A MURAL on a pub inspired a father’s first novel.

Brighton dad-of-two Andrew Shantos came up with the idea for a story about dead musical icons, then realised the painting on the Prince Albert Pub in Trafalgar Street seemed to have been inspired by the same idea.

Andrew said the mural by artists Sinna One and Req, depicting 30 music legends including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain, helped him develop the plot for Dead Star Island.

Passing the mural every day helped the computer programmer with ideas for the story, which he then typed after his children had gone to bed.

Andrew, 41, who lives in Elm Grove, said: “My book has something of the schoolboy fantasy about it. I love the mural and the idea of hanging out and having a beer with all these cool people like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Elvis Presley. Creating this alternative reality was really fun and every time I passed the mural, it sparked a new thought.

“I started writing the book about four years ago and the mural’s only been there a couple of years, but it’s almost like validation that a lot of people still really love these people who have been dead for a long time.

“It’s inspiring to know someone else had a similar idea. I’ve always wanted to write, but I never really had an idea for a novel until I came up with Dead Star Island. Until a few years ago, I thought music was the direction I was heading in.

“I played guitar and keyboards in a lot of bands in Brighton, but that sort of lifestyle is very difficult to maintain when children come along and, in the end, my heart wasn’t really in it. I think if you want to succeed in any artistic endeavour you have to be prepared to make sacrifices. Writing is the only thing I have felt I really wanted to put everything into.”

The self-confessed “computer geek” said he created a spreadsheet to log every sleepless hour spent writing the book while working full-time and bringing up two young children, aged six and three. “I can honestly say this book has taken me 800 hours to write,” he added.

“I have my wife Gaynor to thank too because I would not have been able to do it without her.”

Dead Star Island, by Andrew Shantos, is published by APP and is out now in bookshops and on Kindle and ebooks.