My First Book of Drum & Bass

A couple of sleep deprived Dads with a shared burning desire for screw-facingly entertaining children’s literature have taken it upon themselves to create ‘My First Book of Drum & Bass’ – a fun and educational Children’s book that celebrates the colourful and exciting world of D&B, with a twist of humour for the heads!

After seeing the Kickstarter campaign to get this book made we simply had to speak to Charlie Wright, the author & designer of ‘My First Book of Drum & Bass’ to find out more…

Where did the idea for this book come from? What dull children’s story were you reading when you decided you could do better?

I’ve read so many dull books over the course of the first 16 months of my little boy’s life so far but I have to hand it to my mate Craig Rothney for the inspiration to create something exciting and more relatable to my own passions. Craig is a lifelong skateboarder and he recently wrote a book that teaches kids how to Skateboard. His enthusiasm and passion in his own project definitely rubbed off on me. If you have kids that want to learn to skate then definitely check it out, it’s called ‘Harry and Daisy Learn to Skateboard’!

Have children been demanding this book? Or is it, as I suspect, more to keep Dad amused?

Haha… possibly swaying more towards the latter! Of course, the kids need to be educated from an early age, but I know plenty of adults out there that want ‘My First Book of Drum & Bass’ to read for themselves, regardless of whether they have kids or not! 

I can see this being a great stocking filler this Xmas for all us big kids who love D&B

Yeh it would be absolutely perfect, but unfortunately the book won’t be printed until early next year – It’s due out in March 2022. Maybe next year it’ll be on a few peoples Xmas lists!

D is for Dillinja, E is for Eksman…. Any letters in the alphabet you struggled with? I can’t think of any X’s in D&B off the top of my head

X was definitely a tricky one but you’ll just have to wait and see what we’ve done there

The illustrations look amazing. How did you hook up with Gary Miller the artist?

Gary & I met through our jobs, we both work at a creative agency in Inverness called Dynam. We’ve worked on a bunch of projects together but nothing quite like this, so it’s been nice to do something outside the office together. Gary has a little boy of a similar age to my son, so we’re both in a similar fuzzy-headed mindset most of the time. 

Did you know what you wanted design wise or did you leave it to Gary to do his thing?

For most of the pages I have something in mind when writing the copy. I’ll come up with a scenario for the featured DJ or artist, source the images for Gary’s reference and then make some kind of bodge-collage in photoshop to give him a bit of direction, give him some background on the idea then Gary gives it some life of his own using his skills.

Aside from reading stories did either of you have any previous experience in this sort of publishing project?

Yeh Gary actually created his own children’s book as his final project for his illustration degree. I’ve contributed to different publications in the past but never a kid’s book like this. It’s been refreshing to approach a project with a totally different mindset to what I’m used to.

Did you approach any publishers with the idea before going down the Kickstarter route?

No, we’ve kept everything close to our chests so far. I come from a DIY background. I was in a punk band when I was younger and we used to make all our own posters and artwork for our CDs, I’ve been promoting club nights most of my adult life and want to do this project with the same ethos. If the right deal was to come along off the back of it then we might consider it, but for now we’re just enjoying making our own path, we’re learning a lot along the way.

You’ve smashed your Kickstarter target! You must be well pleased?

Yeh, we’re over the moon! The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and we weren’t expecting to hit the target as quickly as we did.

Do you have your follow up book in mind already?

We have a few ideas! We’re both big music fans in general and DnB is just the tip of the iceberg for this concept. Let’s see how this one goes and then perhaps you’ll be hearing from us again soon.

The crowd funding target has been raised, so ‘My First Book of Drum & Bass’ is definitely getting made and will be shipping in March 2022! Head over to the Kickstarter page to pre-order your copy

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