Meet TheDean!

Through a mutual interest in literature of the highest artistic value, I had a chance online encounter with the scarf-sporting artist, musician and podcast-king TheDean!. His personal exclamation mark plays havoc with the auto-correct function, so heaven knows what sort of mess we will get into when we try to type his amazingly frank interview…

TheDean! and PJ are the two literature-loving characters behind the fabulous BooksBoys podcast, (www.booksboys.com) which usually features classics from a bygone era (much like a certain author’s repertoire of jokes).

Dean tell my lovely readers a little about yourself and PJ, and how you came together to start the podcast.

Sure; PJ and I studied philosophy together at university and that's how we met and became friends. We've been keeping in touch long distance now for about 8 years or so, and we collaborate on our various projects from the podcast to art and poetry and music.

I had made a podcast before for several years but not for a long time. PJ was just recently doing some YouTube podcasts. 

We were having great discussions on our catchup calls about books and I asked why are we not recording this for a podcast? And he said I was thinking the same thing! So I set it up.

How would you characterise the tone of the podcast?

It’s fairly light-hearted. Whilst it's not all-out comedy we do try to have a joke and a laugh or two on each episode. Our joke sponsors are a recurring gag. But the rest we just chat about what we've been reading, and I guess it's a mix of book reviews, literature education, and banter.

How do you decide which books to cover?

It's just whatever we both fancy reading that month. Sometimes we tell each other in advance and sometimes we don't. Personally, I've been trying to work my way through a lot of classics, and I buy them dozens at a time in the magic bookshop. 

Do you and PJ ever fall out and have huge sulks?

So far no! Sometimes we work at different paces or have different ideas but usually we try to accommodate each other, and this works out fine. I've never argued with PJ in the 11 years I've known him. 

When they make a movie of the podcast, who would you see playing you and PJ?

Ha-ha, I'd just love to see Steven Seagal play me. As for PJ, maybe the blond guy from Pineapple Express.

How big a time commitment is the podcast?

This is tricky. Originally, we thought It'd be a half hour once a month. That show length immediately tripled, plus there's the social media stuff and feeds and everything to run. Then we started doing crossovers and bonus episodes and Patreon paid content and interviews and it ended up being quite a time commitment. We are looking for ways to produce great content but keep the time commitment in check.

Do you have a huge production crew?

Nope it's just the two of us. And in fact, it's myself who does all the behind the scenes work like recording and editing, posting the shows, running the website and social media etc. But we do the planning together.

Can we expect a video version of the podcast?

Hmm, it’s something we haven't discussed seriously, but we do record over video with guests each month so in theory we could invite fans down the line. 

How did the scarf theme come about?

PJ wears some funky scarves!  One time we were both wearing them, and so, for our bonus stuff we decided to call it Bufanda Boys (Spanish for scarf).

Do you finish reading all the books you start, or do some get tossed out of the window?

I typically finish every book. I read a lot. Usually anything from 4-7 books a month. It'd be rare for me to give up on a book totally.  I'm not actually sure about PJ and whether he'd give up if he wasn’t enjoying one.

Out of the books you’ve read so far, do any stand out as being especially under or over-rated?

I've read many classics lately and some of them are over-rated. Recently I covered Pride and Prejudice and The Mill on the Floss and neither was anything special. Wilkie Collins is a favourite of mine and sadly underrated. My favourite of all time is Dickens, so I tend to judge classic books on a scale of nought to Dickens . 

Do you have any particular goals for the podcast?

We want to reach more people, we want our bonus Shakespeare shows on patreon.com/booksboys to help English literature students, and we want to have fun! Ideally one day we could make money and be able to work less at our main jobs. 

As well as being the king of literary podcasts, you are also a phenomenally talented painter and musician. Tell us something about your artistic and musical influences.

Ha-ha, why thank you, although it's not true. I started doing art, having hated it in school and assuming it wasn't for me for many years, about 3 years ago. I wanted to paint to get my mind away from TV and Netflix some evenings. Then I realised I needed to draw before I could paint. So, I took life drawing classes to draw nudes. 

My favourite painter is Bouguereau. I love the poetry of his scenes and on a much lesser scale I try to show some essence of poetry or beauty in my work. I don't create, I just express these emotions that exist in my over-idealised romantic quixoscape. 

As for music, I've worked in a lot of genres, and I listen to a variety of music constantly, from classic rock, indie, metal, Spanish rock, to 50s rock n roll, pop, blues, jazz, disco, House, 80s love songs and anything I think I'll like and I try to use some of this in my music.  

Your music is hard to pigeon-hole. How would you describe it?

It's hard to describe. Just like my art I my music, I try to express things which I feel exist in the romantic world I envision. It's also why I like Victorian novels. I would love to have success as a podcaster or artist but I've long since realised I'll go nowhere musically! I'm not terribly talented at singing or playing but I do enjoy my lyrics and the ideas of some of the songs. Maybe I should write for someone else.

If you’ve heard our music it means you made it to the end of an episode, so well done! Typically, I play music on there that I've done with PJ, and once with someone else. I've been too shy to play any of my own songs I've done alone, although there are 200 to choose from. I might make a compilation called "the dozen most listenable" if I can find that many decent ones! PJ is a much better musician than me and I'm always happy to play his stuff on the show.