Songwriter Jeremy Spillman Releases Debut Novel, ‘The DeVine Devils’
Jeremy Spillman comes out, guns blazing, in his debut novel.
Jeremy Spillman has seen Nashville change from a city that felt small and friendly to a boomtown. He’s seen Music City from many angles, moving to town at 24 to pursue songwriting. He began his time in Music City as a valet at Union Station in downtown Nashville, just a few blocks from the honky tonks of Lower Broadway and has since gone on to become a celebrated songwriter with cuts recorded by Eric Church, Luke Bryan, Jon Pardi, Keith Urban and Little Big Town among many others.
Now he adds another chapter to his own story by releasing his first fiction novel, The DeVine Devils, alongside a soundtrack and audiobook. He didn’t have move far from his music loving roots for the inspiration though. “I always loved cowboy rock. As cheesy as Bon Jovi doing the ‘Young Guns’ soundtrack, or the Eagles’ ‘Desperado’ record, or Bad Company singing ‘Bad Company,’” Spillman tells Sounds Like Nashville.
Looking around the current radio landscape though, he couldn’t find a place for that type of music to fit. Then came the idea to take that impulse and turn it into a book. “I wanted to see a decadent wild-ass rock band in the old west.” He had inherited an interest in the setting from his grandfathers hand-me-down Zane Grey novels.
The story revolves around two brothers, Audie and Shane DeVine, and charts their raucous path across the old west as both famous musicians and vigilantes. The push and pull between the brothers and their dual lives propels the narrative forward with the force of a steam train.
Still, from it’s inception it took him four years to turn his idea of a rough and tumble old west rock band into his debut novel. Just as in crafting a song, Spillman labored over getting the words and rhythms just right for his debut. “I didn’t feel like writing a book was a complete 180 from songwriting. It wasn’t a complete departure. It wore out the same muscles in my head. There was something freeing about it…If I can point out a similarity, its less in the language and more in the characters.”
Getting the characters right was something that was important to Spillman. To that end he pulled from his real life experiences. The book is filled with “country-isms” from Spillman’s early years growing up in rural Kentucky. He cited that the younger versions of the main characters were inspired by his own third son. Also, the boy’s mother shares a lot of overlap with his own mom. While family is important both to Jeremy and the book, many of the band’s interactions came from his own time living with his two best friends as they were all up and coming songwriters.
Not satisfied to release the epic story as just a book, Spillman also undertook to release an accompanying soundtrack and a fully produced audiobook.
“A full-cast audiobook is a big undertaking.” When asked why he decided to go that route Spillman retorted “’cause I’m an idiot.” In reality, he decided that the audiobook production needed to swing for the fences. “It felt like with the book and the music, I was doing something that hadn’t really been done… I was probably scared not to, if you want to know the truth.”
The accompanying soundtrack EP was written by Jeremy and Randy Montana, with Dean Dillon and Clint Ingersoll (Spillman’s former roommate) each contributing to a song as well.
Spillman and Montana got to color outside the lines of modern country music without regards to any notion of “rules.” They scoped out the sound and vibe together during numerous writing sessions. According to Jeremy they’ve written together “every other Monday for two centuries.” The result is more nasty, and rough and tumble than what Spillman usually gets to make for commercial country radio, but it captures the epic sound and scope of the tale the book tells.
The book has been praised by everyone from Ted Danson, to John Osborne (of The Brothers Osborne) and even Eric Church, who also wrote the forward. The book and EP are available everywhere books and music are streamed and sold.
