Jesse Blaze Snider: The Interview Part 2

The majority of my days start the same way. I get up, call the boy, turn on the coffee, let the dogs out, pack a lunch, say good bye to the husband, say good bye to the boy, and drive to the office where I spend the better part of the day trying appease someone else for a nominal pay. It's a scenario most of us fall into and can't break free of.

By believing in himself and working hard to develop his raw talent into viable job skills specifically geared toward the careers he enjoys Jesse has broken free. There isn't a college curriculum geared toward personal happiness. There are basic skills you develop through inspiration and hone to a level of perfection via hours of perspiration. If you work hard enough, persist long enough and believe with enough conviction you might just garner yourself the opportunities to make your life just exactly what you want it to be. I couldn't have asked for a better ending to this interview than the one Jesse gave.

You dominated MTV's Rock The Cradle with self-confidence and an understanding of Rock-n-Roll the other performers lacked. You refused a contract offered to you as a solo act in hopes of garnering a deal for Baptized X Fire as a band. Many of your recent posts have been about writing new music and the band is now being billed as Jesse Blaze Snider. Is there a record deal in the works?

There is a lot in the works, but our plan of action is being kept "hush-hush" at the moment, all I can say is expect a lot of new material from me VERY SOON. The new stuff will be exactly what everyone has come to expect from me, but not quite as heavy or metallic.

I've lightened my sound a little bit in an effort to include songs that I've written for my wife and child over the years, that didn't fit in a set of BXF tunes. The new stuff is a bit closer to center and that is allowing me more freedom to do some songs that aren't straight ahead punk-metal, which is my FIRST love, but not my ONLY love.

Do you think Patty will ever give you the okay to turn her song into your signature power ballad?

She'd love to have me play it in a set, problem is it's kind of a folk song and it doesn't even fit in with my new sound, but I've been working on trying to change it a bit so it fits. Not sure how to handle it though, I don't want to change it so much that it isn't the same song. Hopefully it'll make it on a record one day and I can play it on special nights when she comes down to see me.

Is there anything you haven't done as a job that you would like to try?

Yeah, I've got two new goals that I just added to my list. I'm going to start going to open mic nights and doing stand-up comedy. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a comedian and while writing my Muppet Snow White mini-series, I realized that I still do and I am capable of writing some funny stuff. So, I doubt I'll pursue it professionally, but I want to do it a bit just for myself.

My second thing is I want to write for the real live Muppets! I've had such a great time working on the comic and I just get them and I know I could do a great job with them, so I'm just beginning to pursue it, but I WILL WRITE FOR THE MUPPETS! Mark my words.

I've also been toying with the idea of learning how to box and actually fighting. I'm still thinking about it. I've always wanted to. Don't be surprised if you eventually hear that I have.

Will you be playing football again? (Jesse is #35 for the Brooklyn Mariners)

Definitely, I was on the injured list for two seasons and it drove me bananas, I have a hard time watching sports, if I'm not playing them; hence my desire to be a boxer. My team starts up again in the spring and I will be there, this past season I got in at cornerback for the first time in my life and did pretty well, so I'm going to see about continuing there this coming season in addition to my first love of course, "Special Teams."

I think I remember you mentioning some of your songs published as poetry at some point. Is a book of poetry/lyrics something on your radar?

I doubt it. I don't consider myself much of a poet. I do have a sh@#load of really good, essays and articles and movie reviews that I wish more people had read, but I really can't see myself trying to get them published. It'd be a lot of work cleaning them up to put together a book to what, satisfy my own vanity? I think I'll be okay with people reading the new things I've written.

You are currently writing for BOOM!, who are bringing back the classic Disney comic series. With your issues for Toy Story already hitting shelves and your Muppet Snow White series slated for future release is there a Disney classic you'd like to be part of? (I vote Donald Duck he's got attitude!)

Well, in the Pixar camp I really want to do "Monsters, Inc."! It's pretty much my favorite Pixar movie and I've got an awesome idea for the story, which is essentially "Monsters, Inc. 2!" I'd like to be a part of any Disney property; I really am a big Disney fan. I love Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone and The Emperor's New Groove and loads more, but the ones that interest me most to write would be the ones that are closest to superhero concepts, which is really my first love. So, I would jump at the chance to write "Darkwing Duck" or "Gizmo Duck" or "The Incredibles," but I'd be more than happy to pen any Disney character, except "The hunchback of Notre Dame!"

Dead Romeo had excellent concepts, an engaging writing style, and major potential for future story lines. Are future installments in the works?

Well, that all depends on how it does in the bookstores; we're doing a big push right now to get the book into the hands of Twilight and Anne Rice fans. If there is a positive reception there and a demand for more, I'm sure http://www.dccomics.com/dccomics/DC will be down for more. DC wanted to do a vampire romance, because they knew there was a demand in the market place, if that market place reacts by buying a lot of copies of the book, then I'm sure we will follow it up with another volume. I certainly have some ideas, but then I'm rarely at a loss for those.

Would you consider self-publishing and/or an on-line store as a possible outlet for your original work? (Think Jesse Blaze Snider On-Line Super Store, graphic novels, music, action figures, and promotional products... Sorry I get carried away sometimes. The Jesse Juggernaut has potential. Doesn't your own booth at Comic Con sound awesome?)

My own booth at Comic Con does sound cool! I don't know, I suppose I'd have to wait until I had a little bit more to sell, as of this second I have 11 comic books to "sell," but by the end of the year I'll have at least 33, so maybe when I get nearer to that number. It'll be a bit of a weird booth, Muppets, vampires, toys, super heroes and schizophrenic sexual sadists. I may have to leave the Strangeland: Seven Sins series at home.

Of course, the only problem with having a booth is you have to spend time AT the booth, and you need someone to watch your stuff, while you do other things. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Since Dead Romeo had so many personal references embedded in it I'm wondering, now that you're a father, if there might an original comic about parenthood waiting to be born and possibly syndicated into a cartoon? (Life on Logan Lane?)

Well, definitely not anytime soon. The personal references in DR mostly stemmed from the fact that I had absolutely NO experience writing a romance. Since I am a romantic I looked back on romantic things I'd done in my life and tried to draw on the most powerful things I could and once I opened that flood gate, it was easy to do the same on the musical side of Romeo. I'm sure you'll see more pieces of me sprinkled in everything I write forever, but most of the time you won't even notice.

Last but not least to address in your resume is a voice over career. Previously the voice of Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Cheetos you are now on MTV and The Smithsonian channel. Is there a character voice in Jesse? If so, what kind of character do you imagine him as?

I got into voice-overs because I wanted to do the voices of my favorite super heroes in cartoons. My favorites were Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil who were the voices of Batman and the Joker on a number of different animated shows. I just met Conroy the other day, which was pretty cool. I've never really seen myself as a zany character voice, but I don't know, I'd really love to learn how to perform some Muppets!

What is your guilty pleasure? (I've got money on listening to Celine Dion in a bubble-bath while reading harlequin romances by candlelight with a box of Godiva.)

Guilty pleasures? I do all of my guilty pleasures for a living. Comic Books, Music, Movies, the Muppets, Star Trek, playing with toys, role-playing games, football.... My whole life is a guilty pleasure.