The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll

 Book Announcement

Coming in May of 2024, I'm publishing a book. I'm thrilled to announce that I've been picked up by Black Rose Writing, an independent publishing house from my native Texas. 

The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll is the frantic, sweaty adventure of an American band on an ill-conceived first outing overseas. Author Keegan Kjeldsen (Host of the Nietzsche Podcast) calls into question the whole enterprise of touring, his own way of life, and the function of art itself.

"Art is at the forefront of our war on reality..." 

Some sacrifice everything for art, but it’s not clear what we get in return. What is art, and why can’t we live without it? These are the questions gnawing at the back of Keegan Kjeldsen’s mind while moving at a breakneck pace through Europe. 

Before he was host of the Nietzsche Podcast, Kjeldsen spent a decade touring the United States in doom metal band Destroyer of Light. In 2019, Destroyer of Light ventured to Europe for the first time. Hindered by a punishing tour route, show cancellations, jetlag, injuries, and an irresponsible record label, the band struggled for every successful show. On the heights of exhilaration and disappointment, Kjeldsen wrestles with the philosophical arguments for art’s meaning, from Socrates to Nietzsche, from Tolstoy to Barthes.

The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll is both an honest look at the life of the touring musician and an extended discussion on the origins and functions of art in human life. The lessons here are indispensable for any young musician who wants to prepare themselves for the reality of living in a van for three weeks, or for the inquiring mind seeking to understand what role that art could play in philosophy.

The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll may appeal to fans of Robert Pirsig's opus, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as well as more contemporary stories of personal memoir mixed with philosophical insight, such as John Kaag's Hiking with Nietzsche. Fans of Henry Rollins' seminal autobiographical work, Get in the Van, may also find something valuable here, as this work also deals with the lifestyle of the touring musician, with all its rough edges.

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I want to give a big thanks to Reagan, to John, and to all those who helped me edit the manuscript over the years. This book is the work of almost five years, at this point in its existence, thus predating the podcast in its origins. It is not my first attempt at a book, but it is the first one I've truly "finished". I stuck with the project until the bitter end, to complete revision after revision and fine tune it until it was just right. Karl, Amberly and Jeff were all essential for this process, since one cannot trust their own eyes after a long time of staring at the same words and ideas. 

If I'd never decided to start The Nietzsche Podcast, I'm not sure if I would have had the motivation to see this project through to the end, and I'm certain I never would have found a publishing house willing to give an unpublished author with no philosophy degree a shot at publishing his philosophical novel. As such, I feel I should thank all of you as well - those in the podcast audience who have supported the show in any and every way over the years, and helped it to reach the unexpected heights that it has. I'm eternally grateful to you, and hope you'll give this book a read. 

On the philosophical side of things, which I'm sure my audience will be more concerned with: Ritual Madness contains an extended discussion of aesthetics, involving many of the key ideas on art and aesthetics that we've explored to some degree on the podcast: the ideas of Socrates, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. However, in this work, my aim is not merely to explore the ideas of other thinkers, but to give an answer myself - and as a justification for my own life - as to the meaning of art. The answer is as much woven together from thinkers in various disciplines who have come before me - such as Fritz Staal, Ernst Cassirer, and Tolstoy (to whom I owe a particularly large debt) - as it is my own extrapolation, correlation, and "joining together" of a great many disparate concepts, based on my own intuition and what my experiences of my life have taught me. 

I plan on teasing a chapter or two soon, perhaps even in audio form on the podcast, as we get closer and closer to the release date. I'll of course keep everyone posted whenever there is a development, such as when we have the artwork, when preorders come available, etc. Patrons will get a bit extra when it comes to the excerpts, though there is a limit on what I'm allowed to release publicly. This is a very exciting time for me, and I'm excited to know that many of you will join me on this literary adventure. I have always been a writer - in terms of my habits, in my day-to-day life, in the form of philosophical sketches, journaling, travelogues and essays. I think of myself as a writer probably just as much as a musician. This is, therefore, one of my dreams. Thank you all for helping to make it possible, in some small way.