You cannot miss the colorful tattoos that go up both his arms, his long flowing hair and his burly size and tall frame. Those are memories of the time we met British percussionist Pete Lockett when he came down to India the last time.

Lockett is considered one of the world’s most versatile and prolific percussionists with skills ranging from traditional Hindustani and Carnatic music from North and South India to traditional Japanese taiko drumming from blues, funk and rock to classical folk and ethnic and from Arabic, Latin American to electronica. Pete has a working vocabulary as well as physical knowledge in drums and percussion from India, Japan, China, North Africa, the Middle East, Ireland, Cuba, Brazil, and Bulgaria.

He has also arranged and recorded all the ethnic percussion sounds to Hollywoods finest movies like ‘The Incredible Hulk 2’, ‘The Insider’, ‘Moulin Rouge’, ‘City of Angels’ and five Bond movies including ‘Quantum of Solace; ‘Casino Royale’ as well as TV and advertising credits which are too many to mention. Indian films cannot be too far. He worked with AR Rahman on the 2007 blockbuster, ‘Sivaji’ (Rajini Kanth). He has also recorded or performed live for artists like Amy Winehouse, Bjork, Peter Gabriel, Pet Shop Boys and many more.

Pete was voted #1 BEST LIVE PERCUSSIONIST 2005 in a readers poll of Rhythm magazine and best live percussionist 2005 on international drum site, www.mikedolbear.com Pete's album, ‘Taiko to Tabla’ with Joji Hirota was included in top 55 rhythm albums of all time in Songlines magazine, August 2006 .

Verus Ferreira heard about his foray into writing a second novel and decided to speak with Pete Lockett and find out how his new novel 'A Survivor’s Guide to Eternity' based on the afterlife came about.

How does it feel to pen your own book, this time something away from music?

It was an amazingly satisfying process. I would like to make it clear though that this is an additional strand to my music making. I will continue to be as busy as ever in the music making arena.  What astounded me about writing the book was how similar the feelings of creative process are, both in music and creative writing. I never thought I would get that type of 'high' from anything other than music but the book showed me otherwise!

Why did you deviate from music and take a topic on something of the afterlife?

It just happened. I just woke up one morning and started writing and couldn't stop!  It didn't occur to me to write about or include music in the plot or storyline merely because I was a musician.  Also, once you are into the depths of writing the plot actually takes hold of you and creates itself. It seems like a crazy thing to say but that really is what happens.

When did you start writing this book and how long did the whole process take to complete?

I started writing about two years ago and the actual 90,000 word story took me three months.  It took about year to edit and a lot of searching, trying to find the right publisher. That is whole other story. You have to be very determined and never give up. I was very happy to finally hook up with Mirador publishing house.

What feedback have you got to the book?

It's early days but so far very positive. It is a very different story line and the reader is continually surprised by the turn of events as they develop. It is also very unusual for a story to have large parts set between life and death, a kind if living limbo with places and characters. I have never read anything like it and am mystified as to how it suddenly created itself from my consciousness, or maybe my unconscious!

Are the thoughts in the book any of your personal experiences?

Not especially. Once you are talking about afterlife experiences there is little to draw on form ones own personal existence.

What is book all about and how did you manage to fuse in thoughts of such a topic as the afterlife?

It really just developed of its own accord. I don't want to give too much of the story away though. Suffice to say that the writer is always presented with the problem of continuing the flow of the story. Because someone in the plot dies, does their role in the book need to die to?  Of course, you could go chronologically back to when they were alive in the past but why not continue it into the future?  One of the great things about creative writing is that you can suspend accepted reality and actually free yourself and go any direction you want to. It's very liberating!

On the music side, we have not seen a music album from you since long, when can we expect an album?

Well, actually I have been busy. I had an album out at the end of last year on Times Music in India.  It was called 'Made in Kolkata' and featured the great maestro Pandi Shankar Ghosh. I am currently putting the finishing touches to a new album with Tabla master Fazal Qureshi. In fact, that is what I have been recording today. An amazing track with dozens of his Tabla students.  Really interesting material.  Watch this space!

Any plans to make it to India?

This new album should be out in a few months and we will definitely do some dates around that. It will be a very exciting project. I also plan to tour with my new duo 'Timeline' which features Austrian musician Bernhard Shimplesberger. He has also studied Indian rhythm in depth so that is a very unique collaboration.

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira