Stuart Murdoch on his new book Nobody’s Empire

There’s no need to interrogate Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch about whether his debut novel, Nobody’s Empire, is autobiographical. It’s very openly his story — a coming-of-age novel set in Glasgow in the early ’90s, with the main character “Stephen” soaked in music as a DJ and fan but not yet playing it himself. He and the other characters are also suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME/chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition Murdoch still lives with, as do millions of other people.

The story plays out in hospitals and bedsits, but also clubs, record stores and cool Glasgow cafes, before shifting entirely to California, where Stephen and his friend Richard escape the drudgery of both ME and the Scottish winter — a path Murdoch’s life also followed. Nobody’s Empire is not at all autofiction in the meta, contemporary sense, but an update on the Victorian autobiographical novel a la Jane Austen or David Copperfield — something one of the book’s characters even riffs on at one point (so okay, it’s a bit meta).

The book works on its own terms, but its setting and music-nerd detail will thrill Belle and Sebastian fans. Most of the musical influences and characters mentioned are real — The Minutemen, Felt, Teenage Fan Club and Luna among them — though there are a few pseudonyms, including a Scottish duo called “The Chairs” and an American singer-songwriter that is clearly meant to be Olympia, Washington’s indie-pop pioneer Lois Maffeo (a former Murdoch pen pal). In addition to being about rock’n’roll, ME and romance, the book provides a window into Murdoch’s then-budding spirituality. He is both a Christian and a Buddhist, someone who sings in the church choir but also led weekly meditations on the Belle and Sebastian Facebook page during the pandemic.

Street Roots talked to Murdoch via video chat just after the new year. He is coming to Portland on a book tour for Nobody’s Empire, appearing Feb. 7 at Polaris Hall, where he’ll read, play music and discuss with Portland drumming legend Janet Weiss.

Jason Cohen: Was this a book you always wanted to write and then finally did, or was it something you’ve been working on for a long time?

Stuart Murdoch: I wasn’t working on it for a long time. I had an inkling I wanted to write something longer. I was maybe going to do a (graphic) novel with a friend of mine. And I thought, okay, I’m going to pick this time (period), because this is where I was most ill. But once I started writing the script, I thought, “This is a book.”

Cohen: It shares a title with your 2014 song “Nobody’s Empire,” which covers the same emotional and autobiographical terrain. Did you plan on that going in?

Murdoch: No, not at all. I’m such a day-to-day guy. I think if you plan too much, you can lock yourself into something. What I often find — at least with Belle and Sebastian doing records — is you never have to worry about the big thing. Just do what’s in front of you and do it well, and then the big thing will take care of itself.

The only parameters I had for this book was that it should start in 1991 and end in 1993. It would start with the end of my first major relationship and it would end with the beginning of my second major relationship. Aside from that, I was free.

Cohen: Most people have heard of chronic fatigue syndrome, but they aren’t necessarily familiar with the abbreviation ME. Can you give me an elementary explanation?

Murdoch: You know what? I’m perfectly happy with chronic fatigue syndrome. That describes what I have. It’s a syndrome, and my major thing is fatigue and sickness. ME means myalgic encephalomyelitis, which strictly speaking, means a swelling of the brain stem. I’ve got to be careful here because people with ME prefer the name ME because it nails down something that is practically wrong with them. With chronic fatigue syndrome it can be really wide, and this causes a degree of mystery and discouragement in the medical community because they don’t know what the hell it is. And so people are left to get on with it themselves. They often feel abandoned, and there isn’t funding for it because it’s too much of a mystery.

It’s a whole thing, and even though I kept it light in the book, the three characters somewhat felt like second-class citizens. They were cut off. It was a little bit like Fight Club. You wouldn’t talk about ME outside of the ME community because you would be wasting your time and energy trying to explain it to somebody who didn’t have it. I did try to create that slightly claustrophobic atmosphere. Especially in the early ’90s, we were a close clique of people that protected each other and supported each other. And outside of that, there wasn’t much belief, and there wasn’t much support.

Cohen: The book describes Stephen’s encounters with the medical establishment and alternative healers in a way that doesn’t sound easy. Yet, as an American, I also marveled at the level of support.

Murdoch: Yeah, totally. I did make a small reference to the time, which was a real occasion, where (the characters) go to the ME meeting in California, (and they realize) that at least the British people had sickness benefits, and we had enough to live on.

Cohen: There’s just issues of access and equity all around, right?

Murdoch: And that extends way beyond ME, just to health and social care in general. It’s a crisis in the U.K. and a bigger crisis in the U.S. Whereas in some countries — like Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands — people are happy to pay more taxes so that people are supported. It’s not an unsolvable problem. It’s more a cultural thing. People in America don’t like to pay as much tax and people in the U.K. are following America more than anything now.

Cohen: It seems like you are engaged on tour in terms of actually experiencing the cities you play in. Is this similar to what you describe for Stephen—you’re out there doing stuff, but you have to ration your activity?

Murdoch: Oh, very much so. Playing live with Belle and Sebastian increasingly feels like a high-wire act for me. I had a terrific year this (past) year. I feel very lucky that I stayed healthy, mostly, for the concerts. I had pretty good energy. But I had a real setback a few months ago. A bit of a collapse with my ME. It’s probably not surprising — it came at the end of the tour, and I slowed down a little bit, and everything caught up with me. And I’m still in that lower state of energy and struggling a bit with mental health. It seems like the moon to me, going on tour again. But I’ll manage to scrape myself off the floor and get up and do it again, hopefully.

Cohen: You certainly can’t tell when you’re onstage. Plus, you’re out there riding bikes, walking through a park or taking public transit.

Murdoch: A lot of that stuff is smoke and mirrors. It’s a little bit of a trick. In the book, I mention this night that I went to a club, and when I was in the club, I was thinking back to the days before ME. I used to run for miles and miles. I was a strong runner. Just in isolation, with nobody knowing that I was doing it.

But when I was in the club with ME dancing, I wanted everybody to see every ounce of energy that I had. I didn’t want to do anything in isolation. It was like, look, this is all the energy I have, and you’re going to see it. And so, to some degree, I’m still doing that trick. I manage to travel to foreign cities, and I sit on buses. But I sit on buses.

Cohen: The book is also very much about your character discovering his faith, abstractly and concretely. Do you think people get the same thing out of music that you get out of church or meditation?

Murdoch: I think everybody’s different. I see that parallel. It’s deep-rooted in me — more and more as I go along, I think of music as being from God, or part of God, and music being like faith. Music feels like the tools that I had to express my faith. And music is such an intangible. It’s quite a big thing. It exists in the ether, maybe just like spirits.

But everybody feels differently. I happen to have God. Some people have the Lakers, or the Raiders or something as their faith system.

Cohen: Have you had any crossover between your church friends and your Buddhist friends?

Murdoch: That’s interesting. Because Christianity is the incumbent faith in Scotland, I think that people in my church would find it stranger to know that I spent so much time in the Buddhist Center. Whereas at the Buddhist Center, they say the place is full of lapsed Catholics. When I talk to my friend who’s a teacher, I’ll say, “You know, I’m a little bit conflicted because I’m a Christian, but I love the Buddhism.” And he says, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just your karma.”

Cohen: Do you guys have the same sense of foreboding over there that we have about the presidential election here?

Murdoch: I must admit, no. My wife, she’s American. But we’re really focused on our family, and there’s enough going on in Britain. But, I still do a support group for people with anxiety and depression, and there’s some Americans in that group. So I always get reminded of how big a deal it is when they talk about it.

Cohen: Obviously, we have that American exceptionalism, but it also can’t help but spill into the world.

Murdoch: Yeah, no, it does. It does. But I think the very act of electing somebody like (Donald Trump) — again — diminishes the status of the country somewhat in the eyes of a lot of the world. I can’t see America being right out in front the way that they always were.

Cohen: Do Stephen’s songs from the book exist as performable songs?

Murdoch: I thought about that. It might have been appropriate to really dig up some of the early songs (for this book tour) but to be honest, they weren’t that good. The closest I have is, there’s a song called, “Ever Had a Little Faith?” which I think was written within the time of the book, and did appear on a Belles record. Maybe I’ll sing that one. I’ve been churning out an acoustic version of “Nobody’s Empire,” which has been quite fun to do.

Cohen: Towards the end of that song, when you sing about the “mother of two” and “you’re a quiet revolution marching with the crowd,” is that someone who was a character in the book?

Murdoch: That is a character in the book! Obviously the song was written way before the book, but the Carrie character, who is my best friend, Ciara — she’s the mother of two. Which happened way after (the time) of the book.

Cohen: So, preparing for this interview, I realized that you’re one of the people I lost track of after leaving Twitter. You’ve decided to stick it out?

Murdoch: Yeah. I know a lot of people are going. I guess I’m lazy. But people give that wanker too much power.

Cohen: Well, you’re still trying to accentuate the positive on there. On New Year’s Eve, you posted a message that said you can either choose the path of saying the world is fucked, or you can focus on the good things and people in your life. How do you find it in yourself to do the latter?

Murdoch: I’m not saying that is absolutely particular to Buddhism or absolutely particular to Christianity, but sometimes you just have to come back to you. (You have) to realize that life starts with yourself and just the people around you. You have very little influence over the rest of the world. If everybody was kind and loving, the troubles of the world would be over in an instant.

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This article appears in February 5, 2025.