February 2, 2026
By Adam Messer
Mike West’s voice carries his audience through glen and dale, over dark bridges into sleepless nights of stories of foes and monsters of olde.
Please introduce yourself.
I’m Mike West. Musician, author, podcaster, music promoter, comic creator and now most importantly husband and father from the North West of England. I love cryptids, horror, Metal, Country and Blues and try to find a way to work one of these loves into my work whenever I get the chance.
I’ve been lucky enough to get to play with a tonne of my favourite musicians like Shawn James, Amigo the Devil, Bridge City Sinners, Nick Shoulders, Chris Shiflett, Cam Cole and booked some great folks like Sierra Ferrel, Jesse Daniel, Tommy Prine and Summer Dean. I also host the Rogue Country Podcast interviewing musicians, artists and writers about the creative journey.
I have had two short stories published in cryptid anthologies, self published two comics and I’m currently working on my first novel.
Whatever keeps the existential dread at bay, I’ll take a stab at!
What is your music genre?
I proudly play Bastard Country. I’ve been consistently described as not Country Enough, not Blues Enough, not Folk Enough, Too Heavy, so I embraced it, put it on a t-shirt and kept on screaming into the void. I’ll fly the flag for Metalheads who don’t know how or where to get into Country music and I’ll give Country fans a reason to bang their heads. I play music for music lovers who want to feel a connection and meaning to what they listen to.
What is your earliest memory of playing music?
I have been performing with this project for 10 years now but I remember trying to start a band when I was 10/11 and I hadn’t started playing guitar yet so I was the “singer.” We got up in front of our class and I absolutely fucking bombed. Full on stage fright, frozen. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t sing. Just staring at an entire class of kids starting to whisper and laugh like something out of a movie.
That was my earliest memory and it wasn’t until I started playing in a Thrash Metal band called Names of the Fallen that I started getting the confidence to perform in front of people again and once that band fell apart, the itch to keep going and playing made me go solo with an acoustic guitar, no distortion or band to hide behind and it really cemented how much I love and need to do this.
When did you know you wanted to be a musician? How did it happen?
I saw a KISS VHS of Ace Frehley playing when I was a kid and it just blew my mind. Watching that and listening to Destroyer made me want to be a musician and when I finally picked up a guitar when I was 12, listening to KISS, Sabbath and Metallica, I just kept learning those songs.
Then my brother in law came in to my life and we started a band where I started singing purely because we couldn’t find anyone else to do it and that was the massive boost and stepping stone that has carried me through to where I am now.
Once that band split up, I was listening to Robert Johnson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Howlin Wolf at the time and picked up an acoustic and these songs are what came out.
What’s one of your favorite songs and why?
“Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine is an absolute masterclass in songwriting and as John aged over the years from the initial recording in the 70’s and his health deteriorated, the song took on a new weight and perspective. I think it’s an important song as the majority of people assume that the character in the song is one and the same as the artist singing it but the opening line is “I am an old woman named after my mother” which obviously John Prine isn’t so it shows you that you can step outside of yourself as a songwriter but still keep that truth about what you are singing.
John Prine’s debut album from 1971 is an essential listen I believe and “Angel from Montgomery” is perfect.
What makes a good song? A bad one?
A good song just has to be honest. It doesn’t have to be accurate or even rooted in a real fact but it has to be sincere and written with an unshakeable belief. Even with the cheesiest, 80s hair metal song, they really believed what they were singing about which is why a bunch of 70 year olds singing the same thing now just doesn’t feel right. They don’t believe it anymore.
A bad song is any made with Generative AI.
What moves the song for you?
The story and the emotion they are trying to get across is massively important for me to create momentum and how the instrumentation and melody reflect that. “Pancho and Lefty” by Townes Van Zant is a great example of that in Country storytelling. For Metal, it has to be hard and heavy and keep the listener grooving while the lyrics reflect it even if they are unintelligible.
What is your earliest memory of reading?
The two big things that I remember are getting the Redwall book “The Pearls of Lutra” by Brian Jacques from a school book magazine and then there was a UK reprint of Daredevil and Hulk comics under the “Mighty World of Marvel” title. Those two branches really opened up reading for me in a big way with the Redwall series being one of my favourite things as a kid and something I can’t wait to read to my son and comics are a whole different world when you have to be aware of the visual storytelling as well as words written.
What is your favorite book and why?
The fictional books that I love and wrecked me are “Stoner” by John Williams, “Cujo” by Stephen King and I’ve just started reading The Lord of the Rings series for the first time ever and while reading them, I can feel my blood pressure going down.
A book I love and would recommend to everyone is “No Death, No Fear” by Thich Nhat Hanh which is a Buddhist text on embracing life and viewing death and the world from a different perspective.
Please talk about your fictional writing: what genre do you write and why?
I write mainly horror with a slight dabble in sci-fi. Horror is my favourite genre in media and has endless possibilities in the stories it can tell. It helps that cryptids and horror go hand in hand. Horror doesn’t have to be gory and over the top either which I like, it can creep slowly and leave things to the readers imagination in a way that can be really powerful. The latest story I had published was about the ugly, little pig cryptid The Squonk and I used it as an exploration of toxic masculinity and buried emotions which when horror can be used to broach subjects like that, makes me really happy.
What makes a good character? A bad one?
If you can see the character in your minds eye or almost link it to a real person, it gives them a tangible presence that can really make them a believable and interesting character. Staying true to their motives and beliefs even if they do eventually betray them is important as well as in reality, humans are flawed and these characters should represent that.
A bad character is made with Generative AI.
What moves the story for you?
Engaging relative character work that pushes them into uncomfortable or challenging situations that you hope eventually pay off. “Stoner” is a great example of mundane tragedies and minimal action but the characters are so well written with such depth that it never feels like a drag. I try to keep this in mind especially in horror when you can’t just rely on jump scares or deaths to move the story along.
What do you want to say to your audience?
I hope you dig it! I want to create stuff that people can relate or connect to and when my kid is old enough, he can listen or read something and hopefully know me a bit better. That’s all I can hope for and thank you for listening and reading.
What advice do you have for new writers/musicians?
The worst first draft is a blank page and the worst song is the one you haven’t written. If you have a passion and a drive, go do it. You’re never too young and you’re never too old.
Do you have anything else you would like to add?
F$&@ Generative AI and my live album Breaking Strings is out now!
Mike West
Not Country Enough
Not Blues Enough
Not Folk Enough
Too Heavy
Subscribe to our newsletter for updates and more!
Leave a comment