5 Minutes With Jon Skovron

Recently, I had the chance to spend 5 minutes with my own Jonny Angel – Jon Skovron, author of STRUTS & FRETS. A brother Deb, Jon is also a dad to two awesome boys, a music geek, a code monkey, and a great confidant, along with being a great author. Let’s go bug him with questions!

Okay, let’s start as uncontroversially as possible. What’s one song or band that people have to love, or they simply lose your respect?

Listen, my tastes in music are fairly eclectic, but I understand that some people only like certain kinds of music. Just rock, or rap, or klezmer, or whatever. And I realize that some people prefer to only have music with traditional instruments (guitar, drums, flugel horn, etc) and they don’t really consider things like door hinges and vacuums to be viable replacements. And I am totally aware that there are some people out there who insist that their music have certain elements, like melody or rhythm. I get it. Everybody has their thing. Don’t judge me, and I won’t judge you. Except The Clash. If you don’t like a single Clash song, there is something fundamentally wrong with you as a person.

And now, let’s delve into your dark, dirty past. Once upon a time, you were an actor. How did you manage to give up the lure of greasepaint and lights for dirty sweats and a keyboard?

Whoa, I thought you said this was just five minutes! Well, okay, the short version is that basically at a certain point in my life I realized that I didn’t actually like acting. I liked the people, the excitement, that perfect dusty wood smell of the theater… I liked all of the peripheral stuff. But I didn’t actually enjoy performing that much. In retrospect, it’s kind of amazing that it took me until I was twenty-two and most of the way through a BFA in Acting before I figured that out. I don’t regret a moment of it though. I had some incredible experiences, made some amazing friends, and most of what I learned as an actor translates rather well to writing.

Moving closer to text, how much fun has it been introducing your sons to comic books? How long will you wait before busting out the Jhonen Vasquez?

It’s awesome to have this common language and interest. And it’s been so wonderful to take a break from all the cerebral, deconstructionist, crumbling super hero stories of Ed Brubaker, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Mark Millar and the rest of those writers (as much as I love those stories) and see the myths with fresh eyes as my kids discover them for the first time. We actually subscribe to a few kid friendly titles like Tiny Titans and Marvel Adventures (one DC, one Marvel – we’re equal opportunity fanboys). My six year old is getting to the point were he has deemed a lot of children’s books too babyish, and the chapter books don’t have enough pictures. I think for that 6-10 age, comics is what keeps many boys reading. And obviously, that’s really important to me. Plus we can have thoughtful conversations like, “Who’s cooler, Wolverine or Batman?”. And when they tire of all that, probably sometime in their teens, I’ll bring on the Jhonen Vasquez!

What kind of books does a music-loving, comic-fiending guy like you read? Who are your literary inspirations for Struts & Frets?

For the most part, I tend to read SF stories by people like China Mieville, Kelly Link, Cory Doctorow, or Neil Gaiman (another joy I can share with the kids, thanks to his children’s books). My theater background has also given me a huge love of classics like Anton Chekov, William Shakespeare, and Sam Beckett. I also read a lot of nonfiction and anthropology books for writing research. As for specific influences on Struts & Frets, I’m not sure you’ll be able to see any direct correlation, but there are echoes of Christopher Paul Curtis, particularly Bucking the Sarge, and Pete Hautman. I’m so glad I didn’t read Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist until after I wrote Struts & Frets. It’s such a great book, it would have been almost impossible to get out of my head. And of course the biggest influence for Struts & Frets is the music. I think I listened to that Bright Eyes album “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning” every single day while writing the book.

Finally, which is harder: cold read audition or writing a book?

Cold read auditions are far more painful. But it’s over in a day (or at most, a few days). Writing a book? That takes a much longer. Of course, when all is said and done, a show closes and then lives on only in memory. A book sticks around, hopefully, forever.