Singer-songwriter Moe Berg may forever have become an adult in 1988, but he's recently taken what might be seen as an even more terrifying leap: He's an author now.
With the recent release of The Green Room, the 41-year-old Berg -- best known for fronting the Canadian band The Pursuit of Happiness -- joins an increasing line of artists switching media mid-career. With actor Steve Martin on the best-seller list or folk-singers like Jewel unleashing poetry on the public, you might not blame readers for being wary of yet another supposed Renaissance man.
"I can understand why people are suspicious of people who switch genres," Berg admits. "But this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It's funny, if a stripper or a lawyer starts writing, no one is surprised, but if it's a musician, or Martin Mull doing an art show, then people start getting suspicious. But I don't blame people for it."
If he sounds somewhat casual about how people might react to his book, he is. Of course, Berg's been through public scrutiny before when The Pursuit of Happiness, driven by intelligent, more-cynical-than-thou lyrics with a pop beat, stormed the Canadian music scene in 1988 with the anthem-like I'm An Adult Now. But while their first record, Love Junk, produced by Todd Rundgren, went platinum, the band never realized its initial commercial expectations. Five albums later and into the fourth year of a hiatus, the band isn't saying die, but members have moved on to other projects, like Berg's own well-received solo album in 1997 and now his work as an author.
On the media circuit, which included a taping for MuchMusic and an appearance on the Mike Bullard show last week, Berg seems at once keen to talk about his book and leery of the process of selling himself. He's relieved to have traded what he calls an anxiety-laden rat race of record promotion for the literary world, where he feels he's finished his last chapter and the rest is up to the public.
His small-press publisher, Toronto's Gutter Press, is trying an initial print run of 1,200 copies, but in the first two weeks since its release, has received orders for 800 copies of The Green Room. The demand for the books at the launch party was so great the supply couldn't keep pace.
Berg's stories are set in Toronto, made recognizable by real street names or landmarks like The Tap restaurant on Bloor Street West. Fans of his bleakly funny song lyrics will recognize character types crossing over into his stories of urban failure. A brother and sister are disturbingly well manicured in Good Grooming; The Stalking observes a seemingly well-meaning suitor turn into a blackly funny, ineffectual stalker.
It's not surprising he's a fan of modern fiction, citing Barbara Gowdy, Drusila Modjeska, Russell Smith and Blake Nelson among his favourite authors. Berg credits his song-writing background for his pared-down voice and the raw energy of his fiction.
"I've always written creatively, but a lot of it has been writing songs for the band, and I decided to concentrate on prose. I consider writing short stories an extension of song writing.
"When you're writing pop songs, you've got to be concise and unpretentious, and my background has been a huge aid to me. It lets my writing be plain, small and focused."
Berg, who was born in Edmonton and lived in the Alberta capital before coming to Toronto in the late eighties, says his stories aren't autobiographical, but admits that his life experiences have given him some perspective to draw from. Of course, stories like The Green Room'sopener, Another L.A. Story,about how a washed-up musician loses his girlfriend to the bright lights of Hollywood, make the reader wonder about an autobiographical interpretation.
Berg is quick to set the record straight on inspiration, saying that, as in song-writing, ideas often come from staring at a blank page or while walking down the street.
"Someone said to me, 'There's a lot of sex in this book, does this reflect your life?' and I thought, well, no. Stephen King writes horror, and I doubt he lives a horror-filled life. I just write about things that I find interesting." Sex, clearly, Berg finds interesting, particularly unrealized lust, as in the story Funny with a Flat Tummy, in which beer-guzzling thirty-something guys discuss which movie stars they'd like to sleep with.
Now Berg's working on a novel, a sort of Catcher in the Rye for the year 2000, "although I'm not in J.D. Salinger's literary camp," he self-effacingly points out. He's even exploring the idea of musical theatre, but he's cagey on the details. And, of course, he's still writing and playing music, and plans on putting future releases on the Internet for anyone who wants to access them.
"Maybe I'll burn a candle next to a plate of beans, and call that my art," he jokes in characteristic laconic fashion, "and then maybe we'll have an interview for that."
Martin Mull would be proud.
MUSICIANS TURNED AUTHOR
Nick Cave: And the Ass Saw the Angel (fiction), King Ink Vol. I and II (poetry) Patti Smith: Witt: A Book of Poems, Seventh Heaven, Ha! Ha! Houdini, Babel, Kodak, The Coral Sea, Woolgathering Tom Waits:(with wife Kathleen Brennan) Frank's Wild Years (play) Pete Townsend: Horse's Neck, David Byrne: The Knee Plays, The Forest, Strange Ritual, Your Action World Ben Watt (Everything but the Girl): Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness John Lennon: In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works, The Writings of John Lennon, Skywriting by Word of Mouth Bob Dylan: Tarantula (prose verse) Exene Cervenka (X): Adulterers Anonymous (with Lydia Lunch) Just Another War (with Kenneth Jarecke), Virtual Unreality Jewel: a night without armor (poetry) T-Boz (TLC): Thoughts (poetry and autobiographical essays)