A Grand Façade is a compelling collection of personal essays, short stories, and an extended memoir centered on music. Why was this an important book for you to write? 

I suppose posterity would be a partial answer, but I’ve had many people suggest that I write about our experience pursuing our band. I then realized that other essays I’ve written about my life before and after those pivotal events helped to put it (and me) in context. Finally, I felt I could add some short stories I was most proud of, each which explored what became the overarching theme of the collection—the illusions or false realities we may believe or pursue, and those we think we are or pretend to be.

Were there moments where your memories surprised you as you wrote them down?

Not so much surprised, but rather clarified or further decoded who I was at the time, and why I reacted certain ways. The memoir certainly dives deep into my insecurities, but traveling back to that time in my head made me realize more clearly what drove some of my anxieties. I think, if anything, the one thing that surprised me the most was how condensed that period of our lives actually was. It was an amazing realization that one of the most significant and dramatic parts of my life—from quitting our careers and selling our house to the day to our last performance—was less than three years.

Looking back, do you think success means something different now than it did during those years of performing and recording?

I think the very concept of success is, perhaps, the biggest façade of all. Those who have never taken a big risk or pursued a dream consider me a successful writer simply for doing it. I look at any author who can make it a career and I call that successful. They probably look at mass-market authors and see that as true success. There are probably mass market authors looking at a Pulitzer prize-winning author and seeing that as true success. We equate success with happiness or fulfillment, but success has no clear metric. When we pursued our band, I had been fixated on an illusion I called “success.” After writing this, I realize that what matters has very little to do with any preconceived notion of success, and everything to do with lived experience. In that respect, I’ve grown to understand that I have been successful in filling my life with worthwhile pursuits. That said, one also has to resolve and accept the disappointment that will most often come with that.

If readers take away just one idea from A Grand Façade, what would you hope it is? 

Don’t pursue the dream, pursue the experience, and embrace each moment while you live it.

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