Behind The Scenes With Andrew Bernstein (Author of Red Meat Village)

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All right, so I am here
with a wonderful Andy Bernstein. Andy,

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do you prefer Andy or Andrew?
Well, I mean my friends called me

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Andy, but since we're talking about
something that I've written, you know my

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professional name is Andrew Bernstein. So
we have been working on Meat Village together

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for what sure at least a year
at this point, right, Yes,

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well I think it's more than a
yes. And we started with your books,

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which are excellent. We then said, all right, well we're going

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to turn this into a scripted podcast. How are we going to do this?

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And you know, a lot of
it was already there on the page

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in your books. Ultimately, I
think it's a relatively faithful adaptation. But

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the only thing that we really changed
was gearing it towards the audio format.

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Do you remember what kind of like
our discussions about that and how we ended

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up tackling that. Yeah, I
know, I know, it's a whole

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it's a whole different genre in effect, at least, it's a different it's

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a different venue. So I remember
we went back and forth on that,

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on that quite a bit, but
we finally we finally figured it out,

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and I thought you did a really
good job right in the script. I

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appreciate it, man. Yeah,
I think what was cool was that,

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you know, you were so passionate
about the female lead of your story,

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and you know, I fell in
love. I fell in love with her

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and writing her character. Yeah,
and I think that your passion inspired me.

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And so we ended up coming up
with this device where it switches the

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POV character. So one episode where
with Tony and he's doing the first person

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narration, and then one episode with
Lisa and she's doing the first person narration.

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And it was really helpful because in
noir classically right, and this is

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contemporary noir, but it's still noir. In noir, the fatal character always

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did secret right, but you don't
really get interiority to that character when you're

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watching a noir film for example,
or even I think a lot of noir

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fiction, you're typically in the in
the detective's headspace. So getting to sort

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of hear her thoughts was kind of
a useful way, I think to explore

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the character a little more. Yeah, I think, you know, I

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think that definitely helps. Lisa Flower
is by far the most complex character in

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the in the universe of Tony.
Just there's so many good things about her,

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which is why Tony you know,
and and me why we're both so

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deeply in love with her. And
yet you know, in that in that

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volume one Red Meat Village that we
turned into a dramatic audio podcast, you

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know, she does some bad things
and you know, and messes up her

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relationship with the with the man who
loves her so yeah, and puts his

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life in grave danger. So she's
mixed in that in a certainly in in

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Red Meat Village, but very very
complex character. Yeah, it's um So,

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I guess I thought it would be
interesting for the audience to just kind

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of talk through like how we actually
did this right. So it started with

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your books which I read, and
then we discussed doing the adaptation and we

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worked on the adaptation together. Then
we went to casting and we were fortunate

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to get Malik Yoba and Catherine Bell
to do voices in the show and they

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were excellent. Yeah, we were
really happy with their performances and both they're

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both great, They're both really terrific. We had original music from our composer,

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which I thought, I think really
adds a lot to it. Malik

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Yoba contributed sixteenth it's impromptu. Yes, he did um and then I guess

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maybe if you could take the listeners
back. You know. One thing that

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I really loved is that when we
finished it, I think I sent you

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a note and I said you should
go listen to this in a bar somewhere

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in New York. Yeah, if
you could just tell the listeners the when

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you listen to them. We finally
had a cut for you to listen to.

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Where did you listen to it?
Because it was something you and I

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had talked about. Where where did
I first listen listen to it? You

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know, Dad, I don't even
remember. I think it was. I

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think it was probably in my car, you know, when I was driving,

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because you know, I teach philosophy. I think I was. I

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was driving home from the from the
college, and I was I was listening

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in my car, But it I
don't remember for sure, but it makes

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the What would be really good is
like you mentioned a bar, you know,

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sitting in a bos somewhere in Brooklyn, which is where which is Brooklyn,

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New York, Which is where the
story takes place, you know,

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and listen listen to it with with
a bunch of with a bunch of your

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drunks, you know, and the
guy's drinking, drinking, and the ball

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that would be that would be perfect
for this kind of you know scenes,

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this kind of the wir story.
Yeah, if you're somebody who lives in

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New York, if you are walking
home from the bar at like two am

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and you put in the AirPods and
listen to this show, I think that

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would be almost the ideal way to
listen to it. Yeah, absolutely,

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because I grew up. I grew
up in Brooklyn. You know, people

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don't realize that. They hear me
talk, they think I was up from

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Louisiana, but I'm not. And
that's a joke by way. Nobody thinks

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up from Louisiana. You know,
I grew up in Brooklyn, so I

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know, I know the area.
You know, I know the area well.

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And there's a lot of there's a
lot of colorful uh you know Brooklyn

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locations. And you know one thing
about the New York borough, Um,

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you know Brooklyn, the Bronx Queens. Uh, they have a reputation for

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being gritty, you know, and
you know, a tough minded and you

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know, and that I think that's
often the case. You know, I

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says as a different reputation than say
Hollywood, which people often think people in

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Hollywood, they think it's disingenuous,
you know, it's dishonest. People.

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People don't tell you the truth.
You know. In the New York boroughs,

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they tend to be more in your
face, you know, and they'll

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tell you the truth, even if
it's not pretty and it's too much truth.

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Yeah, yeah, it's sometimes it's
too much truth, you know.

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And so you know, it has
that The Red Meat Village has that Brooklyn

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ambiance. It has that you know, that feel, you know that that

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feel too. It's tough. It's
gretty and tough minded, which is which

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is perfect, you know, atmosphere
of noirs that I really liked. It's

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I'm originally from the East Coast,
from Baltimore, and I've always well,

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that's like the murder capital, one
of the murder capitals of the country.

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Though, right, we used to
joke we're number one, We're number one.

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Uh yeah. Baltimore has actually cleaned
up quite a bit and gentrified in

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the years since, but there was
a while yeah, where it was really

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dad. Yeah, I think you've
been supplanted at number one in the Murderer.

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I think Saint Louis is now.
But I'm not. Yeah, I'm

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not sure, but there is an
East Coast thing. There's sort of an

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East Coast flavor that I think is
very present in your writing and in the

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show as well. And I think
you know that that actually brings me to

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another thing that I wanted to discuss
with you. So, you know,

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we put the show out, and
you always want the show to be successful,

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you know. We we're really proud
of the show. We think the

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show is excellent, but you always
there's always a fear of man, what

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if what if we're wrong? Right? What if we don't think like the

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audience that we think is there isn't
there or whatever? And we were so

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pleased to see that pretty quickly it
shot up to number seventeen of all fiction

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podcasts and Apple podcasts. Was that
I mean, was that a surprise to

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you or was it sort of like
a confirmation of your instincts as a writer

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that people clearly were enjoying the show
that it kind of moved up the charts

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like that. Well, it made
me very happy that you know that that's

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doing well. I'm glad. I'm
glad people like it. Uh. I

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think it's a really good story,
So you know, and that and that

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people who like this genre will enjoy
it. So I wasn't surprised, you

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know, that it was doing well, but I was definitely pleased. I'm

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really I'm really happy that you know
that, uh, that that the listeners

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enjoy it as much as as much
as I do. So yeah, I

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was, I was real happy to
see that. Did you buy any chance

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Andy listened to the behind the scenes
interviews with Malik and Catherine, Yeah,

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I did. Was there anything that
you heard that surprised you? Well,

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Catherine Catherine Bell, I mean,
she's I mean, she's she's a lovely

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woman, you know, and she's
been playing the good She's famous for playing

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a good witch, right, was
a Cassie Nightingale character, I think,

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and you know, there's a sweetness
about her. And she said, you

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know, I preferred he's tough.
I preferred these tough babes, you know,

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these these you know, and these
la fem fata rather than the you

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know, than the sugar and spice
everything nice girl next door. So I

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don't know if that surprised me,
but I was. I was definitely pleased

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to hear it, because you know, that's that's the kind of female characters

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that I was always, always,
always attracted to the you know, the

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bad girls. Unfortunately, you know, then, since you're a fan of

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Noa, sometimes those those bad girls
turn out to be murderous. You know.

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I'm thinking of the Barbara's Standwick character
and Double and Double Indemnity, which

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is like a classica Phil and Barbara
standard, very beautiful, very sexy,

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very good actors. But yeah,
she's a murderer. So no, no,

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I don't want to go that far, you know, with the bad

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girls, the naughty girls. But
somebody was like, you know, it's

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got a little it's got a naughty
side. It isn't just you a goody

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goody. Those are the kind of
women I always liked. So so Katherine

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Bill said that I was very pleased. Hear. Yeah. I have to

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say I think that Catherine was really
the great victory of this project from a

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casting perspective, because, like you
said, I mean really, if you

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look at her recent work, she's
probably better known for doing this kind of

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soft, more hallmarky kind of stuff, and I just had an instinct that

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she had that gear. I don't
even know why. I think I might

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have read an interview with her at
one point years ago or something like that.

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But I just had an instinct that
she had that gear, and when

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we started recording together, it was
immediately obvious that she had that gear.

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Your instincts well one hundred percent right. She was rate. I mean,

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she just nailed the character of Lisa
flow, her voice, her voice inflections

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and intonation. She was she was
outstanding. I'm not surprised that Malik Yobo

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I remember him as Yo Brenna,
you know, from Cool Runnings and Tough

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Cop was it, what was it
New York Undercover. I'm not surprised that

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he would be perfect as Reggie h
D. But Catherine Bell, I,

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you know, she didn't surprised me
because I know she's a talented actress.

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But I loved it. I was
I was really pleased because I'm in love

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with the character. I like Reggie, I like Tony, but I love

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Lisa, and so that Catherine Bell
was so great as it was made me

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very happy. Yeah. I mean
it speaks to the writing process, right

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when you when you write something,
you have to be into it emotionally in

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order for it to be good,
you know. And so I think that

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what you're saying, you know,
connects to that. What's uh, I'm

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curious as a fan of yours as
a writer, what's the status of the

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books? Are you now looking towards
publishing them? Yes, I'm almost done

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with volume three of the Tonys,
and I think your me Billas is the

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first. I think The Night Is
Long was volume two. The Captive Brain

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volume three. I think they get
better and better. I'm almost done with

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it early next year, let's say
sometime in February, I should haven't done,

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so i'll have a successful podcast.
I'll have three novels at a series,

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not just one book, but three, and then I'm gonna start looking

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for literary agents to market this to
mainstream you know, New York publishers,

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whether it's you know, Simon and
Schuster, Random House, Connops, something

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like that, because I think this
has your widespread commercial appeal. So yeah,

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twenty twenty three, I'm going to
begin the marketing process. I'm going

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to use the podcast. They look
there's a market, but you know for

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these stories and for these characters.
Yeah, man, I think we've proven

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it. Yeah, it's it's really
cool. So all right, awesome,

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man, Well, um, is
there anything else that you want to share

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with the listeners of Red Mead Village. Well, I mean, I'm just

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I think, you know, I
think the noir crime story genre was certainly

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more popular in Hollywood back in the
day than it is now. There was

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some classic who was I mentioned Double
Indemnity, which is a classic, and

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every fan of the genres should know
that, should know that story. I

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hope, I hope it makes a
comeback because I love, you know,

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and Liam Neeson has made these kind
of gritty, you know, crime stories

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and you know, in recent years, and I hope it makes a comeback

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because it's it's a great genre.
It's very entertaining. You The stories typically

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don't ramble because you know, somebody's
been murdered and the detectives got to track

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down the murderer. You know,
you know s something or something like us.

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These stories have a plot, they
have life and life and death stakes.

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Good guys and dad guys love beautiful
sexy la fem fatale you know,

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very very often. So I hope
this makes a comeback, and I hope

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Red Meat Village is bought of it. Both the both the dramatic audio podcasts

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that you guys put together at Voyage
and you know, the novels that I'm

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gonna be marketing next year. All
Right, awesome, Thank you so much.

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I really appreciate it, and thank
you for all your work on this

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project. Absolutely is my pleasure,
and I guess for listeners, yeah,

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look out for those books whenever they
come out. We will definitely update the

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show notes so that you know you
can find them. Great. Thanks Dan,

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all right, thanks a lot.
Thanks for listening to this behind the

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scenes discussion with Andrew Bernstein, the
author of Red Meat Village, and you

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can find Redmeat Village on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.