Travis Kennedy has always had a soft spot for ‘80s glam rock and metal bands. As a kid, he recalls turning on MTV and watching these seemingly larger-than-life rock stars – with their teased hair, tight pants and bad attitudes – living it up in music videos, although their lyrical content about drinking, drugs and raucous rendezvous with women went right over his head.
“I was 8 years old and I didn’t totally understand what I was rocking out to,” he said with a laugh. “In my 20s, I started to find my way to their autobiographies and biographies.”
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He read Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Slash’s 2007 self-titled memoir (written with Anthony Bozza); the Sunset Strip history “Nothin’ But a Good Time” by Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock; “Life” by Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and British journalist James Fox; and 2001’s “The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band” by Mötley Crüe and writer Neil Strauss.
It makes sense that in the mind of this former government employee, who had a long career working in public service both in the Maine State Legislature and United States Senate, that rock ‘n roll and the CIA would collide in his debut novel, “The Whyte Python World Tour.”
What he realized in devouring all those rock star memoirs was that the majority of these players were misfits.
“No one thought they were going to amount to anything until they found music and then found each other,” he said. “With that, they unlocked these superpowers. I looked at the stories about these musicians and thought that there’s an underdog sports/superhero story here. They really have these superpowers, and I thought one of these days, I’ll find a hook and write about that.”
The lightbulb moment came when writer Patrick Radden Keefe produced an eight-part podcast that examined a rumor that West German heavy metal band the Scorpions didn’t write its power ballad “Wind of Change” – and instead that the song was a CIA effort designed to help speed the fall of the Soviet Union.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ that’s the hook for this thing,” Kennedy said of his fictional rock band. “They’d make amazing spies! They’re discounted by everybody; they’re willing to live in miserable circumstances; they’re actually pretty hard working and creative … I was off and running once I put those two things together.”
“The Whyte Python World Tour” is narrated by drummer Rikki Thunder, who joins the rock band as they graduate from Sunset Strip clubs like Gazzari’s and the Whisky A Go Go to become an international musical sensation. Kennedy originally thought the book would be more cynical about people being used – either by the government or the entertainment industry – but once he started writing through Thunder’s eyes, the tone changed.
“Rikki Thunder wouldn’t let me write that book,” he said. “The guy who came out in those first couple of chapters was different than I thought he’d be. He was so hopeful, and he wouldn’t let the world break him. So, it became more of this ‘Ted Lasso’ underdog story, almost against my will. I just let it go and it became the book it wanted to be.”
Thunder is all in on the music, but his life changes after meeting rock journalist Tawny Spice. Rock ‘n’ roll was already dangerous, but he had no idea that he’d soon be literally dodging bullets.
Though Whyte Python is a fictional band, Kennedy places them in the very real mid-‘80s music era. He fills the book with hysterical and/or tragic tropes of debauchery, and the characters mingle with fictional versions of rock stars like Kiss’ Gene Simmons and Poison’s Bret Michaels.
Kennedy looked up and referenced old tour dates and setlists to see when certain bands might have crossed paths to make it read as authentic as possible. Since he’s based on the East Coast, he didn’t experience The Sunset Strip, but his agent, who grew up in Southern California and frequented the venues in West Hollywood, fact-checked his work as he describes Whyte Python’s early journey. He based the fictional conversations that the real-life artists have with his characters on numerous interviews he’s watched or by reading their own books.
“It’s all done with genuine admiration,” he said. “The joke is always on the guys in (Whyte Python). Like Slash being enemies with Buck (guitarist) and with Bret Michaels, I really wanted to get that long conversation he has with Rikki to feel genuine and also to come from a place of real experience.”
While the book is in stores now, Kennedy reports he hasn’t heard from any of the real artists who make cameos, including award-winning parody artist “Weird Al” Yankovic.
“I’d hope he’d cover one of Whyte Python’s songs,” Kennedy said.
Maybe Yankovic can appear as himself in the forthcoming feature film, as Kennedy shares that Paramount Pictures has greenlit an adaptation of the novel.
“I’m excited,” he said. “The important thing is going into it with the understanding that it has to be different from the book. As long as you know that and go in with that attitude, it’s like I get to tell my story again in a different way in partnership with these experts who are really good at this.”
To go along with the book, Kennedy posted bios for each band member at whytepython.com as well as shared the playlist he was listening to as he was writing it.
“I’m such a vacuum for music,” he said. “I love all categories, but now I’m in my 40s, so I’m crossing over into dad rock, and I love Wilco and other artists that have matured along with me. For the book, I dove headfirst into that (‘80s glam and metal) genre, and the playlist on the website is genuinely the stuff I was listening to as I was writing. It acts as a soundtrack to the book. It’s three hours and follows all the ups and downs.”
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