Catherine Asaro is an author of many talents, and in order to write her latest novel, she had to write music and learn to sing. Diamond Star, which Baen will publish in May, is “the latest story in Asaro’s exciting, sensuous Tales of the Ruby Dynasty. It tells the story of Del, the renegade prince who would rather be a rock singer than sit on the throne. The royal family wants him to stop, his friends want to use him, his label wants to own him, and his enemies want to kill him. Del just wants to sing—without starting an interstellar war.”
In order to write the story of the prince-turned-rock star, Asaro says “I discovered I couldn’t tell the story until I had lyrics for Del’s songs. To write lyrics, I needed music. So I wrote the words and a little music. In 2007, I sent the lyrics for one song to Hayim Ani, the front man of Point Valid [an alternative rock band from Baltimore, Maryland]. He was enthused about the idea and said he could do a bang-up job with the song. That simple beginning grew into what has been one of the most exciting collaborations I’ve ever done, a full CD performed by the band and the many excellent musicians they brought into the studio.” [The photo below is of Asaro with the band.]
Starflight Music will release the CD, also titled Diamond Star, in April. The CD will feature music mostly written by the band, with lyrics by Asaro (though she does contribute the music for three songs). In addition to those eleven songs, the band covered “Sound of Silence”. This will be Point Valid’s second full-length CD (their first, Of Dreams and Memories, was released last year). Asaro describes the band as “some remarkably gifted young musicians. Hayim was 17 when we started, [drummer] Adam [Leve] was 16, and [guitarist] Max [Vidaver] was 18. They’re all a year older now. Hayim lives in Israel, Max is at college, and Adam is finishing high school. They’re doing great, and we hope to get them all back in the same time zone soon, so they can play more of their music together.”
Adding music into her writing repertoire seems an almost trivial task for the author who has chemistry and physics degrees from UCLA and Harvard, and is a former ballerina, but she doesn’t do things by half-measures. “To help me write this story,” she said, “I learned to sing, from scratch really, since I had no experience. I’m one of those people who doesn’t even sing in the shower. Instead, I listen to songs, because as a musician I’m always thinking about the music. So for me, learning how to sing was like trying to dance when I hadn’t yet tried to walk. It was challenging, but great fun. I’ve a long way to go, but I enjoy it and plan to keep studying. In addition to taking voice lessons, I joined the Central Maryland Chorale last year as a first soprano. Among the shows we’re doing this year, we’ll be performing Rutter’s Mass of the Children at Carnegie Hall.”