Halloween is almost upon us and we've managed to score a very special interview and insight into the dark mind of Australian (now Spanish) horror author Toneye Eyenot! Read on \m/
First up can you tell us a little about your evolution from band guy to horror writer? When and how did this happen?
Toneye: Death Metal song lyrics were what got me started. But first, 13 years after my first band, Nomenclature Diablerie (c.1988), eye moved to the Blue Mountains and met the drummer from Chaotic Impurity. He and The Unnamed were in the process of resurrecting the band after a seven year dirt nap.Turns out he had a copy of my first demo and he asked me if eye wanted to join Chaotic as vokiller. Of korpse eye agreed right away haha. From there, eye resumed lyric writing and summoned dozens of evil word demons over the next several years. After writing them on and off for the past 30 years, more than one person asked me why eye don’t try my hand at writing a book.
One person in particular was more insistent than all the rest, and the more we talked about it, the more appealing the idea became.
Eye took a song title from Chaotic Impurity, 'The Sacred Blade of Profanity', and decided to base the story around that. That was back in 2011 and my first book, 'The Scarlett Curse', took me 3 years to write. Eye submitted it in 2014 after a few antho subs of poetry (some old lyrics of mine) and haven’t looked back since. The band side of things ground slowly to a halt the past few years, with members coming and going and life getting in the way. Eye have since relocated to Spain, so aside from the possibility of collaborating across the pond via the internet, that part of my life sits on the backburner and the writing takes precedence.
Is there a genre of horror that you feel your writing falls into?
Toneye: Not really. With all the short stories, and several books written, my writing delves into many different subgenres.My first 2 books, the abovementioned 'The Scarlett Curse' and its prequel, 'Joshua’s Folly' are the first 2 books in my ongoing The Sacred Blade Of Profanity series. They are Dark Fantasy/Horror and my most ambitious writing venture to date.
Eye am hovering around halfway through the 3rd book in the series at the moment. It would be finished and eye would most likely be onto the 4th installment if it weren’t for my insatiable addiction to anthologies. After writing for at least 40 anthos now eye have finally broken its hold on me. Eye am a recovering anthoholic hahaha.
All my short stories are now being compiled into collections and being released through my own indie label, Luniakk Publications.
While my series is a blend of Fantasy and Horror, pretty much everything else eye write is purely Horror; from the extreme end of the spectrum to the creepy and subtle. Some eye even inject a little dark humour into, depending on the theme. Extreme, psychological, occult, creature, body horror, splattergore, supernatural, even the occasional venture into the bizarro realm.
The one thing eye won't touch is 'paranormal romance'. That sub-genre has somehow infiltrated the Horror fiction world, with it's sparkly witches and ripped ab werewolf lovers ala Twilight and shite. My werewolves will rip out your guts and piss on your carcass. No love there haha.
Here's an example. A character from one of my books which is due to be published early next year with Luniakk Publications. It's a Werewolf/Clown Horror called Blood Moon Big Top, and Marbles is a fukking psycho. No ripped abs, no sparkles and fukkall romance to be found:
...A board creaked underfoot as Marbles stepped slowly into the room. The woman looked around with a smile, and the beginnings of a “Hello Darling” forming on her lips. All that left her mouth was a surprised gasp, and the smile turned to a look of confusion and horror. Marbles advanced quickly towards her and she jumped up out of her chair, the blanket tripping her and sending her to the floor with a painful thud. The poor woman could only make breathless gasping sounds. Her ability to cry out had escaped her, as she struggled to kick the entangled blanket free. Just as the intruder reached her, the woman’s muscles seized in fright, and all she could do was stare wide eyed at Marbles, as he fell upon her with frenzied strikes and slashes. Fight or flight kicked in, and as a last act of self-preservation, the near hysterical woman clawed at Marbles’ face; a sharp nail piercing the bottom of his left eyelid. With an enraged howl, Marbles grabbed the offending hand and snapped it backwards, before biting down hard on her fingers, removing three of them in an exaggerated display of blood. Before she had a chance to scream, he slammed his free hand down on the side of her face, yanking her head sideways with such force, her neck snapped and instantly began swelling with blood.That was all the encouragement he needed, and Marbles ecstatically bit down on the engorged neck. The plasma erupted from her in glorious bursts of red, as her fading heart pushed it out of her in gradually decreasing spurts. This was by far the most exciting kill he had performed. He let loose all reason and all control, giving himself over to this slaughter with complete abandon. Her thin night gown in shreds, the clown tore off her right breast in his teeth with a single, violent shake of his head. With one hand, he stuffed it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing insanely, while his other hand forced its way into the exposed wound and tore downwards, opening her up like a bag of crisps...
What have you been up to in the last few months or do you have anything exciting coming up that you want to let Gorenography readers know about?
Toneye: After being traditionally published for the past four years, this year, eye have decided to go it alone as a self published author. Well, not completely alone. My darker half, Mar Garcia, runs a Horror Promotion company called The Bold Mom (www.theboldmom.com). She is also a graphic designer, artist, book formatter, and she takes care of everything to do with publishing my books. All the covers were created by Mar, and all the formatting. Eye wouldn't be able to do any of this without her. So far, eye have released four short story collections with Luniakk Publications: A flash fiction collection called 'Flash of Darkness', a psychopath inspired collection called 'Psychotic Interlude', a nightmare inspired collection titled 'Of Nightmare Realities', and a cannibal inspired collection titled Abysmal Feast: An Agglomeration of Anthropophagic Atrocities'. All my previously published books, eye have taken back the rights and unpublished them, to republish with Luniakk. The first of those books is a Werewolf novella which eye am hells excited about bringing back to life!, Wolvz: Whispers of War. It's on pre-order at the time of writing this, due for release October 31. One of the koolest things anyone has ever said about my writing is from a review for Wolvz -
"A melodic slaughter. Crimson honey for your mind."
What are the plans for the future? (ie: world domination? just keep doing what you're doing etc...)
Toneye: Writing is my passion, so therein lie my plans. My dreams of making it in my music career were doomed from the start. For one, the kind of music eye play is pretty rarely ever sustainably successful. Apart from that, the Australian music industry is a total bag of shit.
There are hundreds of world class bands here in Australia, but nobody will ever hear of them because the industry here, as a whole, doesn’t give a shit about our homegrown talent. If you wanna make it as a muso, you’re better off moving to Europe or the US, so my dreams of success have now shifted over to my writing, but holding no illusions. Eye am good at my craft, but looking around me, there are so many authors who are absolutely incredible talents. Eye don’t get time these days to read all the big names like King or Laymon. Eye am in love with what eye see right here in the world of indie writers. There is so much awesome work in this ever expanding circle, it’s impossible to keep up with it all.
So, maybe someday in the hopefully near future, my name will rise up through the mass of brilliant authors who are my peers, and many of whom are considered my family. Even with so many around me, success as a writer seems a more attainable dream than as a muso. The one thing that stands out about the Indie Horror writing scene, is that apart from a few shitbag authors, 99% of everyone else are always happy and willing to support eachother. We all wanna be successful, but what sets us apart from others is that for the most part, it isn't a competition. We also all wanna see eachother be successful as well. A lotta love for this scene.
How would Gorenography readers be able to get a hold of your works? Downloads from website? Social media etc...?
Toneye: As of now, and for the next few moons, you can only purchase my books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Toneye-Eyenot/e/B00NVVMHVA. In time, eye plan to expand to various other distribution outlets. This year has kinda been a period of 'reinventing myself'.My website: https://luniakkpublications.com is the best place to find everything that's available, and keep updated on what's in store for the future.
What do you find the hardest parts and best parts of being a Independent Writer?
Toneye: We'll look at the cons first: The hardest aspect is that you have to do everything yourself, or pay someone proficiently skilled to take care of things for you. Publishing a book isn't cheap. From hiring a professional editor, cover artist, formatter, beta/proofreaders, to learning how to upload your book, to the daunting task of getting your book out there to as many potential readers as possible - the costs literally run into the thousands. Monetary costs aside, the sheer amount of time you need to dedicate to just one book is astronomical. Promotion is not cheap either, and many 'promoters' offer you the world and deliver fukkall for your dollars. Plenty of sharks in the tank, that's for sure, and many green authors coming onto the scene get taken for a ride. Eye am extremely fortunate to have Mar by my side. She is the real deal and a well-respected name in the Indie Horror community. She made my decision to self publish a no-brainer. The downside of this being, as far as promotion goes, everybodyknows Mar and eye are a couple, so promoting my work, regardless of how sincere she is, may be seen by some as bias on her part. For this reason, my books get no more attention than any of her paying clients, even less. But eye am completely kool with that. My Dark Goddess first, Horror Promoter second.
Unfortunately, another shit deal about being Indie, is that due to the massive cost of publishing a book, there are a shitload of people who just want to be able to say they are a published author, which Amazon has made it far too easy to do. Without the necessary funds, or the know-how to release a
quality product worth paying for, they cut all the financial corners and flood the market with unreadable shit. This gives the rest of us serious Indie authors a bad name, as the stigma attached to self publishing is the inaccurate opinion that none of us have pride in our work and have no idea what
we're doing.
On the bright side, as an independent author, aside from the cut Amazon takes from your sales, all the profits come back to you. Being with a press, you are lucky to take (after Amazon's cut) 30% of each ebook sold, less for paperback sales. Plus, the onus is still on you as an author to advertise and promote your book. With a press, however, you don't need to pay for cover art, editing, or any of the other costs, pre-production. All you need to do before your book goes live is write the bastard and hope a press picks it up. But in the grand scheme of things, the benefits of self publishing, as long as you do it right, outweigh having your book traditionally published. Unless, of korpse, you land a publishing deal with one of the big publishing houses. Ones who have a handle on the actual marketing of your book. Otherwise, you're better off forging your own path, in my humble opinion.
Which is why eye made the decision this year to start Luniakk Publications and do my own thing.
Any really cool stories or memories in regards to what you do that you want to share?
Toneye: A few of my best memories are with Chaotic Impurity. Nailing the support slot for Celtic Frost when they came to the Dirt Down Under was a definite highlight, even though Tom and Martin turned out to be gigantic shitkunt posers backstage and kinda ruined my perception of them. Dark Legion was a hair's breadth from putting ol' Gabe through the wall after some smart arse comment, but walked out instead, purely out of respect for the promoter who gave us the gig. One of my oldest mates filmed it for us. He was trippin' off his kunt on mushrooms and filmed us with a broken wrist hahaha. Pretty funny footage.
My best memory though, is from 2005, when we played at Bloodlust V. My son, Odin was 10 years old and we gave him his first taste of live performance. He got up and played our last song with us, ending our set with a shreddin' guitar solo that freaked every kunt out hahaha. Total proud dad moment! He's been playing guitar his whole life and been doin' the band circuit since he was 11. Years later, something quite ironic happened. Coroner (who incidentally were once Celtic Frost's road crew) came out to Aus and played the Manning Bar, on the same stage we opened for the Frosty ones a few years earlier. Sydney Black Thrash n Rollers, Bastardizer scored the support, but their bass player had a family member's wedding to attend in Mexico. Coroner being their drummer's all-time fave band, he insisted they find a replacement for the night. They asked Odin if he would be willng to trade 6 strings for 4 and fill in for them, and he agreed. So, about 5 years after eye warmed up the stage for Celtic Frost, my son warmed up the same stage for their old road crew.Another huge proud dad moment \m/
Anyhoo, that's enough rambling from this old wolf haha. If you wanna check out my writing, here's a list of links you can keep up to speed on:
My Faecesbook author page - https://www.facebook.com/toneyeeyenothorror
Luniakk page - https://www.facebook.com/luniakkpublications
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Toneye-Eyenot/e/B00NVVMHVA
Luniakk Publications website - https://luniakkpublications.com
And for more Horror fiction than you can fill your guts with,
check out The Bold Mom here - http://www.theboldmom.com
If you wanna follow my musical insanity, there's plenty of that to explore:
CHAOTIC IMPURITY:
Faecesbook - https://www.facebook.com/Chaotic-Impurity-176956532324131
Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/user-119216506
Youtube (follow the stench from clip to clip) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GMZG9noPpU
INFINITE BLACK:
Faecesbook - https://www.facebook.com/Infinite-Black-234313873248790
Bandcamp - https://infiniteblack616.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/infinite-black
Youtube (follow the stench) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JztPwsTYto
ROCK N ROLL DETECTIVES (Punk as Fukk):
Faecesbook - https://www.facebook.com/Rock-n-Roll-Detectives-786073428076319
Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/rnrd-1
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rock+n+roll+detectives
and NOMENCLATURE DIABLERIE (c.1988):
Faecesbook - https://www.facebook.com/Nomenclature-Diablerie-176199139088687
Reverbnation (888 demo) - https://www.reverbnation.com/nomenclaturediablerie
https://www.reverbnation.com/nomenclaturediablerie
