Transition to fiction
Joey Molinaro is no stranger to storytelling. His live performances as a touring musician across a fifteen year career often included fantastical stories that went beyond the bounds of stage banter, he recorded lyrical concept albums, and he documented his tales of woe and wonder from first European motorcycle tour in a dramatic multi-media podcast.
He developed an idea for a small-budget rock and roll movie shot on VHS, and during the pandemic lockdown of 2020 he adapted this concept into his first novel, Heart of Gold. The idea was to capture the beauty, wonder, and all-out risk of underground music and unsupported creative artistry using familiar rock icons.
By the time the novel was completed, another similar concept about struggling rock and roll musicians had come to maturity in his imagination using Pittsburgh’s pet monstrosity: the zombie. In this world, a famous pop star and a MySpace era midwest metalcore band team up to tour through a post-apocalyptic landscape rife with peculiar zombies.
Whereas Heart of Gold follows the inner challenges of an artist in an uncaring environment that will be familiar to any artist, Young Nuns puts much of the action on the outside as they literally battle their way to each gig.
The first two novels were published in May, 2025, to coincide with his West Coast concert tour in a vintage Mercedes. On this tour, the books were sold at gigs in place of records or T-shirts. He played black metal festivals in forests, all-ages punk shows in pizzerias, book pubs in South Dakota, dive bars in Denver, and warehouses in Los Angeles.
On the long drives, he imagined a new world — a sprawling fantasy trilogy — and during sound checks and camping stops he committed dozens of chapters to paper. All the while, he once again lived the lifestyle that he writes about in his novels.
His cyberpunk novel, YearZer0 came to maturity around the time he started to plan an underground dance party with futuristic, punk-informed music. “Angel Freak Assembly II/ Electrical Tape III” on April 4, 2026 will serve as his book release party.
Book Ordering Info
2026 YEAR ZER0 SPECIAL: ORDER SIGNED BOOKS DIRECTLY FROM AUTHOR!
To order YZ in USA, send your address and payment via Venmo: https://venmo.com/u/thanksgoodmoneytime
$20 for YZ
$35 for YZ plus one other (specify Heart of Gold, Young Nuns, or author’s choice)
$40 for all three novels
ORDER BOOKS INDIVIDUALLY (US/ UK):
YearZer0: A farcical cyberpunk tale of a retired activist/ influencer in Pittsburgh. Mysterious, seductive agents and a series of techno-political revolutions challenge his burgeoning power.
Purchase ebook from KDP
Heart of Gold: in this alternate history, the music industry died in the sixties. Most of the rock stars you know are playing dive bars and back rooms. Will Neil Young give up on music before anyone has even heard his songs?
Purchase HoG audiobook from Audible
Young Nuns: the 2007 release of the iPhone sparked a zombie apocalypse, thwarting the dreams of midwest metalcore band Young Nuns. After rescuing a pop star, they decide to roll out on tour through a dangerous world.
International readers: order books from Ingram from any bookstore via ISBN.
For bulk orders or other questions contact joeymolinaro (AT) gmail (DOT) com
YearZer0 Book Release Party, April 4
Inverted Music presents:
Electrical Tape III / Angel Freak Assembly II
April 4, 301 Smithfield St, $20, 9 PM – 4 AM
YearZer0 cyberpunk novel release party, electronic chamber music performances, and dance party
CUTUPS
lazercrunk / bxc collective / illusions freak your wetware with jagged interzone riddims and post-industrial cyber-grime
https://soundcloud.com/cutups/sets/cutups-featured-mixes
1980 SPECIAL TWIN
Hybrid set with live violin, motorcycle samples, aggressive lighting, and a dark electro DJ set including original industrial techno tracks
https://soundcloud.com/1980specialtwin
AVATAR LILITH (NYC)
NYC multi-hyphenate artist, technologist, uses strings, synths, and performance art to create audiovisual spectacles that juxtapose ambience and boldness. Avatar Lilith is a performance, and is just as real as you.
https://avatarlilith.com/
LYRA MUSE (DE)
recent transplant to the East Coast performs hypno-pop with a dark aesthetic using violin, electronics, guitar, and vocals
linktr.ee/lyramuse
LEFAFA
Description: Lefafa is an interdisciplinary performer and DJ involved in the Pittsburgh experimental music and arts scene, focusing on building sonic, visual, and bodily landscapes
https://soundcloud.com/ricebowllaunch
YearZer0, third novel in a year, out April 4
YearZer0 is a farcical cyberpunk world of free will, reality, technology, and activism.
YearZer0: isbn 9798998745225
Justin ran away from his deadbeat dad’s Pittsburgh home in 1999 to protest capitalism and play punk rock. He knew then what is still true in 2040; The survival of the free world rests on his great unwritten zine.
The six-foot-eight anarchist survived this long on a single successful meme, but he is struggling to stay in the influencer class as it dissolves into incarceration.
Justin languishes as a retro technology columnist without a social media presence, but mysterious agents and seductive lovers coax forth his magnum opus.
An escalating series of revolutions tests the population’s compliance. Through it all, Justin holds in his hand the very tool to realize global revolution, imprison the world, or rule as king.
2025 books
Heart of Gold
SBN: 979-8-9987452-0-1
It’s 1980 and Neil is a burned-out local musician whose band never made it. He put his heart and soul into his music for a decade but has little to show for it except a dozen of tapes of his songs that nobody has ever heard.
He’s getting ready to take a promotion at work and give up music forever when he gets a freak opportunity to go on tour. But there are no limos or hotels, just bus stations and dive bars. Will Neil Young give up on music, or will he thrive with the help of Ozzy Osborne, Jerry Garcia, and Ziggy Stardust?
Love, drugs, regret, and great music feature prominently in this rock and roll odyssey. Musicians, music fans, and pop culture junkies will all root for Neil on his journey through this treacherous and spectacular alternate history.
Young Nuns
ISBN: 979-8-9987452-1-8
Young Nuns were a teenage Midwestern metalcore band planning their first tour when the smartphone-borne zombie apocalypse of 2007 began. The surviving members toiled in a cul-de-sac compound but during a raid they discovered a secret celebrity rehab clinic where they inexplicably find Britney Spears, alive and unharmed by the zombie horde.
At first she is too distraught to cope but soon takes a liking to the band and their brutal music. Together they make a plan to load up the van and head West to find her children, playing gigs along the way with Britney as their singer.
Amongst the dead they find audiences in cult-like towns on the brink of disaster, young farmers desperate for a party, abusive cannibals, corrupt billionaires, and happy-go-lucky circus folk. But also they find that their myths of manliness and womanhood are holding them back as much as the dead-eyed zombies.
The bodies are piling up and the van is about to blow. It’s time to lay down a blast beat and scream into the mic, “It’s Britney, bitch!”
Written by Joey Molinaro of Pittsburgh, PA, “Zombie Capital of the World.” In addition to playing in Midwestern extreme metal bands, Joey has toured the world with his black metal/ grindcore violin music and written the novels Heart of Gold and YearZer0.