Penetrating the Mind of Neil Strauss

The golden elevator doors of the hotel lobby slide open and he calmly walks out. Well-styled and softly spoken, he doesn’t appear at first sight to be someone who has spent the last few years of his life training to survive the wilderness, slaughter animals, and acquiring a second passport just in case the world falls apart.

But when you sit down with Neil Strauss, you quickly realise that he is a lot more than just first impressions.

Strauss is the author of the recently released Emergency, The New York Times bestseller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, and ghost-writer of numerous autobiographies of the likes of Jenna Jameson, Mötley Crüe and Marilyn Manson. In addition to his books, he also contributes to Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

His writings on his own life are varied, from picking up women and having threesomes, to survival skills and first aid, but they all follow a particular thread.

“They’ve all started as lacks in my own life, and trying to fulfil those lacks in my life. One for social interaction, and another for personal responsibility, self-sufficiency and safety. Sometimes you spend so much time learning about this stuff that you might as well write about it,” says Strauss.

Emergency, details Strauss’ journey to equip himself with skills that he’ll need if the modern world crumbles around him; whether it be from a terrorist attack, climate change or economic collapse. It’s touted as: “one man’s story of a dangerous world, and how to stay alive in it” and the book lives up to its claim.

The timing of the book’s release coincided with the spread of Swine Flu but Strauss believes that the book’s theme resonates regardless: “I think we’ll always be worrying about some shit, or just losing it all. You can’t predict the fucking weather, yet people think they know when the world is going to end,” he says.

Despite the gloomy topic, Strauss says the main point of the book is that: “It’s a funny journey…I just wanted it to be entertaining to read.”

Before Emergency, Strauss set out to conquer another obstacle in his life: women. Immersing himself in the “Pick-Up Artist community” under the pseudonym ‘Style’, he set out to learn how to interact with women successfully. The Game focuses on his progress through the community, being taught methods and developing from an “Average Frustrated Chump” (AFC) to a “Pick Up Guru” (PUG).

It hasn’t been received without some backlash, with some critics claiming his use of lines and routines are merely methods of: “scheming and manipulating women into bed”.

Strauss thinks this misses the point: “I think it’s more of an exploration of the world more than a glorification of it. I think it’s got two reputations, one by those who have read it and one by those who haven’t read it,” he says. He explains that The Game is a: “shallow journey towards self esteem, it’s like learning to be happy with yourself, yet in a fun way.”

Its huge popularity has led to the film rights being sold and production tentatively scheduled to begin later this year. The infamy isn’t without its downfalls. “I’ve had a couple of stalkers; I’ve had a few death threats. There’s just a lot of weird shit,” Strauss says.

“It’s the subject matter; some people are very conflicted about their own sexuality… I think that topic can bring out the best and the worst in people,” he explains.

However, Strauss is no stranger to the unusual.

Discussing his experiences writing about musicians, Strauss’s face breaks into a smile as he remembers years of the amusing, the weird and the downright absurd. Speaking of his time living around Marilyn Manson when ghost-writing his autobiography he says: “They would just get bored every night, and they would just do crazy shit. Marilyn Manson would dress up in a giant chicken outfit and run through the streets of LA terrorising people and no one knew that this giant chicken that attacked them was Marilyn Manson.”

He describes writing Manson’s book as: “the craziest time in my life” and I believe him when he tells me that: “one night the drummer was bored so he just drank his own urine.”

Although being a writer for Rolling Stone means that Strauss is intimate with the lifestyle of celebrities. He leans forward in his chair excitedly and launches into stories about trying to interview rock stars while they were hallucinating, lying in bed with Jewel to do a profile piece, and on another occasion, being “kept prisoner” by Courtney Love when a two hour interview turned into a 3 day stay in her loft.

However, Strauss is not about to slow down any time soon. He and fellow rock writer Anthony Bozza recently established their own publishing company, Igniter, allowing Strauss to expand his production of eccentric yet enthralling plots. With two of Igniter’s non-fiction releases to include books about a (yet to be named) mobster and the most: “extreme rock groupie story you’ve ever read”, it seems that there will plenty more decadence to come.

With four more projects in the works, he admits that the books and the process of writing them: “encourages my own delinquent behaviour.” However, it is Strauss’ deviancy that allows him to endlessly entertain and enthral us with every instalment as we wait to see what comes next.