ROCK STARS—The Quintessential Bad Boys of Romance

My guest is erotic romance author, Olivia Cunning. She's here, today, to talk about bad boys and making them hero material. We all love them, or at least, we love to read about them. Olivia is also introducing her new series, One Night With Sole Regret.  

As an author (and a woman), I never really questioned the appeal of dating a bad boy. Romance with a bad boy is never dull. It’s fun. Dramatic. Hard on the heart. At first, the excitement fuels the romance—what is he going to do today?—but usually that excitement wears off and you realize he’s not a bad boy, he’s just a jerk. That’s a fine line to toe when you’re writing a romance novel. Readers love the bad boy hero—it’s fun to fantasize dating one—but no one likes a jerk.

So how do I take a man who has thoughts like this

Gabe caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his gaze on the sweet piece of ass beside him at the bar. Long, brown curls fell to the middle of her back, and her jeans clung to her curvy backside in a most distracting fashion. High-heeled sandals accentuated her long legs, which would look perfect wrapped around his hips. If the front of her looked half as spectacular as the back, he was definitely interested in hanging around a while longer. He wasn’t that exhausted. 

and turn him into someone the heroine and the reader can fall in love with?

Easy.

Introduce him to the right woman and turn his world upside down.

The ultimate bad boy fantasy is not to turn him into a good boy, but for him to show his hidden good side to one very special woman. He won’t change for her (that never works), but he will find all that’s good in himself because of her. At least, that’s my bad boy fantasy, so that’s what tends to happen in my rock star erotic romances.

It’s even more interesting when you start with a heroine who is not attracted to the bad boy type and he has to win her over. In my most recent novella, Try Me, that’s what happens when Melanie meets Gabe. She doesn’t realize that she’s talking to the drummer of a famous rock band.

Melanie relaxed into the sofa cushions, glad she’d found a normal person to talk to. She’d thought she’d have to spend the entire night pretending to be invisible. “Melanie Anderson.

Yours?”

He laughed. “You really aren’t enamored with the band, are you, Melanie?”

What did that have to do with telling her his name? “I like their music, but they’re not my favorite band or anything. A bit too heavy for my tastes. Nikki is the one obsessed with them. She dragged me here against my will.”

“ I’m Gabriel Banner.” He grinned at her and suddenly overwarm, she wondered if someone had switched off the AC. “Call me Gabe.”

A totally normal name for a totally normal guy. She would have felt uncomfortable talking to any of the other men in the room—tattooed, pierced, strange haircuts, chains and leather—but Gabe looked as normal as she did. She smiled and offered her free hand in greeting. His hand slid into hers. Though he clasped her hand with a gentle grip, she could feel the strength in those long fingers. Her heart fluttered when his fingers brushed the back of her hand. “Nice to meet you, Gabe. How did a normal-looking guy like you end up backstage with all these, erm, interesting folks?”

He hesitated and then laughed as if he thought she was joking. “They’re great, aren’t they? Are you from Tulsa?”

She shook her head. “Kansas. Nikki wanted to meet Shade so badly that she made me drive here with her. She couldn’t get backstage last night. I guess she got what she wanted tonight though. Where are you from?”

“Austin.”

She did recognize a hint of a drawl in his speech, but she wouldn’t have pegged him as a Texan—his jeans weren't tight enough to cut off the circulation to his balls. She supposed the Rangers ball cap should have given her a clue. “Did you drive all the way from Austin just to see Sole Regret?”

He laughed again and tugged on one earlobe. He was certainly easy to amuse. And the deep, rich sound of his amusement had her considering clown school to keep him laughing regularly.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he said.

Gabe took the final draw of his beer, extended the empty bottle, and gave it a little shake. Within twenty seconds it had been replaced with a fresh brew.

Sipping her water, she wondered why the bartender was so eager to do Gabe’s bidding.

“So, do you know the band?”

He smiled again and Melanie feared she’d melt. She was very interested in putting a permanent smile on his handsome face.

“We’ve met…

When she does figure it out, that’s not what attracts her to him. What attracts her is all of those parts of him that he hides from the world because they don’t fit his bad boy image.

“Tell me something else that makes you less cool,” Melanie said.

“Gee, Mel, do you have all night? Don’t you know that most rock stars began life as outcasts who didn’t want to be weird but found a bunch of kindred outcasts to make music with? A few of us somehow manage to make a living off it. Most of us have to supplement our music habit by delivering pizzas.” 

"But being an outcast makes you normal."

He shook his head in confusion. “If you say so.”

“What were you like in high school?”

He groaned inwardly and considered making shit up. He’d been a walking disaster. “Braces.”

“That explains your perfect smile.”

She thought his smile was perfect? Maybe all those painful visits to the orthodontist had been worth it.

“What else?” she pressed.

“Tall and skinny.” Was she trying to talk herself out of sleeping with him or what?

She lifted the hem of his shirt to flash his belly. “Not an ounce of fat on those abs, but not skinny. Fit. And you are tall. I suppose that’s a benefit for a drummer.”

“I was so not attractive, Mel, I didn’t touch my first boob until I was twenty.”

“And how many boobs have you touched since?”

He grinned. “I don’t grope and tell.”

I love to dig deep into my rock star characters’ pasts and show that there is more to them than what the public is exposed to. Take a rock god and make him human. Take a bad boy and let him be bad, but have him treat his woman oh-so good.

BUY: AMAZON, B&N, SMASHWORDS

TRY ME by Olivia Cunning

For the five sexy rock gods of Sole Regret, finding love is easy, keeping it is hard.

Melanie has no desire to meet the members of the rock band, Sole Regret, but her groupie of a best friend gets them both backstage and then rushes off with the band’s lead singer. Left alone at an after party with a bunch of scary tattooed and pierced metal-heads, sheltered Melanie is relieved when the only normal-looking guy in the room insists on keeping her company.

By the time Melanie discovers that Gabe is the band’s drummer and not as normal as she assumed, she has already made a complete fool of herself. She can’t help but be interested in him, not as a rock star, but as the sexiest man she’s ever encountered. Strangely attracted to his hidden tattoos and body piercing, she wonders what it would be like to spend a night with a bad boy.

Gabe is more than willing to show sweet Melanie there’s more to him than meets the eye. All she has to do is try him. Will they only share a single night of passion? Or will their hearts entangle as quickly as their bodies?

Try Me is the first erotic novella in Olivia Cunning’s One Night with Sole Regret series.

Contains explicit sex, graphic language, and a hot rock star with a naughty and inventive mind. 

Available in ebook format only

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. She also writes romantic fantasy under the pen name Olivia Downing.

Raised on hard rock music from the cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She's been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen, she discovered her second love, romantic fiction—first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own. For more information visit http://www.oliviacunning.com.

Interview: Sinners' On Tour, Backstage Pass

It’s my pleasure to have as my guest, Olivia Cunning, erotic romance author. Olivia has brought along lead guitarist of Sinners, the delectable, Brian Sinclair. Ladies he’s lookin’ hawt! (I’d still love to donate my body, in the name of ecology, of course, for him to use. Sigh, but one must be professional when conducting interviews.)


Brian, welcome to Over Coffee. It wonderful to have you and Olivia here and I’ve been so looking forward to this interview.

Since you're short on time, we'll get right to it.


Tell me a bit about Sinners. How did you guys come together?

Hard to believe, but Sinners has been together for ten years now. Well, most of us have. Jace Seymour took over for our previous bassist just two years ago. I’ve known Trey Mills, our rhythm guitarist, since before he grew pubes. Met Eric Sticks at a party in high school. Trey and I were playing a gig with our band, Crysys, and Eric thought we sucked. Actually, Eric and Trey got in a fistfight over it, which somehow ended with Eric joining the band. He was trying to decrease our suck. Did a pretty good job with that actually. Crysys did suck until Eric joined us.

The three of us played together for a couple years, then Sed Lionheart decided he wanted to be our lead singer, took over, and rearranged things. He’s the one who renamed the group Sinners.

So even though he wasn’t an original member, Sed just took over?

Yeah, Sed is like that. He told Eric that he was hurting the band by being lead singer and that he should play drums instead. Eric sings pretty good actually, but he doesn’t have much star quality. Sed’s got both the pipes and the stage presence. He’s a great front man. And Eric wails on the drums. So win/win for Sinners. Right?

I suppose so. As long as there were no hard feelings.

Now I didn’t say that.

Your father was also a famous lead guitarist in his day. Was he the one who encouraged you to pick up the guitar?

Not really. When I was a kid, he’d go out on tour and I’d sneak into his studio to play his guitars. I don’t know how he knew I was messing with them, but man, that made him mad. No one touches Malcolm O’Neil’s guitars. Eventually, Mom bought me my own guitar, so I’d stop upsetting Dad. And despite all my success in Sinners, I’m still not good enough to impress the old man.

Can we talk about something else?

Sure. Whose music influenced you, Master Sinclair, to become the iconic guitarist you are today?

I do have a few influences, but I tried to find my own sound early on. You can’t be a great musician if you copy others your whole career. I think Hendrix was my biggest influence. I started trying to copy his sound when I was eight. I also learned from fast-fingered soloists like Randy Rhodes and Eddie Van Halen, as well as, masters of the metal riff, like Metallica and Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell Abbot. You’ll hear bits of all of them in me. I guess my dad influenced me, too. People say I sound like him. I don’t hear it.

Hey, did you know Olivia Cunning dedicated her novel, Backstage Pass, to Dimebag?

Yes, I saw that. He was an awesome guitarist.

I suggested it to her. His loss was a terrible tragedy. Playing Cowboys from Hell helped me build up my speed. Great workout for the fingers. Sick song! Uh, sick meaning good.

I really like the song too, Brian. I think I’ll let anyone who wants hear it give it a play.




If you had to pick a band on today’s scene you respect for their songwriting or music ability, who would it be and why?

There are lots of great bands out there right now. I don’t think I can pick just one. I do respect bands who aren’t afraid to vary their song structures and sound. Variety is good as long as you don’t go overboard.

We’re going to try to add even more variety to Sinners’ next album. So says Eric Sticks.

As a popular band, what are some of the good things that have come your way? What are some of the not so great things?

Fans are great. Performing live is great. Getting paid to do what I love is amazing. Living on a tour bus with four other slobs sucks. Just kidding, the guys are great. Just don’t feed them chili. I beg you.

I read on your website that you had some problems this past year with losing your creative spark or your muse. That must have been hard. Was it burn out?

Sed has a big frickin’ mouth. I don’t know why he posted that on our website. I’m not sure what the problem was. We’ve been on the road for a long time, but that usually inspires me. Maybe it was the pressure. Everyone always being on my case to write something. I think I just needed to relax and let the music come. Not force it, you know? I’m over it now. I’ve written a lot of new stuff recently. Great stuff.

So how did you finally find a way to relax and let it come? Come? Ummm....
Why, Brian Sinclair, are you blushing?

Psssh, no.

If you say so, lol! So what exactly inspired your creative spark? You can tell us.

Might as well. It’s all being published in the novel, Backstage Pass, anyway. There’s this woman. This amazing, sexy, wonderful, brilliant, beautiful, intelligent woman. When we, uhhh... how do I put this, get it on, I hear music in my head. It’s as if we were destined to be together. I think I’m being rewarded for finding her. Now I just have to figure out how to keep her.

Speaking of getting it on, how does it feel to have your sex life made public in a novel?

Hey, it's not so bad. Olivia Cunning makes me look like a total stud in the book. Well, except that part on page 253. I was just too excited before I started, you know, and Myrna had me all worked up and I just got off stage and...

Brian, you're looking a little flushed again, would you like some ice water?

Actually, I'd appreciate it if everyone would just skip that part.

Myrna? She the one who revived your muse, right? Is she traveling with the band?

Yeah, Myrna’s doing this research project on our groupies. Trying to figure out why they keep ripping off Sed’s shirt or something. She’s a human sexuality professor. I think she got her degree in how to make me a very happy man.

How do the other band members get along with her?

Oh, they love her. She busts their balls on a regular basis and they get off on it. Not many chicks feel comfortable bossing around a bunch of famous rock stars, you know. Myrna tells it like it is, so they respect her. Even Sed, who has no respect for women.

Being the significant other of one of the hottest band members can’t be easy. How does she deal with all the women who come on to you?

Women come on to me? [laughing]

Actually, though Myrna is still researching everyone else’s groupies, she stopped interviewing mine. I think she might be jealous. She has absolutely nothing to worry about. I’m a one-woman kind of man.

Unlike Sinners’ lead vocalist, Sed Lionheart. Or so I’ve heard.

Never fails. No matter who interviews me, they bring up Sed’s rep.

That’s because he tends to boldly flaunt it, Brian.

Seriously, you’ve got cut the guy some slack. After his fiancée, Jessica, dumped him two years ago, he became a real a-hole. I say good riddance to that gold-digger, even though it meant I had to deal with a bunch of b.s. from Sed while he got over her. Actually, I still don’t think he’s over her. Not sure what’s so great about her. You’d think he’d hate her after what she did to him.

Crap, I gotta go. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to get on the tour bus now and head out for our next show. I’ll try to stop by your blog later and answer any questions.

Brian, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. I really appreciate you and Olivia taking time out of your busy schedule for the interview.

Sia. You’re a real sweetheart for having me. Olivia said she’ll stop by sometime, too. And maybe the rest of Sinners. You never know.

Oh, that would be fun.

~*~*~*~ 

For him, life is all music and no play...

When Brian Sinclair, lead songwriter and guitarist of the hottest metal band on the scene, loses his creative spark, it will take nights of downright sinful passion to release his pent-up genius...

She's the one to call the tune...When sexy psychologist Myrna Evans goes on tour with the Sinners, every boy in the band tries to seduce her. But Brian is the only one she wants to get her hands on...

Then the two lovers' wildly shocking behavior sparks the whole band to new heights of glory...and sin... EXCERPT: Adult or PG-13 Read my review

Buy: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million

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Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock ‘n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians.
 
You can find Olivia:
 
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