Ever Be Filled: An Interview with Matthew Simmons
Late last year Keyhole Press released a short book of fiction about black metal by Matthew Simmons, The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge. Given its heavy inspiration, the texts employ a surprising and refreshing mix of thoughts about creation and duress, delivered in the eye that only Mr. Simmons could pull off. Over the past month Matthew kindly answered some q’s about the book.
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BB: How did this book begin? Was it your intention specifically to write a book about black metal, or did a specific story come first?
MS: I wrote a couple of one-man black metal band pieces for my blog a while back. (I think I was just writing about black metal bands and then noticed that all the ones I liked and wanted to write about were made up of one guy.) When I got together with Keyhole for the collection coming out next year, Peter asked if I had something shorter, a couple of stories that weren’t going to be in that collection, that we could gather and publish in a little minibook. I had a few, and I decided to use the short black metal pieces as a gathering principle and as little breaks between longer stories that, though not explicitly about one man black metal bands, felt like cousins to them. The three full stories in the book feature three individuals who isolate or world build or reject collaboration.
While we’re on the subject of me, seven musically inclined friends of mine wrote songs inspired by my new book, The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge. You can listen to them on the book’s Bandcamp page. You can pick a favorite. You can go here to my blog and vote on that favorite. The song that gets the most votes wins the musician a hardcover copy of The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge.