Forward
As a journalist who covers rock bands for various magazines, I'm not used to writing forwards. Please forgive me if it seems a little amateurish. When you write a book, you have a tendency to be excited about it and you are consumed with an overwhelming desire to tell your friends, family, and colleagues about it. To be honest, the initial responses were underwhelming. Most of the reactions I received were along the lines of "why the hell do you want to write a book about Gary Hunter, Emmie Ware and their time together in Tristan and Isolde? There are a thousand other things you could write about that would be far more interesting." Five years ago, I would have readily agreed with them. My interest in Gary Hunter and Emmie Ware came about quite by accident and was built up through a few interviews that I had done through the years.
Like most people my knowledge of Gary Hunter, Emmie Ware, and Tristan and Isolde was limited to the basic facts. Hunter and Ware were members of an early 1990s alternative band with pop overtones named Tristan and Isolde. The band had some commercial success but like a lot of those early 1990s bands, they quickly faded way as the decade came to an end. I knew that Hunter and Ware were an item while they were together. I knew that they frequently sang duets which seemed to be their band's hook and I knew that they had a bad breakup that resulted in Gary Hunter leaving the band.
On the surface, focusing on Hunter and Ware's relationship during their time together in Tristan and Isolde definitely would seem anti-climatic. Of course Hunter is far better known as being the front man and lead guitarist for the modern progressive foursome Dean's Acid Project which has had far greater success than his time in Tristan and Isolde. Most people will rightly assume that Hunter seems to be embarrassed by his time in the pop driven duet though to give the devil his due, T&I's hit, Bad Boy Bad Girl is the highest charting song of Hunter's career and is still a main staple today on many radio stations. Ware, of course, disappeared for quite a while after the eventual break up of Tristan and Isolde but recently found major critical success in her melancholy solo work with the release of last year's Dance of the Blue Girl.
As so many people pointed out to me, a much more interesting book could be written on either Hunter or Ware based on their work outside of Tristan and Isolde. Again, there was a point in which I would have agreed but as I discovered and I think you will too, so much of who Hunter and Ware are is based in that Tristan and Isolde time period. I will tell you, the title is misleading, this book does address Hunter and Ware from their beginnings to where they were at the time the last sentence of this book was written but don't be mistaken, the center of it all emanates from the days of Tristan and Isolde.
Okay, enough about the content. I think once you read the book, you will feel the same way I do about the importance of the T&I time period. I do want to comment on the style of writing. When I first decided to write this book, I debated back and forth about how I was going to write it. Should I write it in a narrative form, basing the various scenes on the many interviews I conducted or should I write it in the style of an article that I would write for a music magazine? I realized that if I went with one direction that the story would lose something and if I went the other direction something else would be lost. It may seem obvious now but what I eventually decided on was to incorporate both styles where it is appropriate. At times, the story will be in interview form and at other times, the story will be a narrative. It should be noted however that almost all the dialogue is backed up by at least two sources and sometimes more than two.
Primarily this book is told from the perspective of Hunter and Ware even though I interviewed several people while writing this book. Though both were interviewed extensively for this book, they were never together in any of the interviews. Since their break up and Hunter's leaving Tristan and Isolde, they have spoken very little to each other through the years and those conversations have been nothing more than superficial.
I also realized early on that to keep the content of the book pure, that I couldn’t tell what I had learned from Hunter to Ware and vice versa. To do so would have literally destroyed the book before it was written. It is only with the publishing of this book that Gary Hunter and Emmie Ware are seeing their different perspectives on events that happened so long ago and had so much of an effect on each other's lives. My silly little hope is that somehow this book will cause a reconciliation between Hunter and Ware. Truthfully, I realize how vain a thought that is. I am not a therapist. My guess is that Hunter will read Ware's account and chalk it up to self-promoting b.s. and that Ware will read Hunter's account and be greatly saddened by it all. If Hunter and Ware find nothing of value in this book's content, maybe you the reader can find some sort of greater message in it regarding forgiveness. (Wow, that's some grandiose bullshit. Skip that, hopefully you just find it to be a good read).
Jake Farris
12/10/2010
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