1. Please tell us something about yourself.
I’m Mario, AKA MSB, the devil has grown fond of that abbreviation. I grew up with La Pili and Rogelio (my father and mother) and my little sister, Marta, she taught me all about the silence and calms. I live in Barcelona and spend a lot of time in the association init. I’m the padre of Kira (a/my German Shepherd) and I’m an example of the Spanish Urban Dictionary. I love Liverpool and a small town called Widnes, in this place I am a scouser with a joint. Everything I do is Spanglish, Spouse, Andalouse. I’m an author, a writer of worlds that people can’t understand
2. How did you decide to become an author? Please tell us more about your journey?
I tried for a long time, writing for blogs was my first step, using my history to build a full book was my next, then entering Spanish Charts is my current (this is probably when I became an author) I wanted to get one accolade before I called myself an author, done. Until now I have been a writer, the writer lived in a hostel on Raval in Barcelona, the author lives in his own apartment in Barceloneta. By the beach baby.
My routine is my journey…
14:30- I wake up, but not too much.
15:00- I have to tell the singer that we have finished the beautiful night sesion, haha!
15:30- I roll a joint same time I make a bath.
16:00- I walk with Kira until Barcelona gets tired. We love to walk.
19:00- Arrive home. Open the computer watching Kira eating a bone… In that moment I know it’s time for the author to enter…
19:10- I roll another joint. This one is always very Big.
19:15- I start to write without stopping.
00:00- I need to do massive efforts for don’t call my drug dealer.
03:00- I call again another singer haha!
Easy journey, but better I don’t explain what happens after 3 o’clock you know…It’s probably better left to the imagination.
3. Who are your role models?
Los silencios del Rogelio. La lengua de la Pili. La bonanza de la Marta… Martyn Horridge. I said in others interviews, my role model is my family. As a writer’s I like Bukowski, L’enfant Terrible, Oscar Wilde, Kerouac and Me. In music I like Dylan, Cobain on cocaine, Ben Harrison when he’s fucking sad, all of Little Grace’s tunes really… Van Mccan. In Spain I liked Leiva but now… What a bad luck, init’… I have all his hats in my closet… haha!
4. What inspires you ?
The depression. People. The sadness. Loneliness. El querer pero no poder. El poder pero no querer. The small details that happen in the mind and have never been told… Widnes (Liverpool). Martyn Horridge when he’s drunk. Owen when off it playing the guitar… Spanish wine definitely, but it gives me too much inspiration and I had to quit it… Women are always brilliant to feed a story… What actually, inspired most of my latest novel was the generation of the 1990s in Widnes, their habits, their way of life… That Monday through to Friday and then a crazy sesh on Saturday… Everything gives me something but scousers are special…
5. Please tell us about your book Lewis -My Soul- Bailey.
Nice. 200 pages of a drug addiction master class haha! No, seriously now, Lewis -My Soul- Bailey is a novel told in the first person (except chapter 0 which is a snack at the home of the co-star, Owen Conroy, that serves to introduce the story) Lewis Bailey is a boy with schizophrenia who has different problems with drugs and the day of which this story is centered he doesn’t take his medication. Then Lewis experiences uncontrolled ramblings with what really happens around him… For example,the detail of gravy and tell what is happening around the table at tea time in the Bailey’s… It is a mental novel that tries to bring paranoia to the same level of reality. As it is written in Spanish and english this alternates the taste of the protagonist… Then became the Spanglish. Lewis Bailey is a brother and a feeling that has been with me for a long time…
6. Your book has been ranking Top 3 in Amazon’s charts for health problems and youth problems with alcohol and drugs. Please tell us more about it.
Oh! Sick, being 3 was like pissing at 05:00 o’clock in Plaza España… Being 1 for week in the two categories you have named was beautiful. But not brilliant, mate. I expected it, I will not lie to you. In Spain there’s no novelist (Murió Antoñico Machado y solo quedo yo), so I had to arrive! We are currently reading foreign writers who use banal and paid translations… and sometimes these don’t make sense. It was clear that the work of madman like me would attract fiction enthusiasts… I am drugs and alcohol in words so… How many writers from Spain sells in a english or american places? Well, none. Just me, and this is names do my mom: Canela en rama, hijo mío… Cinnamon Stick, My Son…
7. What’s your most memorable experience as an author?
Walk the beach with my dog, that’s the best experience everyday! Being in Widnes was an incredible experience and meeting all the scousers who are currently my friends is something gave me the words… Then my best experience of an author was my first time on Ketamina que te anima with Martyn Horridge, you know, we were in Barcelona in an apartment with 6 incredible women and… I only remember getting up naked in a sofa and… I made my dream come true, but I don’t remember how It was… Haha! Funny… An author has no experiences to tell, he has to write them and shut up the mouth after.
8. How are you using different social media channels/online marketing to market your work?
Social media nowadays is the best way of advertising a product. Any product. This is a website focused on technology, because now most arts are technology, if you are late in understanding that concept… I have to tell you that I treat my book like a pair of shoes. I try to make it better for the attraction of most people as possible. And Instagram is the best shop in the world. Amazon helps as a platform that encourages reading in an active and renewed way. Technology eats us and we have to adapt, so making an Ebook, was an objective, but not making a normal Ebook, making It beautiful and visual. I think it is the future, in a not so distant time the multimedia content within Ebook or digital book will be incredible, we will be so inside on the stories, literally inside… And yes, sticking to the topic of social media, I treat my book like a pair of Yeezy’s. A different book, strange, but at the end of the day, everyone wants to “wear” it because behind you are two guys talking about it.
9. What’s your greatest fear?
Let my ex-father-in-law know on Christmas day that I fuc*** his two daughter… Haha! I will not answer this question, sorry… I will not tell you where’s my tendon you know… But I have already told you were Troy is… Haha!
10. Looking back, what’s one thing you wish you understood better before you ever got started?
Well… Cesar Brandon buys fake readers would have been a great help know it before, but not only for me, for the entire spanish society as well. I would have liked to understand too in time that spanish poetry is absolutely dead. And I wish I had understood my grandfather’s stories when he explained them to me in that time… BUT YAYO, TRANQUILO, AHORA LAS HISTORIAS LAS CUENTO YO!
11. Would you like to share any success secrets that helped you in your journey?
Smoke Gorilla Glue. But don’t start to buy it now, it’ll be too expensive if we all do… If I don’t have it I’ll have no brain, haha! No, my secret is my daughter, Kira, my german shepherd, she helps me in my journey and my life in general… She’s the secret to all of this. There’s no magic potion. I go to bed last. I get up the first. I study. I work. I read. I fuck. A lot. I smoke a lot too, and start again. Constant work of letters, that’s my secret.
12. What do you enjoy most about what you do?
In the living room at home. Sitting on the floor. With Kira, me and her alone with a good pot of weed. Let the cars be heard passing in the background and we’re surrounded by the white floor… I like to enjoy the silence of all those humans who only cause damage to humanity every day…
This has sounded very Lewis, no? I like being alone, I enjoy my thoughts like that. My bath is my favourite place in the world.
13. What keeps you going when things get tough?
Los cojones españoles. Kira. And usually I drink things when they get thought, you know? A good writer always lives in misfortune… But hey, if you knew it…
14. How can people connect with you?
In my book. On the pages. In every line, you connect with me and what I imagine Lewis is and that’s the important thing. Instagram is a lie. Facebook is like your ID but the expired one… In my last novel you can connect with my fears, with my feelings, my desires… In everything else you can simply send me messages. (@msbmario_milan)
15. Any message for our readers…
First of all, thanks to the Bitgog team for inviting me to be on your website. I don’t believe that I live up to the great innovators that you bring out every month. But to be the first Spanish here, I’m not that bad, I hope! haha! Thank you all.
And for my readers, easy, they know that I am in love with them, like obsessed. Very grateful for the people who buy the book and spend some time reading me. For those new readers, a big welcome would be small for you… I repeat, I’m very graceful. It makes me happy that they read my Spanglish. It makes me happy that they liked the story in so many places… THANK YOU! Y un placer con tiriquitrán… y… Lerele.
