Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody, welcome to not Another crime podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Georgia Love, I'm.
Speaker 3: Sammy Peterson, I am a journalist.
Speaker 1: I am not, but today we are joined by a journalist,
Speaker 1: in fact, my hero today. And I've always had a
Speaker 1: very parasocial relationship with this person and we tried to
Speaker 1: do a few podcasts while he was finishing his book,
Speaker 1: and instead of doing the interview, I got two wonderful
Speaker 1: tours of his house. So I feel like I've become
Speaker 1: the stalker. It is the great John Ronson.
Speaker 4: Hi. Hey, hey, both of you. Yeah, I apologize this.
Speaker 4: It was very like so what happened was we we
Speaker 4: kind of raged to do this when I was at
Speaker 4: the bit of liberty in my book, and when the
Speaker 4: zoom hour approached, I came on and said to you, look,
Speaker 4: I just can't do this, like I'm so down the
Speaker 4: rabbit hole focusing so hard. So I apologize, and.
Speaker 1: I'm you're still turned up, which is the main thing.
Speaker 1: Most people wouldn't turn up, but you still turned up
Speaker 1: to say I can't do it.
Speaker 4: But that is like my wife always gets really annoyed
Speaker 4: me because when I go to parties, like quite often,
Speaker 4: right as I turn up at the party, I say,
Speaker 4: we can't stay long.
Speaker 3: Managing expectations. That's cool.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, and like I'm going to a
Speaker 1: tunnel or anything.
Speaker 4: For me, it's just like a tell of I don't
Speaker 4: want to be here at all, says it's very rude,
Speaker 4: and what you should do is be incredibly friendly to
Speaker 4: everybody and then leave very quickly. And you think.
Speaker 3: I remember that you were there. It's the old rule
Speaker 3: of if you go to a party, you just.
Speaker 2: Need to be there for one moment that everyone's going
Speaker 2: to be talking about, and as soon as that moment
Speaker 2: has happened, you can get the hell out of there
Speaker 2: because people will remember you were there for.
Speaker 4: That, right, Yes, exactly. So anyway, I'm glad that we're
Speaker 4: doing it now. I was so because I've written a
Speaker 4: true crime book called The Castle. I've literally I've just
Speaker 4: finished it a cut, but I can't talk about it tonight,
Speaker 4: can talk about all because it's like you can't stay long,
Speaker 4: but just that I'm very mus would I'd like to
Speaker 4: come back when the book's out so we could talk
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 2: Then you haven't started, Yeah, you might hate it by
Speaker 2: the time we get to the end.
Speaker 3: So we've got it now on recording, you're saying you
Speaker 3: want to.
Speaker 4: Come back so right, Well, luckily I've got lots of
Speaker 4: other true crime things to talk about.
Speaker 1: So John, what is your because I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you do write nonfiction and and you've written so many
Speaker 1: different books and they've all covered so many different areas.
Speaker 1: So you being publicly shamed the Psychopath test. I absolutely
Speaker 1: loved your podcast series that you did the Last Days
Speaker 1: of August Ah When for you personally, how how interested
Speaker 1: are you in true crime and is it something that
Speaker 1: you're drawn towards or is it just a human interest
Speaker 1: story that gets you first?
Speaker 4: I guess the stories I'm interested always a mystery stories,
Speaker 4: like I want to try and understand something about the
Speaker 4: world that I don't understand, So I guess inevitably, you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes that's about human behavior. Why are people behaving in this?
Speaker 4: You know? Sometimes it's it's real mysteries, And I guess
Speaker 4: that crosses over into true crimes. So I guess. And
Speaker 4: I remember, like as a kid, one of my favorite
Speaker 4: books was A Bit Nice in the Garden of Good
Speaker 4: and Evil and in Cold Blood and the Execution of Songs.
Speaker 4: So I was a huge fan of that those kind
Speaker 4: of classic non narrative nonfiction true crime books. So yeah,
Speaker 4: so I guess there's just that crossover in terms of
Speaker 4: mystery solving.
Speaker 3: I really love that you said that.
Speaker 2: I've always said my favorite book of all time is
Speaker 2: In Cold Blood And I first read that as a
Speaker 2: I was probably about fourteen, and people you just said,
Speaker 2: as a kid, I loved In Cold Blood. And people
Speaker 2: always say to me, what's wrong with your brain? Why
Speaker 2: were you reading that at that age?
Speaker 3: And why was the face? But I think I found
Speaker 3: a kindred spirit here totally.
Speaker 4: I mean for me, I guess when I really think
Speaker 4: about why I like In Cold Blood, it's more to
Speaker 4: do with maybe Truman Capoti than it is yeah, because
Speaker 4: he's such a great you know, he brings you into
Speaker 4: that world so beautifully and he's so curious that he
Speaker 4: wants to solve this mystery too. And I the same
Speaker 4: with John Baird had been that in the Good Garden
Speaker 4: because an evil. So these were nonfiction writers who wanted
Speaker 4: to solve mysteries. I wanted to like go to dark places,
Speaker 4: I guess, and understand them. And that really inspired me,
Speaker 4: and I guess that is what I have done all
Speaker 4: of these years myself.
Speaker 1: You've always had a part where you you're kind of
Speaker 1: always a part of the story, kind of like you
Speaker 1: know in Cold Blood as well. Did that kind of
Speaker 1: inspire you as a as a as a.
Speaker 4: Way of writing, Yeah, very much so those books and
Speaker 4: hunterss Thompson and P. G. O'Rourke, and and then when
Speaker 4: documentary tries, let Nick Broomfield documentaries came out a similar thing,
Speaker 4: but in documentary form. Yeah, I wonder why. I just
Speaker 4: always thought there was something really heroic about about you know,
Speaker 4: people like country stops and going into these crazy worlds
Speaker 4: and I'm writing about them. And there weren't novelists. I
Speaker 4: never identified to us, you know, aspad to be a novelist.
Speaker 4: It was always about you know, the real world, about
Speaker 4: people going into real life places and I fuck everything
Speaker 4: up or solve mysteries or but just be part of it.
Speaker 4: So there was that the kind of heroism of it.
Speaker 4: But also I think there was the honesty of it.
Speaker 4: Like I learned from D. A. Pennett, Baker and all
Speaker 4: of those early documentary makers that the journalist is part
Speaker 4: of the story, Like everything changes when the journalist comes
Speaker 4: into the room. So so you have to admit that
Speaker 4: by making yourself part of the story.
Speaker 3: I love it as well because it's kind of taught.
Speaker 2: So I'm a journalist by trade, but very much doing
Speaker 2: general news, the daily news. So in that style of journalism,
Speaker 2: it's very much that you shouldn't be part of the story.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to tell the facts from an
Speaker 2: unbiased position. But I think that's kind of why I
Speaker 2: love getting into those kind of like your books and
Speaker 2: In Cold Blood and those kind of John Saffran.
Speaker 3: It's that desire of you.
Speaker 2: I got into journalism because I'm obsessed with the stories
Speaker 2: and I want to tell stories and the same kind of.
Speaker 3: Thing as you learn about the human mind.
Speaker 2: So to be able to kind of delve in and
Speaker 2: feel like, oh, imagine being part of the story, but
Speaker 2: not in a way that you've been publicly shamed, which
Speaker 2: is bringing a book.
Speaker 4: Yeah absolutely, And yeah what you said about you know,
Speaker 4: telling the facts in an unbiased way, like I agree,
Speaker 4: I think you need to do. You know, I love
Speaker 4: to put myself in the middle of the story, but
Speaker 4: I want to I want the story to be unbiased,
Speaker 4: and I think that's sort of the reason for putting
Speaker 4: yourself in a bit of the story because a journalist
Speaker 4: does skew things when they enter the room, and the
Speaker 4: journalist does bring along their own bias. I'd said, the
Speaker 4: most honest thing to do is to make that part
Speaker 4: of the story a minute. It's like showing your workings
Speaker 4: in a way.
Speaker 2: It is a very not true crime in a very
Speaker 2: different way, but sort of related. So I'm doing I
Speaker 2: do radio news at the moment. And for your information background,
Speaker 2: nine years ago, I was on the Australian version of
Speaker 2: The Bachelorette, and yesterday, yesterday in my radio job, I
Speaker 2: was reading an entertainment story about Jessica Simpson denying rumors
Speaker 2: that she was going to be the next Bachelorette because
Speaker 2: she said she doesn't need help finding a partner and
Speaker 2: she's got plenty of options.
Speaker 3: And as I was reading the story, I went, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm good for her. That's me injecting myself into the story.
Speaker 1: You were talking before about Nick Broomfield as well. He
Speaker 1: went in and interviewed famously Eileen Wernos. Did that scare
Speaker 1: you are kind of a little bit in terms of
Speaker 1: like going into this world world or was that more like,
Speaker 1: have you been terrified of some of the people that
Speaker 1: you've interviewed or how do you kind of approach that
Speaker 1: in a way of talking to people like them, like
Speaker 1: you know, like, how do you do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's funny. It's I get like anticipatory anxiety as
Speaker 4: I'm driving towards somewhere. But really I think the curiosity
Speaker 4: takes over so much. In the Psychopath Test.
Speaker 1: I go to.
Speaker 4: Broadmore, which used to be called the broad More Asylum
Speaker 4: for the criminally insane, so you know the kind of
Speaker 4: place that it is, and people are like, oh, oh God,
Speaker 4: you must have been so scared, but obviously you're way
Speaker 4: more curious. I'd also just so delighted to be somewhere
Speaker 4: where most people don't get to go that that those
Speaker 4: things overwhelmed any any fear that you have. In fact,
Speaker 4: I remember I was sitting at BroadWare A one time
Speaker 4: and I said the nurse, I said, God, I can't
Speaker 4: pinch me. I can't believe of it, broadmare n what
Speaker 4: we've got spared. I feel like.
Speaker 3: He's starting to when you're all like that.
Speaker 2: I'm having such a fango a moment because I listened
Speaker 2: to The Psychopath Test as an audiobook and just having
Speaker 2: you there in front of us saying Broadmore, and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, I'm going for real, are you. I've got to say,
Speaker 4: like I got to say, like when often you don't
Speaker 4: know if the story is gonna hit or not, you
Speaker 4: know a story is good. But I remember I was
Speaker 4: sitting outside Broadwall. I didn't put this in the book.
Speaker 4: I was sitting outside Broadball with Brian, the scientologist who
Speaker 4: was the guy who got me into Broadmall because scientologists
Speaker 4: are very good at circumventing bureaucracy, like funny that, And
Speaker 4: in the curve afterwards, he said to me, like, we've
Speaker 4: met Tony. And Tony was the guy who took very
Speaker 4: quickly spell it out this. Tony's the guy who faked
Speaker 4: madness to escape a prison sentence. But he faked madness
Speaker 4: too well, and he didn't end up in some cushy hospital.
Speaker 4: He ended up in Broadmore.
Speaker 3: When everyone over the Crocker's nest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally so. And the scientologists like we're had taken
Speaker 4: Tony on and told me about him. So I went
Speaker 4: and then did the car after beating Tony. I always
Speaker 4: remember Bride said to me, like, you know, I just
Speaker 4: want to say John, like, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: taking the story on and I said, like, are you
Speaker 4: kidding me? Like this is up, this is going to
Speaker 4: be with me for the next thirty years. I knew
Speaker 4: in the moment what a big story in terms of
Speaker 4: just like you know, people be curious about it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: like I knew that. I knew it was going to hit.
Speaker 3: Oh good, it did. Thank you. Thank you for giving
Speaker 3: it to us.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Tony and Brian from our parasocially thanking them.
Speaker 3: For you for allowing you to do that.
Speaker 1: How how often, John, do you, like when you're going
Speaker 1: to start a new project like the book that we
Speaker 1: can't talk about but we will at some point, But
Speaker 1: when you go and start a new piece, if you're
Speaker 1: an article or whatever you're doing, do you I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that we're spoken about Reddit and you and
Speaker 1: I have in the past gone on very deep dives
Speaker 1: into Reddit, sadly and for you personally, do you sometimes
Speaker 1: I imagine this is true, but do you go down
Speaker 1: a lot of different rabbit holes and get to a
Speaker 1: story and then realize it's not something or is your
Speaker 1: intuition over the over the last few years, I imagine would
Speaker 1: get a lot better. Do you sometimes go down a
Speaker 1: path and start interviewing people and then realize there's no
Speaker 1: story in it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah. Often, often the times it really works, it's
Speaker 4: like it's like, you know, lightning striking. It's it's just
Speaker 4: so lucky. There's so many dad ads, there's so many
Speaker 4: bleak days when you're looking for I met this documentary
Speaker 4: study Kubrick's box as, and I said to Christian Kubrick's wife, like,
Speaker 4: you know, in those ever length of gaps between movies,
Speaker 4: what was he looking for? And she said, that magical
Speaker 4: moment of falling in love with the story, And that's
Speaker 4: what you're looking for. You just don't know what it's
Speaker 4: going to be until you know, until you find it,
Speaker 4: it jumps out at you. With the psychopath test, for instance,
Speaker 4: I just this psychologist happened to mention to me that
Speaker 4: you were much more likely to find psychopaths at the
Speaker 4: top of the tree than at the bottom. And this
Speaker 4: was the thought that, you know, no, that's that's kind
Speaker 4: of been the consciousness now, but it really wasn't at
Speaker 4: the time. And I was thinking about this and I
Speaker 4: suddenly thought, Okay, I should learn how to spot psychopaths.
Speaker 4: I should go on a psychopaths spotting course and then
Speaker 4: journey into the corridors of power and try and spot psychopaths,
Speaker 4: and like, I have no idea what's going to happen,
Speaker 4: but whatever it is, it's got to be good. And
Speaker 4: so that's like one of those moments and a similar
Speaker 4: thing actually with the new book The Castle. This is
Speaker 4: the one thing I can say actually because it's out there.
Speaker 4: So the way that crashed into my life was I
Speaker 4: was asleep and my son, while I'm asleep, is nexting
Speaker 4: me the series of texts and I and I see
Speaker 4: the last text first, and the last text is something
Speaker 4: like it's okay. We managed to get out. It was
Speaker 4: totally fucked, but we're okay now I got to Yeah.
Speaker 4: So then I read all the other texts that had
Speaker 4: preceded it, and he and some friends had been invited
Speaker 4: to a party at a stranger's house that they'd met
Speaker 4: online in the forests of New England. This is a
Speaker 4: very well you'll see. So when they get there, the
Speaker 4: stranger's house was a massive, newly built castle with like
Speaker 4: way too many turrets, like really odd, huge castle, and
Speaker 4: they went in and there was no party. Oh they've
Speaker 4: been invited there for other reasons.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm hooked, all right, give me the
Speaker 2: book straight into my veins and imediately right.
Speaker 4: And then when I found this story, when he told
Speaker 4: me this story, I went to the castle, and that's
Speaker 4: how the book begins.
Speaker 3: Hey, John, you're pretty good at a tease. You should
Speaker 3: consider doing writing or something for a living. That was
Speaker 3: really good.
Speaker 4: I've got to say, I'm pretty cliffhanger shameless. In fact,
Speaker 4: I was talking to my wife about this this morning.
Speaker 4: I say, oh my god, you know I really I
Speaker 4: really go for the cliff.
Speaker 3: I mean they go for you.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about the last
Speaker 1: days of August as well? I think it was such
Speaker 1: a podcast that really got me hooked, you know, because
Speaker 1: of your wonderful cliffhangers.
Speaker 5: But you know you did, you did start it and.
Speaker 1: Went into this world to find out about someone who
Speaker 1: sadly yet took their own life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I see this kind of this is like
Speaker 4: a true crime cautionary tale. Actually, because of all the
Speaker 4: stories I've done, I'm glad I did the story, and
Speaker 4: I'm too hard in myself, like the way I'm going
Speaker 4: to tell this story. I think I'm too heard of
Speaker 4: myself and almost everyone who listens to the last of
Speaker 4: August really likes it and thinks it's responsibly done and
Speaker 4: so on. But I focus a lot on the kind
Speaker 4: of ethical flaws and the problems and the things that
Speaker 4: I organized over. So I just made this documentary called
Speaker 4: The Butterfly Effect for Audible, which is this really sweet,
Speaker 4: upbeat documentary about the porn industry trying to adapt in
Speaker 4: the wake of all of these tech utopians coming in
Speaker 4: and taking over it.
Speaker 1: I want to have, wasn't it and the people that yeah,
Speaker 1: that took over and the AHS tapes weren't a thing
Speaker 1: anymore and it would just completely change the industry, which
Speaker 1: which happened very quickly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, porn just like decimated the industry, And so I
Speaker 4: went to the poor world to see like how they
Speaker 4: were coping in that.
Speaker 2: Good life hack make and no, no, babe, honestly, it's
Speaker 2: for a documentary.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Now my wife is very like permissive. Uh yeah.
Speaker 4: So ah. So that was like a really sweet, nae sured,
Speaker 4: upbeat documentary. And then about a couple of months after
Speaker 4: it came out, this porn style called August Dain's Mercedes
Speaker 4: Kobowski took her life and I can't remember how it happened.
Speaker 4: But I ended up talking to her husband, Kevin, who
Speaker 4: said that she'd been there'd been a Twitter storm that
Speaker 4: day and she was being like kind of publicly shamed
Speaker 4: on Twitter and that was and actually took her life.
Speaker 4: So I'd written the book about public shaming, and I'd
Speaker 4: made a documentary about the porn industry, so it just
Speaker 4: seemed like I should reach out to her husband. So
Speaker 4: that's that's what happened. So I reached out to him,
Speaker 4: and he said that he completely blamed the people who
Speaker 4: were dragging her on Twitter for her death, and he
Speaker 4: was going to release the statement and some of them
Speaker 4: were very big names in the porn industry, and he
Speaker 4: was going to release a statement naming and shaming the
Speaker 4: people who were respond who he felt were responsible for
Speaker 4: her death. And then shortly after that, a few people
Speaker 4: in the porn industry said to me, we think mercedes
Speaker 4: death is more complicated. There's more stuff going on. You
Speaker 4: should investigate it, implying that maybe it wasn't even suicide. Wow,
Speaker 4: So that was what set me off on the journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so much along the way as well,
Speaker 1: a power outage, there's you know, the going to the
Speaker 1: going to the hotel.
Speaker 5: There's all these.
Speaker 1: Little bits and pieces that you kind of look at it.
Speaker 1: It's a clue after clue that may maybe there is
Speaker 1: something more sinister Afford. Does that scare you though, when
Speaker 1: you maybe make comments about, oh, it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: that is that is exactly what happened?
Speaker 4: Does that?
Speaker 5: Does that scare you in once it's out there.
Speaker 2: Entering into the world of crime or potentially crime, entering
Speaker 2: into that from afar, but kind of putting yourself into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I guess there's there are fears. There's probably
Speaker 4: well one are the fears, Okay, I'm putting myself in
Speaker 4: personal danger is one. I'm putting myself in legal jeopardy
Speaker 4: is another. And then the third one is is this
Speaker 4: ethically the right thing to do? And those are like,
Speaker 4: you know, at what point is it appropriate to prot
Speaker 4: around in somebody's life, especially somebody who's you know, grieving,
Speaker 4: even if their behavior was shitty. So you know, all
Speaker 4: of these things were just like rustling around in my
Speaker 4: head for like the two years I was making however
Speaker 4: long it talk to make the show. So yeah, like
Speaker 4: there was three ultimately of the three feears, the one
Speaker 4: that became the biggest one was the ethical one. The
Speaker 4: other two I never felt with that story. I never
Speaker 4: felt in any physical danger. Actually that's not true. We
Speaker 4: being leader, did feel in physical danger. But I think
Speaker 4: we were both being paranoid. Leader is the producer. I
Speaker 4: think we were just being paranoid. But at one point
Speaker 4: we hired armed like an armed guard.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And but honestly, looking back on us, I think
Speaker 4: we were being paranoid. God, I was gonna say that
Speaker 4: I never felt there was any legal jeopardy because honestly,
Speaker 4: we're really careful, really assiduous, like I don't, you know,
Speaker 4: mess around with that kind of stuff. So the only
Speaker 4: thing left really was was that was kind of ethical,
Speaker 4: and that just haunted me. And you know, and anybody
Speaker 4: who does true crime reporting, if they're not haunted by that,
Speaker 4: then they shouldn't be in the job.
Speaker 3: And then they're going to run into the legal part
Speaker 3: as well. I think that if you're not wanted by that, you.
Speaker 1: Come from this really disarming, this disarming kind of point
Speaker 1: of view where you you always and it's so genuine
Speaker 1: with you, You care about the people and you want to
Speaker 1: find out more. Do you feel like that that really
Speaker 1: you know, that that way that you've kind of come
Speaker 1: into journalism and you probably see it done incorrectly a lot,
Speaker 1: do you do you look at that and kind of go,
Speaker 1: this was always you know, that's kind of your superpower
Speaker 1: in a way that people kind of trust you and
Speaker 1: want to want to divulge a lot of information I
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 4: I think it's I think it's maybe more like, you know,
Speaker 4: when I decide to do a story, I get so
Speaker 4: obsessed with it, like I go down the rabbit hole,
Speaker 4: and it just completely consumes me. By the time I'm
Speaker 4: approaching interviewees, like my passion for the story and for
Speaker 4: them and their stories. I guess it becomes, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of rubs off from them, and they and they're
Speaker 4: more agreeable to talk to me. And I guess there's
Speaker 4: a sort of enthusiasm that comes with the curiosity, and
Speaker 4: maybe that sort of pumptiousness is attractive to them. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And and I am genuinely curious, Like it's rare that
Speaker 4: I go into a situation feeling judgmental, like I'm genuinely curious.
Speaker 4: And so when I'm talking to them, I think they
Speaker 4: can tell they can tell.
Speaker 1: That absolutely with the psychopath taste, like going in to
Speaker 1: meat different psychopaths and actually staying in touch with people.
Speaker 1: Has that always been something about the stories that you
Speaker 1: tell that you kind of you are so involved in
Speaker 1: these people's lives, and you had staying in touch with
Speaker 1: with the people who identify themselves as psychopaths. You know
Speaker 1: and and and you know and are of no harm
Speaker 1: to society. They understand, you know, they're different compulsions, they
Speaker 1: understand how they are as a person. Do your family
Speaker 1: ever kind of go John, what are you doing you.
Speaker 5: In the middle?
Speaker 4: I remember my wife always laughs about this. When we
Speaker 4: were first dating. I guess in the nineties I invited
Speaker 4: a member of the MUDs and family to stay. I
Speaker 4: was doing a kind of documentary. I never did to anything,
Speaker 4: but we've got some I think the BBC somebody gave
Speaker 4: us somebody to to do a documentary about where the
Speaker 4: you know, where members of the buds and family are
Speaker 4: now And one of them. I got talking to Sundra
Speaker 4: Good and she said she was coming to London and
Speaker 4: I said, oh, you should come and stay the night.
Speaker 4: And she said what your address? And I said like
Speaker 4: N one one j X, and she said, say that again.
Speaker 4: I said, you know, N one one X J for
Speaker 4: John X for what you have carved in your forehead,
Speaker 4: and she went, she went, that's not funny. And then
Speaker 4: I said to I said to Alad, I hope you
Speaker 4: don't have just invited one of the Madson family to stay.
Speaker 4: She was like, yes, I do mine. There we go.
Speaker 2: That's a classic example of you being disarming and charming,
Speaker 2: because I'm pretty sure no one else would have the
Speaker 2: confidence to say X.
Speaker 5: Like you have.
Speaker 4: How could you like if that, if that line pops
Speaker 4: into your head?
Speaker 3: Can you need to ask me about that?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: What was did you say?
Speaker 2: Was she?
Speaker 3: What was she like?
Speaker 4: She was actually quite scary. Soundsra good read. I think
Speaker 4: her badsa name was or Sanday. She was like a
Speaker 4: big member. She wasn't a referral. You know, she was hardcore.
Speaker 4: She'd be you know, well, no, I can't say that,
Speaker 4: but you know she was one of the hardcore members
Speaker 4: who didn't do any of the murders. And yeah, I've
Speaker 4: only got fleeting. I mean, I'm going back to the
Speaker 4: nineties now. We never even never turned into anything. But
Speaker 4: I remember meeting her and her boyfriend in this really
Speaker 4: remote hotel in exactly the kind of place you don't
Speaker 4: want to be stuck with a member of the Madson family.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yea some middle of nowhere desert motel. And it was
Speaker 4: a bit tense. Actually, this has been a couple of
Speaker 4: times when you're dealing with somebody who you can tell
Speaker 4: is has got, you know, psychological problems that might mean
Speaker 4: the into violence. Like there's been a few times when
Speaker 4: I'm doing all of that disarming stuff, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: that makes it sound like I'm putting it on, but.
Speaker 3: Very much col just you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I then realized that actually these are pretty
Speaker 4: dangerous people. That has happened a few times, and I
Speaker 4: think it happened in a small way with I don't
Speaker 4: want to like oversell it, but I got a sort
Speaker 4: of sense of unease from her.
Speaker 2: Who or what is the kind of quote unquite scariest
Speaker 2: situation you found yourself.
Speaker 3: In, whether that's that someone else would say.
Speaker 2: I can't believe you put yourself in that situation that scary,
Speaker 2: or that you really felt in that moment, you know,
Speaker 2: from a kind of crime or unease situation.
Speaker 4: To be honest, Like, I can't really go into detail,
Speaker 4: but some of the stuff in the new book in
Speaker 4: the Castle has made me feel that way. Wow. And
Speaker 4: before that, well, there was well going to Riyan Nations
Speaker 4: in Idaho, driving up all the signs saying Jews turn
Speaker 4: around now, and then turning up you know, with with
Speaker 4: all of my jewishness and these skinheads these really scary
Speaker 4: like you know, this was like a proper hardcore, your
Speaker 4: muscular skinhead community all surrounding me and asking me if
Speaker 4: I was Jewish. That was That's one of the times
Speaker 4: what I felt like in very immediate danger. But you
Speaker 4: know how that resolved itself. This is I've always thought,
Speaker 4: this is amazing. So they didn't say are you Jewish?
Speaker 4: They said what's your genealogy? Meaning are you Jewish? Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I said, I'm Church of England. I always joke
Speaker 4: about this with Louis through because Louis throu was once
Speaker 4: at a situation very similar to this, when they said
Speaker 4: are you Jewish? And Louis said, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: tell you if I'm Jewish or not. And Louis isn't Jewish.
Speaker 4: And I was in that same situation and they said
Speaker 4: to me, are you Jewish? And I said no, no, no,
Speaker 4: Louis is a brave and Louis wins that comparison.
Speaker 2: I say, I will die happy if I can legitimately
Speaker 2: say the sentence.
Speaker 3: I always joke about this with Lewis through.
Speaker 4: Sorry. So okay, so what we're saying, yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: The way that resolved itself was I said, I'm Church
Speaker 4: of England. And then one of the guys around the circle,
Speaker 4: who wasn't the skinhead like a bit older, said made
Speaker 4: some joke about the Church of England, and that joke
Speaker 4: signified to all the skin heads to disperse, and so
Speaker 4: they all did. So that guy at that moment, like
Speaker 4: you know, receaved me. And I've often wondered, I've often
Speaker 4: wondered who was that guy? Was he a real Nazi?
Speaker 4: Might he have been an undercover federal agent? We know
Speaker 4: that there was a bunch of them in places like
Speaker 4: Area Nations. Uh, you know what happened in that moment?
Speaker 4: Maybe he just maybe you know, Okham's razor would say
Speaker 4: that he just didn't want, you know, film crew. The
Speaker 4: last Signian Nations needed was beating up some journalist. You know,
Speaker 4: So that was you know, that's probably what happened, But
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe something else happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, what a story.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, John.
Speaker 1: I know that you're you know, you're always working. Like
Speaker 1: I remember us talking recently about you know that you
Speaker 1: work seven days a week because.
Speaker 5: You just love it. You know?
Speaker 1: Has that has that grown over time? Do you still
Speaker 1: get that invested in things like working all the time?
Speaker 1: You know, you go for your walk, your back You're thinking,
Speaker 1: is is there just a part of you that just
Speaker 1: has always just loved what you do?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I just love it. Like on the very rare
Speaker 4: occasions when I take a couple of days off, I
Speaker 4: kind of appreciate it, like for maybe a day, I think, Okay,
Speaker 4: I understand why people try leisure, like I could. I
Speaker 4: could see why, But ultimately it's not long before the
Speaker 4: sort of cold winds of bleak paranoia sweep through you,
Speaker 4: and that those cold windings are stated by being on
Speaker 4: a story, by being intrigued by something. I just find that.
Speaker 4: So like if I wake up, you know what, I've
Speaker 4: got this bar. Now we live in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 4: and I've got this barn where I work, and I'm
Speaker 4: there at like five thirty or six in the morning,
Speaker 4: and I turned on all the lights and sit in
Speaker 4: my chair and I find myself and it's still dark,
Speaker 4: this doesn't come up yet, and I find myself smiling
Speaker 4: like like this is like this is where. This is great,
Speaker 4: Like I've got something to do. I have purpose, I've
Speaker 4: got a story that gives me. That's the thing I do. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I just love it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's so beautiful.
Speaker 5: I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: How wonderful. John.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk
Speaker 1: to us.
Speaker 5: So lovely to have you on.
Speaker 1: And I know, like your thought, I wasn't messaging you
Speaker 1: in the middle of nights. We're podcasting right now and
Speaker 1: you having to go, oh shit, finishing your book and everything.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about the new book and and and
Speaker 1: you know, is there more psychopath test Nights coming soon again.
Speaker 4: I just did another Psychopath Night tour in Britain, which
Speaker 4: I really loved. I really finessed it. I think it's
Speaker 4: like the best version of the show. I did like
Speaker 4: seventeen of them. But no, I think with the new
Speaker 4: book with the Castle coming out, will probably put Psychopath
Speaker 4: Night on the shelf for at least a few years.
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of talk about it being dramatized
Speaker 4: together like over the years, like that's every so often
Speaker 4: it looks like it may be dramatized and then it isn't.
Speaker 4: But there's a bit more talk of that, and if
Speaker 4: that happens, definitely, because I love psychopath nic and so
Speaker 4: I would absolutely do it again if something like that
Speaker 4: came up. But I was actually going to tell you
Speaker 4: a story, which I can I tell you it now. Okay, Well,
Speaker 4: it's just because of the theme of this and and
Speaker 4: it's it's a self aggrandizing story, so I apologize, but
Speaker 4: but I don't think I've ever told it. So it's
Speaker 4: just that. So you know, the reason why we're sitting
Speaker 4: here and everybody is so interested in to crime these
Speaker 4: days is to a large extent because of Season one
Speaker 4: of Cereal. And yeah, you know that was like such
Speaker 4: a kind of revolution in storytelling and you know, a
Speaker 4: million h copy caps and so on, so again.
Speaker 5: Throughout Iconic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Anyway, Sarah Kanik and Julie Snyder, who
Speaker 4: made it, who were like brilliant and brilliant, brilliant journalists,
Speaker 4: and they were like the kind of beating heart of
Speaker 4: this American life. And I'd worked with both of them
Speaker 4: on the Tony story in the psychopath Test. I told
Speaker 4: them I was working on the story for the book,
Speaker 4: and they said, I'll do it for us as well.
Speaker 4: So I was like working with Sarah Julie. And then
Speaker 4: a couple of years later they made Cereal and I
Speaker 4: emailed them to say like how much I was enjoying it,
Speaker 4: and they said, like, we've been thinking, like while we've
Speaker 4: been making it, we've been thinking a lot about that
Speaker 4: Tony story about broad Moore. It's good, like and so
Speaker 4: I think, like I can't say that like like that
Speaker 4: story inspired, yeah, but I do think that maybe it
Speaker 4: sort of influenced some of the storytelling a little bit.
Speaker 3: And the original podcast influencer.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, And because and the the repels from season
Speaker 4: one of Servia was so huge.
Speaker 5: And for a long time as well. And you've been
Speaker 5: at you know, this American life and everything.
Speaker 1: When you talk about the fictionalized version of the Psychopaths,
Speaker 1: who would you feel comfortable playing?
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 4: Not? Louis, you know what I am? So what I
Speaker 4: learned really early on with adaptations is just stay the
Speaker 4: fuck away, like leave, and so I don't even think
Speaker 4: about it, like like they could just do whatever they want.
Speaker 3: Very diplomatic.
Speaker 1: Obviously, Frank was very different for you. But what about
Speaker 1: you know, the man who stret goats when that was
Speaker 1: made into a film, were you were you a bit
Speaker 1: more hands off to that one and decided to let
Speaker 1: them do it or because it's so personal to you?
Speaker 5: Did you feel again?
Speaker 4: Oh no, I was, I was very very hands off.
Speaker 4: We in the screenwriting process. Peter Strawn wrote the screenplay
Speaker 4: Who Won an Oscar last Year for Conentlave and he
Speaker 4: wrote the screenplay. I was remember walking into a Starbucks
Speaker 4: in central London one time while Peter was writing the screenplay,
Speaker 4: and Peter was in there and as he looked over
Speaker 4: at me, his face just sank and it's like the
Speaker 4: last and I get it. Like when I was writing Frank,
Speaker 4: I would have felt the same way if the real
Speaker 4: Frank side boss walked in the room, like you want it,
Speaker 4: you don't want real life. And so I had nothing
Speaker 4: to do with the screenwriting process. We visited the set.
Speaker 4: The best, the best thing in terms of you know,
Speaker 4: that process was you know, we visited the set for
Speaker 4: a couple of days, me and Peter. But when the
Speaker 4: film came out, George Clooney like so nicely, like, I
Speaker 4: will never forget this kindness. Really included me, Peter in
Speaker 4: all of the like the like in the film festivals.
Speaker 4: We were up on the stage with them and and
Speaker 4: like included us in all of the publicity for it.
Speaker 4: And you know, a lot of people don't do that.
Speaker 4: For a lot of people, we're like the dirty secrets,
Speaker 4: like the right.
Speaker 2: Pretend they don't exist, and it's our movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I don't know. That was so generous of
Speaker 4: him to do that.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: You know it's funny because as as such a book
Speaker 2: lover myself, I am always nervous when a book that
Speaker 2: I love is turned into a series or a movie,
Speaker 2: because I want it to be traditional to the book.
Speaker 3: So that's so interesting to.
Speaker 2: Hear someone from the novel side of it, you know,
Speaker 2: the book side, say I'll stay away from it because
Speaker 2: if it needs to be different, it can be because
Speaker 2: as the consumer, I'm like, no, let the writer of it.
Speaker 3: It's their story, right.
Speaker 4: Well. I have a number of reasons for having that attitude.
Speaker 4: One is that I'm not as good at fiction as
Speaker 4: I am a nonfiction. So if I did interfere and
Speaker 4: I may not know what I'm talking about. So you know,
Speaker 4: if I'm on a non you know, in nonfiction, I
Speaker 4: know what I'm talking about. In fiction, I don't. So
Speaker 4: that's one reason. Another reason, that's kind of the main reason.
Speaker 4: I'm sure there are other reasons for that.
Speaker 3: Everyone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just think, well, I always remember, like like
Speaker 4: Nick Hornby, I used to like have the odd lunch
Speaker 4: with him because we both lived in Islington, and he
Speaker 4: was like, if you if you are getting involved in Hollywood,
Speaker 4: just just go to it with no emotion, because if
Speaker 4: you go to it with any emotion, you're gonna get
Speaker 4: hurt in someone in one way or another that you
Speaker 4: won't even expect. And Hollywood is a very alpha male place,
Speaker 4: like it's a very like Glen Garry glen Ross type place.
Speaker 4: And so for all of those reasons, I go in
Speaker 4: with no emotion or I don't go in at all,
Speaker 4: and I just let him get on with it. They
Speaker 4: know what they're doing. I don't. I don't love that
Speaker 4: Glen glen Ross atmosphere, and so it's just best to
Speaker 4: let them. Let people get on with them.
Speaker 3: Do they thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had that story about me Carnby that the
Speaker 1: reason About a Boy is such a good film is
Speaker 1: because he wrote the book in Hugh Grant's voice. He
Speaker 1: had Hugh Grant in his mind already where he wrote
Speaker 1: it just.
Speaker 3: Like, oh my god, character and picturing translates so well
Speaker 3: to the movie.
Speaker 1: And when you read it, absolutely I can't imagine anyone
Speaker 1: else doing it.
Speaker 5: Well, ye day when the psychopaths.
Speaker 3: Yes, so who is is tiny in your mind?
Speaker 4: I don't have a clue. I don't even realize that. Yeah, listeners,
Speaker 4: it's not. Honestly, I don't think about it because you
Speaker 4: never because you know what, when I was making Stanley
Speaker 4: Kubrick's Boxes, I was remember this. I've met this guy
Speaker 4: who was really high up in Warner Brothers, like a
Speaker 4: real old timer and I and I said to him.
Speaker 4: He was in Saint John's Word and this big mansion
Speaker 4: in London, and you know, real kind of grizzled Hollywood
Speaker 4: old timer, high up in Warner Brothers. And at the
Speaker 4: end of the interview I said to him, I said, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, I've written this book called The Menisteric Goats,
Speaker 4: and you know this talk that it might be getting
Speaker 4: turned into a movie, and this guy goes a job.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell you something about movies. This is
Speaker 4: what you need to know about Hollywood. No film ever
Speaker 4: gets made. I've been involved with three films that got made,
Speaker 4: and on each occasion it's like such a fucking miracle.
Speaker 4: That's another reason to not get involved. It's like, why
Speaker 4: that's with this miracle, Like there's a million reasons for
Speaker 4: films NOTT to not get made, and it's that you know,
Speaker 4: it's a miracle when it happens.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just picture.
Speaker 2: I'm a massive Broadway nerd, So that whole story on
Speaker 2: my mind was in the set of Sunset Boulevard. I'm
Speaker 2: invested in this story.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that was really fun.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, thank you sign for your time and
Speaker 2: just your your openness with us today.
Speaker 3: But with everything you.
Speaker 2: Do with such massive fans, and we know our lessons
Speaker 2: are as well, and we.
Speaker 3: Can't wait to have you back.
Speaker 2: And we need to get you back before we can
Speaker 2: talk about the castle, because I'm worried that's going to
Speaker 2: be too far away and I need to know more.
Speaker 4: Well, it's only August. It's like the end of August,
Speaker 4: and I might be coming back to Australia, like I hope,
Speaker 4: So this talk of it, I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: going to actually happen or not, but if it does,
Speaker 4: i'd love to see you with Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know you're my hero, John, and I found
Speaker 1: boy over you every time. I'll see you in person
Speaker 1: but twice now, and I found boy every time.
Speaker 3: So now he's just showing off.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much, John for taking the time.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you, it's a pleasure.