The Wolf Within: So This Hot Vampire Stopped By My Blog and This is What He Said

Hello, Xan. Let me introduce myself. I’m Amy Lee Burgess and I’m an author who writes about shapeshifters mainly. However, I’ve always been fascinated with vampires and it’s an awesome pleasure to have an opportunity to ask you a few questions.

I heard lots about you too. Not saying what. Okay, maybe I will. Something about you’re like a badass Lyrical author? Yeah.

Fair enough, shoot.

First off, I just read about your adventures with Ash Kennedy, the Inkarna, in Blood and Fire. What a wild ride that was.

Tell me about it. I don’t know if the band will ever forgive me for fucking up their schedule for the weekend.

Do you think you and Ash will ever team up again?

Hmm, honestly? Doubtful. Since he lives way the hell over there in South Africa and I live here in the States, it’d really surprise me. But, as he said, he’s kind of immortal like me, so who knows? Maybe with another face in another era, we might run into each other again.

So, you’re a hot, sexy vampire and you live in a tiny town in Colorado at a small tavern frequented mostly by locals. Can you tell me why you’ve holed up in a place like Pale Rider?

Says you, ha. I look like I’m in my twenties but truthfully I’m fifty-three, so round about that time, I think people in general start enjoying the whole chill-out mode. I’ve had enough excitement to last me for another decade, at least. And I like the quiet atmosphere out there in Pinecliffe. I grew up in Colorado, so it’s kind of dear to me. And I’ve grown to love the people that live around me there.

Pale Rider is my home. I perform for room and board. It works out perfect for me, that way I have a steady roof over my head and don’t have to go out and find a real job…like delivering pizzas.

You’re a bassist, describe your instrument. (I might be flirting here, just a bit…)

Mm, that be Sasha. Gorgeous thing she is. Color is called see-through blue. Five-string ESP Ltd bass, model B-155DX. Maybe I like her a little too much. But again, think about B.B. King and Lucille, the name he gave to every guitar he had.

Legend has it that he went back into a burning building to save his guitar. He found out that the fire was caused by two men fighting over a woman named ‘Lucille’. He named his guitar the same to remind himself never to fight over a woman (or run into a burning building again).

When you find that guitar that fits you, it becomes part of you. Joan Jett once said “My guitar is not a thing. It’s an extension of myself. It is who I am.”

I’m inclined to agree wholeheartedly.

What’s your favorite song in the whole world and why?

That is going to change every five minutes, you realize. I keep playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House”, Type O Negative’s “Anesthesia”, and Megadeth’s “Killing is My Business” (and Business is Good!)

That’s today’s favorite hits.

You mention in Blood and Fire that you’ve been a vampire for twenty-six years. Can you describe the circumstances that made you immortal? Was it a random accident? A determined quest? Your sire thought you were too beautiful to age and die?

Who in the fuck quests to become a bloodsucker? Okay, I get the whole fashionably boring, vamp-foppery bullshit, but it wasn’t like that. I stopped at a bar called Nightflier’s for a beer and ran into her. What can I say? Her ass looked great in red leather.

Why did she pick me? Hell if I know. Some stuff happened, and next thing I knew, I woke up in a coffin, six feet under.

Can you talk a little bit about Crooked Fang, the band? How did you guys form?

We’re a house band for Pale Rider. Since it’s out in the sticks, Charlie, the owner wanted to bring in some business by supplying the people around with live music and cheap prices. He’s still working on the cheap prices part.

I’d just left the whole vampire scene and was looking for a way to exist on my own, making my own money and maybe even live in a normal house. I found the ad while out in California, made a call, and was taken in. From there, I picked out Serv, our singer, and it was kind of a group decision for everybody else.

We’re not the best band in the world, but we try to be somewhat entertaining performing cover songs by other bands. You know, bands you’ve actually heard of.

What are your musical inspirations?

Music that dares to be different. That isn’t found in the top 40. Doesn’t mean I don’t like Top 40 hits, but the really inspiring shit is the honest shit.

Do you score a lot with hot chicks in tight mini skirts?

I haven’t seen a chick in a mini-skirt since…well it’s been a long time. Do I score with females? That’s awful personal there, Amy…let’s just say I know my way around a woman.

Is it possible to give us all a bit of a hint of what we’re in for when we read Crooked Fang, the book? When is it out? What’s it about?

Crooked Fang is my solo story, written by Carrie Clevenger. It’s coming out in August this year sometime. It’s about me, trying to mind my own business and failing horribly at it. Seems like every time I try to stay out of trouble, it comes looking for me instead.

It opens up with me doing my usual, hanging around Pale Rider, the tavern I live in. A couple’s fight and a phone call. Two different events that change me for good.

Thank you, Xan, for your time and patience. Any parting words you’d like to add?

Sure, of course. Thank you Amy for giving me the time here on your blog. It’s real nice of you.

I’m not going to drop the mic without thanking the book bloggers, the reviewers, the tweeters and Facebookers that have persistently shown big love for the shit I put out. I appreciate that time wasted reading about the dumb shit I do.

If you haven’t already, check out that new release, Blood and Fire, ironically available for something called a Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-and-Fire-ebook/dp/B006SD3F2S/

Here’s the fancy talk about it: Bassist and all-round slacker Xan Marcelles spends his nights at a remote tavern in Pinecliffe, Colorado. But there’s something else, he’s also a vampire, and although he reckons he has a handle on this secret, he’s not prepared for the day when people he thinks are the FBI drug him and haul him away.

Ashton Kennedy isn’t human anymore and, as a member of a race of beings known simply as Inkarna, exists through the aeons by stealing bodies. At first his mission seems simple enough: break into the stronghold of a rival Inkarna House and liberate an artifact. He doesn’t bank on discovering a vampire, bound and tucked away neatly in a sarcophagus.

The two unlikely allies are thrown together in a house of mysteries, and have to battle overwhelming odds against an implacable enemy. The question is, can they overcome their differences long enough to make it out alive, or undead?

And for no-cost, no-strings-attached tasting, Just My Blood Type, the previous collab featuring me and co-written between the same two ladies: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/68457