ARISEN without the soundtrack. That is, this music totally powers me through my runs (where I do all the creative work) and then through my writing days (where I do all the work work). Books Eleven and Twelve being by far the longest, hardest, and most ambitious project of my life (never mind all the personal crap I was dealing with), the music was even more indispensable than usual in keeping me going. It kind of saved me, actually.
For the first time, I did the entire playlist I wrote these books to as a Spotify playlist, so you can actually listen along as you read. (I apologise that the "embedded" player below just opens the Spotify app or Spotify web player. I naturally assumed it would play inline on the page, but I was wrong.)
You could do a lot worse than listen to those tracks over and over while reading ARISEN, or at least anytime the action heats up. Definitely for the climax of this book. (I know I did – during the n-thousand read-throughs I had to do to get everything right…)
Special mentions:
“Endure” by Nonpoint is the very official theme song of ARISEN Books Eleven & Twelve. Why? A) The title perfectly captured my experience and state of mind through most of this; B) it’s hard and heavy as hell, but with great dynamics, conferring oceans of energy; and, mainly, C) I listened to it over and over and over and over while writing these books. Over and over and over and over.
Other standouts from this cycle of ARISEN were:
- Saliva, “Badass” (the theme song for Predator’s Crowning Moment of Badass).
- Bobaflex, “I’m Glad You’re Dead,” “Bad Man,” and “Bury Me With My Guns On.” Damn, dudes! I could have listened to that stuff all day (and often did). Louder and louder. And louder yet. (Yeah, the guys in this band are not only West Virginians – they are actual McCoys. Yes, of Hatfield and McCoy fame… It works.)
- Shinedown, “Cut the Cord” – ’Cause victory is all you need.
- Papa Roach, “Warriors” – Shine your light, Push the enemy back, When you're under attack, It will protect you, Kill the night, All we need is a spark, We can bury the dark, Ignite – Come on and shine your light.
- Pop Evil, “Footsteps”.
- Manafest, “No Plan B” (story of my life).
- Black Stone Cherry, “White Trash Millionaire” (ha ha ha ha!!!).
- DiRTy WoRMz, “Impossible” – You want war with me? You must be daydreamin’ – you’ll be lucky if I decide to let you walk away breathin’…
- Quite a few other Nonpoint tracks: “What a Day”, “Lights, Camera, Action”, and “I Said It” – definitely “I Said It”. (You could a lot do worse than listen to Nonpoint while waiting for the new Tool album.)
- Lacey Sturm, Life Screams – every second of the whole album (it’s got a 4.9-star average on 127 reviews on Amazon!), but especially “The Solder” and “You’re Not Alone.” Oh, man. Just – oh, man. (Just try to imagine what a life-changing album they would have put out if she had stayed with Flyleaf. As an aid to that, check out Flyleaf’s first album without her – which is still amazing!) Plus “Life Screams.” Also “Feels Like Forever.” The whole album, maybe? Every song is particularly great – each better than all the others.
- The Qemists are back! Warrior Sound! Holy s&^%!
- Extra special mention for Anti-Mortem, “Truck Stop Special”.
My very sincere and humble thanks to all these absurdly talented musical artists, whose amazing work helped me do mine.
