Quick-Fire Quips is a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama!
Today, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with Zach Taylor, space systems fabrication facility manager at NASA.
Beyond his work advancing spaceflight, Zach is also an accomplished author. Following the release of his novel Rockstar: Echoes, he recently announced that the next book in the series, Rockstar: Mirrors, is officially going into production, with the book release announced for February 16, 2027.
Baillee: Hey, Zach, how are you?
Zach: I'm doing great!
Baillee: So, you're an actual rocket scientist, right?
Zach: I would say engineer. We draw a line of distinction between rocket scientists and rocket engineers... The scientists are the ones that dream up things and come up with great ideas, and the engineers are the ones that have to go execute them.
Baillee: You're also a published author. Your book, Rockstar: Echoes, give me a quick description.
Zach: It's a story of grief, ambition and the cost of being heard from two completely different perspectives that should be completely at odds inside the music industry. It's a story of when those two paths collide.
Baillee: This is the first book in a series of books?
Zach: That's correct.
Baillee: Okay, we'll talk more about your book, but now we have to get you warmed up for the questionnaire. And to do that, I want you to say "Quick-Fire Quips" three times fast.
Zach: Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips.
Baillee: First question: What comes to mind when you hear Alabama?
Zach: Beauty.
Baillee: What is one place in Huntsville that everyone needs to visit at least once?
Zach: Orion Amphitheater.
Baillee: Do you have a favorite getaway spot in Alabama?
Zach: Ditto Landing on the Tennessee River.
Baillee: What is your favorite thing about living in Alabama?
Zach: Well, I would have to say that it is one of the few places on the planet that has such a rich environment in terms of whether you want bass fishing, deer hunting, turkey hunting. If you're outdoors—you know, you can be in the mountains of eastern Alabama, or you can be in South Alabama—you get such a diverse outdoor scene.
Baillee: Least favorite thing about living in Alabama?
Zach: It has to be what people think of it. We're fortunate enough to take trips to places like Negril, Jamaica once every two years. The first thing people ask you is, "Who are you? Where are you from? And what do you do?"
You tell them you're from Alabama, and the connotation that is constantly given about anybody from Alabama is negative off the top. To hear people demean it, even though they're kind of being lighthearted about it... You couldn't be more wrong.
Baillee: Okay, let's talk about NASA. Explain what you do in one sentence.
Zach: Build flight hardware.
Baillee: What do you think about astronaut food? What do you think about the space food?
Zach: I think we both know at this point Zach probably would not like astronaut food very much.
(Zach and Baillee laugh)
Baillee: If you had to pick one to eat for the rest of your life?
Zach: Okay, so they do sell in the gift shops these freeze-dried cinnamon apples. I could eat those every day, for sure. I could do that.
Baillee: So with your book, Rockstar: Echoes, sid you know you always wanted to write a book about the musical industry, or did that just kind of come over time?
Zach: No, it was striking... I've written some science fiction. I put it away because I had a series of dreams and it was during COVID, and it was right after I had started enjoying live music again. And I had just watched Daisy Jones & The Six.
The impetus was I had these dreams. I had a great idea for a plot, for sure, but I also said nobody has written any books about, grunge bands at all.
We have 60s, 70s. There's tons of bios, autobios... The 80s are covered, but it kind of stops. The 90s bands that especially specifically grunge, or if you want to get into the Riot Grrrl movement, or those bands, nothing has been written. None of that experience really has been written down in terms of fiction.
Baillee: What made you want to write specifically about the industry being such a brutal business versus sort of like the glitz and the glamour of showbiz?
Zach: Reading a lot of the autobiographies of the '90s era—whether it was Mark Lanegan, Chris Cornell, Scott Weiland, or any of those—I've read a lot of them. But one thing that was always standard... two things:
Number one, there were some people that were competitive. Billy Corgan is super competitive... but they were all good friends, too. There was no competition aspect of it. Tt wasn't dog-eat-dog.
But they also had one other thing in common, and that was that they all essentially died destitute. And yes, drug use was a big part of that, but that was not the story. Drug use was used to cover what was really happening with their finances.
Baillee: What's the takeaway you hope readers will have when they read your book?
Zach: Well, there's two of them. The first one is the generational struggle of our generation. It's the period of least economic growth in the history of this country... We've kind of gotten hosed, right? You know, we did everything that we were told to do, and with inflation being what it is, we're just struggling.
So the big one is to see that transposed on top of artists... The big thing was to start talking about the cumulative psychological effects of that, number one.
Number two is—even though this was not what I set out to do, and I've said this many times— Rayne and The Painted Queens were supposed to be bit characters in my book, and they ended up being the story going forward. Because the more I researched the stories of Ann and Nancy Wilson, Patti Smith, or any of these women from any generation of rock and roll, it was really hard to get anything on them.
And I kept asking myself, why is it that these women have a shelf life, right? They can only be famous for a ten-year period or so. Well, some of it's because they have children and they get treated differently. Okay. And some of it's because their sexuality diminishes in the public's eye—okay, true or not. And so I stumbled across this thing, right?
And I hesitated at first because I was like, "I can't relate to this in the slightest—not even the artistic part of it, and certainly not the women's struggles in it." But I was compelled to make a statement on how two equal artists are going to be treated completely differently because of their genders. And that is used as a mirror for any professional setting, not just within music.
I do think that it appeals to people that are looking for something about the music industry that is not nostalgia. And it's not feel-good and it's not catharsis.
Echoes is so much darker and thought-provoking and dense... It's a hard read because it starts hard and it finishes hard. And it makes you think all the way through.
Baillee: Kline, Rayne, and Clara—who has the better music taste?
Zach: Clara thinks that she does, and Kline will get there eventually. He has a very narrow taste right now.
I think I have to say Rayne. Her and the Painted Queens are definitely Riot Grrrl energy, and that's what they focus on. But their beauty, as our readers are going to find in following books, is that they can play anything. But the only reason they can play anything is because they listen to anything and they know how to play it, which means that their musical taste is extremely wide. So they have to have great taste.
Baillee: Who would be the best person to see a show with?
Zach: Oh, man. I think Eddie would probably have to be the best one, because he's such an affable guy that appreciates fine art. He's not judgmental—at all, right? He's very much, "You are who you are, and I love you no matter what." Which is how he can still be Kline's best friend after all these years.
So, you know, this is a guy that you could invite him to go... And he's the dude that would get in the crowd and be like, "Yeah, man, this is awesome." There would never be a bad thing that came out of his mouth. He would always find something positive.
Baillee: Was there a character that was particularly challenging to write?
Zach: Ava is definitely challenging to write simply because of her sexuality, her posture, and her physicality. And, you know, she's a bit of a sociopath.
And that's the beauty of her character, because there's nothing that you can say to Ava that she's going to care about. She knows that she's stronger than you. She knows that she's more beautiful than you. She knows that she's smarter than you. She knows that she's more talented. So ultimately, she doesn't care.
However, being a white male writing a lesbian woman is scary in today's society, and especially one that has some flaws. And so it was terrifying and very challenging.
I made her the way she was for a particular purpose: to be a sounding board for the Painted Queens. But I also made it that way because I felt like she was defensible in all respects, and nobody could come and say, "You just completely missed the boat on her," because there's nothing you can say about her. She's the perfect person, so to speak.
Baillee: Another music question: If there was an alien invasion, what are three songs that you would play for the aliens?
Zach: "Nutshell" by Alice in Chains is definitely one of them, because it would make them so sad that they probably would get back on their ship and go home.
Tt would probably have to be something by Stone Temple Pilots, simply because of how hard that band goes in terms of just being rock and roll. And you get them to start nodding their head and be like, "Maybe we shouldn't nuke this planet after all. Like, they've got some stuff going on."
And I think I've got to throw some Taylor Swift in here, maybe "Lavender Haze."
Baillee: Do you have any superstitions or irrational fears?
Zach: We do have a bit of a superstition when it comes to bass fishing: that the net does not come out of the locker until we've at least caught one fish. It's called boat flipping. Like, if you don't use your net, you boat flip.
Now, that's a bit risky if the first fish you catch of the day is a five-pounder and you don't have the net out. But... so Josh and I believe that—that's my fishing partner, by the way, my best friend— you do not bring the net out until you've put at least one decent fish into the boat, and then the net can come out.
I do not do fair rides. At all. That's the NASA engineer in me. And I don't scuba.
Baillee: Tell me something on your bucket list.
Zach: I do want to be an engineering director one day. That's my big goal. That's kind of my bucket list professionally.
Baillee: How do you want to be remembered?
Zach: Oh, man. Depends on by who?
Baillee: That's a good point.
Zach: I want my kids to remember a dad that was fully involved in their lives... For everybody else in the world, I want to be remembered as a person that was kind to everybody and honest with them.
Baillee: Last question: What does Alabama need?
Zach: Public transit. At least Huntsville does... We're growing at a rapid rate. And I know I'm just talking about Huntsville, but I think that that's the case for all of Alabama, probably, is that we are one of the few cities that just does not invest in public transportation.
Baillee: Any final thoughts, closing words, anything like that that you want to share?
Zach: I would love people to pick up the book Rockstar: Echoes, and give it a read. And if you love it, great—let me know. If you hate it, great—let me know, because I want to get better at this.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was Zach Taylor, space systems fabrication facility manager at NASA, and author of Rockstar: Echoes. I'm your host, Baillee Majors. Find us at APR.org for more Quick-Fire Quips!
Keep up with Zach:
—Facebook
—Instagram
—Buy his book here
