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.
