rock biography books

The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time

By Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

Funny thing about rock & roll memoirs: They tend to have the same plot. Our heroes begin with big dreams about making it as rock stars. There’s the sleazy bars, the cheap motels, the shady managers. Then they get a taste of the big time: hit records, limos, drug orgies, groupies, diseases, the works. What could go wrong? Craaaash! But, hey, Elizabethan revenge tragedies all have the same plot too, and nobody complains when the royal family gets butchered in the final scene. Great rock memoirs don’t always come from great artists: Sometimes it takes one-hit wonders, losers, hacks, junkies, crooks. Every rock & roll character has a story to tell. Here are 50 of our favorites.

Steven Tyler: ‘Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?’ (2011)

If you can find a single coherent sentence in this book, write and tell the publisher, so they can correct this error in future editions. But happy hunting, because Steven Tyler’s brain is located, as he puts it, “in the way-out-a-sphere.” From Aerosmith to American Idol , Tyler has been “61 Highwayed and I did it my wayed; Little-Willie-Johned and been-here-and-goned; million-dollar riffed and Jimmy Cliffed; cotton-picked and Stevie Nick’d.”

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Nikki Sixx: ‘The Heroin Diaries’ (2007)

This one gets the “truth in packaging” award — Nikki Sixx does so many drugs in this book it should come in an aluminum-foil dust jacket. It’s more personal than The Dirt , but just as juicy. It might be cheating to mention  The Heroin Diaries on a list like this, since there’s barely any mention of his music, but anyone even vaguely interested in Mötley Crüe is going to be fine with that.

Alice Bag: ‘Violence Girl’ (2011)

A Chicana punk coming-of-age story from East L.A., where a barrio kid named Alicia Armendariz starts a hardcore band called the Bags, battles her way to the stage, then finds she has to keep on battling. Raised on the Mexican ranchera records of her immigrant parents, baptized in 1970s glam rock, Alice Bag thrives on her confrontational dust-ups with the slam-dancing mosh pit crew, in her pink dress and high heels. For her, it’s all about “the giddy adrenaline rush of the fight.”

Billy Idol: ‘Dancing With Myself’ (2017)

Billy Idol seems to show up at least once in every Eighties-Nineties memoir, usually when some sort of pharmaceutical dessert is consumed. So it’s only fitting he wrote his own. Hell, Billy’s index has more drama than most books: “Idol, Billy, cocaine use of,” “GHB overdose of,” “hair of,” “police anti-crack sting,” “violin lessons of.” From “White Wedding” to “Cradle of Love,” his purple prose is a thing of beauty, as when an early punk romance breaks up because the drugs “dashed my hopes on the rocks of desire as the sea poured into our kingdom.” No matter where he is, Billy never idles.

Debbie Harry: ‘Face It’ (2019)

The Blondie grande dame has told her story before — most notably in Making Tracks , her great 1982 photo-history with Chris Stein and Victor Bockris. But Face It has the complete saga: how Debbie Harry came out of nowhere to seduce the world, from CBGB to The Muppet Show , then lost it all, yet refused to give up and quit. Her whole book has the glorious sneer of a tough old punk queen who knows how cool she is and does not care if you agree. “My Blondie character was an inflatable doll, but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up, yet I was very serious.”

Rick James: ‘Glow’ (2014)

Fame — it’s a hell of a drug. Rick James begins his chronicle in Folsom Prison after flaming out on crack, in the hard times between his “Super Freak” peak and his Chappelle’s Show comeback, which explains why it’s not titled I’m Rick James, Bitch . In the Sixties, he plays in a hippie band with a not-yet-famous Neil Young, stays up all night with Joni Mitchell grooving to Sketches of Spain , cruises the Whiskey a Go Go with David Crosby, gets turned on to acid by Jim Morrison. Then he sees KISS and gets a lesson in showmanship. Rick becomes the King of Punk Funk, hitting Studio 54 (“Tanya Tucker was my best friend”?) and beefing with Prince. And along the way, he meets some very, very kinky girls.

Elton John: ‘Me’ (2019)

When Elton published his long-threatened memoir in late 2019, the world learned why the biopic Rocketman was such a humorless drag — it turned out Captain Fantastic was saving all the juiciest dish for his own superb book. Me has the right mix of salty gossip and even saltier self-mockery. A shy English schoolboy named Reginald Dwight decides to become a glitter-rock starlet, dubs himself Elton, peacocks through the Seventies, only to end up a respectable elder statesman. Hello, yellow brick road.

Gucci Mane: ‘The Autobiography of Gucci Mane’ (2017)

Dean Wareham: ‘Black Postcards’ (2008)

Dean Wareham led the great New York guitar band Luna through the 1990s, after the breakup of the Boston indie pioneers Galaxie 500. He shares the dirty details of how tedious it can be to plug away in a semi-famous, halfway-to-the-big-time rock band: the airports, the motels, the bickering band politics, the broken relationships, the constant asking around to see who’s got the drugs. Nobody in this story gets rich, or even seems to break even — all anyone gets out of the experience is a few dozen excellent songs. And that ends up being enough.

Bobbie Brown: ‘Dirty Rocker Boys’ (2013)

Peter Hook: ‘Substance: Inside New Order’ (2016)

Neil Peart: ‘Ghost Rider’ (2002)

In the summer of 1997, Neil Peart’s teenage daughter Selena dies in a car crash. Less than a year later, his wife Jackie dies of cancer. So he gets on his motorcycle and hits the road, from Quebec to the Yukon, then down south to Mexico and Belize. He rides thousands of solitary miles, brooding over his grief, with no home to go back to, while his brothers in Rush give him the time he needs to fire up the willing engine. Ghost Rider is different from anything Peart wrote for Rush — an unusually personal statement from such a shy and private writer. But the Professor brings all his analytical rigor to these road journals — and leans on the healing power of mechanical music.

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Tegan and Sara: ‘High School’ (2019)

Donald Fagen: ‘Eminent Hipsters’ (2013)

Joe Boyd: ‘White Bicycles’ (2006)

John Lydon: ‘Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ (1993)

The former Johnny Rotten has all the dirt about how the Sex Pistols pissed off the world. But he’s also got poignant details about his hardscrabble youth in London’s Irish-immigrant squalor, raised by a mother even more badass than he was. He also shares his deep hatred for religion, the Queen, the other Sex Pistols, hippies, rich people, racists, sexists, the English political system, Malcolm McLaren, and, of course, Pink Floyd . “A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative,” he says. “I agree, and what the fuck is wrong with that? Sometimes the absolute most positive thing you can be in a boring society is completely negative.”

Gregg Allman: ‘My Cross to Bear’ (2012)

A Southern Gothic rock epic. The Allman Brother sings “Whipping Post,” he snorts himself senseless, he rats on his drug roadie. And, of course, he marries Cher . On their first date, he even manages to stay off heroin until right after dinner. “I went to her house in a limousine, and when she came out, she said, ‘Fuck that funeral car,’ and handed me the keys to her blue Ferrari.… She didn’t have shit to say to me, and I didn’t have shit to say to her. What’s the topic of conversation? It certainly ain’t singing.” The second date goes a little better: “We made some serious love.”

Boy George: ‘Take It Like a Man’ (1995)

The confessions of a natural-born poseur. Boy George grows up as the “pink sheep” of his working-class Irish Catholic family, getting his start on the London club scene as a coat-check boy with a face full of cosmetics and a reputation for picking the customers’ pockets. He becomes an international pop sensation with Culture Club, while having a torrid affair with the drummer. The Boy doesn’t worry about making himself seem likable — quite the opposite. He bitches himself out along with everybody else, which is why his catty recollections make this book addictive.

Marilyn Manson: ‘The Long Hard Road Out of Hell’ (1998)

Luke Haines: ‘Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Role in Its Downfall’ (2009)

Brian Wilson: ‘I Am Brian Wilson’ (2016)

Robbie Robertson: ‘Testimony’ (2016)

Lemmy: ‘White Line Fever’ (2002)

Neil Young: ‘Special Deluxe’ (2014)

Henry Rollins: ‘Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag’ (1994)

Did Jack Kerouac ever write a book this great? In a word, no. This is the real on-the-road American adventure: a band of antisocial maniacs who hate each other crammed in a van, bumming from town to town, sleeping on floors when they’re lucky, getting clubbed by the cops when they’re not, doing it all for those few minutes of glorious noise. Black Flag were hardcore pioneers who paved the road other bands have traveled ever since, and Rollins’ tour diaries are the essence of that pain-is-my-girlfriend punk spirit.

Kim Gordon: ‘Girl in a Band’ (2015)

Jay-Z: ‘Decoded’ (2010)

If you’re curious about what it’s really like to be Shawn Carter , you’ll learn more about his hard-knock life from his albums, which have always gone heavy on the In My Lifetime narrative. But what he’s really trying to do here in Decoded is write the whole story of hip-hop, merely using himself as a prime example, as he rises from criminal-minded fan to industry kingpin. Like he says, “Rap is built to handle contradictions.” Most surprising moment: Hov defends the Coldplay duet “Beach Chair” as “one of the hidden jewels of my catalog.”

Tommy James: ‘Me, the Mob and the Music’ (2010)

The Goodfellas of rock & roll literature. Everybody knows the Tommy James oldies — “Mony Mony,” “Hanky Panky,” “Crimson and Clover,” etc. But according to Tommy, these songs got on the radio because he had some influential mobbed-up friends pulling the strings. (And, of course, pocketing the loot.) The whole topic of criminal connections in the music business is still taboo — see Fredric Dannen’s 1990 classic Hit Men for the full picture. But Tommy James is the first star to tell the story from the inside: How the Mafia gave the world “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

David Lee Roth: ‘Crazy From the Heat’ (1998)

You know what’s crazy? How underrated this book is. Diamond Dave’s book of pensees really deserves to be read wherever generally insane ramblings by generally insane dudes are read. Crazy From the Heat barely got noticed because it came out in the late Nineties, when public interest in Van Halen was at an all-time low. But every page abounds with his stark-raving lunatic eat-‘em-and-smile rock & roll Zen wisdom. Preach, Dave: “I’m not real good with baby steps. My specialty is ass-kicking. Does that sound unreasonable? It may well be, but I guarantee you, you will find no reasonable man on top of big mountains.”

Kristin Hersh: ‘Rat Girl’ (2010)

Even if you don’t know Kristin Hersh’s band Throwing Muses, Rat Girl is a crucial first-hand account of the Eighties indie-rock uprising. Her narrative voice is warm, friendly, and surprisingly funny. When Hersh gets pregnant and decides to have the kid, without giving up her band, she shrugs, “I’ll cross the living-in-a-van-is-probably-child-abuse bridge when I come to it.” Deep down it’s a story about messed-up kids finding one other, starting a band, and accidentally scrounging up an audience of similarly messed-up kids. It belongs on the shelf next to Michael Azerrad’s classic Our Band Could Be Your Life .

Morrissey: ‘Autobiography’ (2013)

Richard Hell: ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ (2013)

Chuck Berry: ‘The Autobiography’ (1987)

The “Johnny B. Goode” man who invented rock & roll tells a few stories about what he saw along the way. As a Fifties black pop star, scoring hit records in a land full of violent racism, his story seems to touch on all the contradictions and injustices of American culture. In the early Sixties, while bands like the Beatles , the Stones , and the Beach Boys were hero-worshipping him, Berry himself was rotting in jail, railroaded in a blatantly racist trial. That’s where he wrote the deeply ironic “Promised Land” — a classic celebration of American dreams, written in a prison cell.

David Bowie: ‘Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust’ (2002)

It’s a massive coffee-table art book, with lavish images of Bowie in the Seventies from photographer Mick Rock . But the main attraction of Moonage Daydream is the text by the man himself. He’s in top form, whether he’s shopping for shoes with Cyrinda Foxe (who teaches him to wear “palm-tree’d fuck-me pumps”) or sipping tea with Elton John (“We didn’t exactly become pals, not really having that much in common, especially musically”), or partying it up with Mick Jagger (“I have absolutely no recollections of this party at all”). The closest this world will ever get to a straight-up Bowie autobiography — but who’d ever want anything straight-up from Bowie?

Rod Stewart: ‘Rod’ (2012)

Anthony Kiedis: ‘Scar Tissue’ (2004)

The Red Hot Chili Pepper tells a quintessential made-in-L.A., rise-and-fall-and-rise story, complete with all the californicatory details. Kiedis muses about his childhood, his band, his face time with the Dalai Lama, and his many, many, many ex-girlfriends, most of whom inspire him to share a kind word, a nude photo, or both. (Ione Skye was “an au naturel, soft, soulful forest nymph.”) Scar Tissue has the best final sentence of any book on this list, starring Keidis’ lovable pooch Buster: “And when I do think, ‘Man, a fucking motel room with a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of narcotics would do me right,’ I just look over at my dog and remember that Buster’s never seen me high.” Let’s hope Kiedis writes a whole book about Buster some day.

Ronnie Spector: ‘Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness’ (1989)

The New York doll of the Ronettes had one of rock & roll’s biggest voices. She also had one of rock & roll’s most famously nightmarish marriages, as she was practically kept captive by Phil Spector for years. But if you’re looking for self-pity, you’ll be disappointed, because her book, like her voice, is full of cocky, smart, self-aware humor. And, yes, in case you were wondering, it totally sucked to be married to Phil Spector.

John Taylor: ‘In the Pleasure Groove’ (2012)

Paul McCartney: ‘Many Years From Now’ (1997)

Officially this is an “authorized biography,” by longtime Macca friend Barry Miles. But that’s just a front, because the book really exists as a vehicle for Paul to tell his story in his own words. Every page has killer lines, like when he reveals “Can’t Buy Me Love” was recorded after a nine-day orgy with Miami Beach’s finest hookers: “It should been ‘Can Buy Me Love,’ actually.” Some fans were put off by the way he squabbles over credits, even breaking down songwriting by percentages. (To pick one controversial example, he calculates that “Norwegian Wood” as 40 percent his and 60 percent John’s.) But on the page, as well as in song, his voice overflows with wit and affection. And he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star who has ever existed, which might be why his memories make such marvelous company.

Nile Rodgers: ‘Le Freak’ (2011)

The “sex, drugs, and disco” revolution of the Seventies, as seen by the Chic guitarist who permanently changed the way music sounds and feels and moves. This is a cerebral and unabashed celebration of disco; as Nile Rodgers puts it, “We shared Afrobromantic dreams of what it would be like to have real artistic freedom.” He also reveals that when he and Bernard Edwards wrote the classic “Upside Down” for Diana Ross , everybody at Motown hated it. The song would have been axed forever, if not for the one listener who recognized its brilliance. “We played it for Gene Simmons of KISS , who was recording next door, and he told us it was great. We respected Gene, but he was dating Diana Ross at the time, so what else would he say?”

Carrie Brownstein: ‘Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl’ (2015)

The RZA: ‘The Tao of Wu’ (2009)

How do you choose between the RZA’s two excellent memoirs? ( Choose the sword and you join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose! ) The first installment, The Wu-Tang Manual , is more of a beginners-guide handbook to the Shaolin mythology. But The Tao of Wu digs deeper, as the RZA broods on hip-hop and spirituality. He combines esoteric Buddhism, true mathematics, kung-fu flicks, chess tactics, and comic books into his own unique theosophical ruckus.

Slash: ‘Slash’ (2007)

There’s no shortage of Sunset Strip metal-sleaze gossip books out there, including other excellent GN’R memoirs — see Steven Adler’s My Appetite for Destruction or Duff McKagan’s It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) . But Slash’s book is surprisingly reflective, yet hilariously blasé about all his decadence. Low point: Slash collapses during a hotel drug binge and gets rushed to the hospital, where the doctors restart his heart. He complains, “I had no remorse whatsoever about my overdose — but I was pissed off at myself for having died. The whole hospital excursion really ate into my day off.”

Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz: ‘Beastie Boys Book’ (2018)

Viv Albertine: ‘Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys’ (2014)

Keith Richards: ‘Life’ (2010)

Like a lot of books on this list — only more so — Life makes you marvel that the guy who lived through all this chaos could end up remembering any of it. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how a guy who lived the rock & roll myth as hard as Keith Richards could still talk his way through a transaction at the drive-through window, let alone a book this great. Despite all the cranky bitching about Mick , this book exceeded any reasonable expectation for literary Keefness.

Questlove: ‘Mo Meta Blues’ (2013)

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born to Run’ (2016)

Patti Smith: ‘Just Kids’ (2010)

An incredibly romantic portrait of two young hustlers in the big city: Patti Smith and her best friend, artist Robert Mapplethorpe, have to keep telling each other how great they are, because nobody else will believe it. The most amazing thing about this book is the warmth, the lack of bitterness — what Smith seems to remember most about New York bohemia in the 1960s is all the moments of awkward kindness. Best scene: Allen Ginsberg buys Patti a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich at the Automat, because he thinks she’s a pretty boy. When she breaks the news that she’s a girl, she asks, “Well, does this mean I return the sandwich?” Ginsberg just keeps talking to her about Jack Kerouac while she eats — a gentleman as well as a poet.

Bob Dylan: ‘Chronicles, Volume One’ (2004)

Everybody knew this guy had a way with words. But it’s safe to say that nobody expected his autobiography to be this intense. He rambles from one fragment of his life to another, with crazed characters and weird scenes in every chapter. It all hangs together, from his Minnesota boyhood (who knew Dylan started out as such a big wrestling fan?) to the “deserted orchards and dead grass” of his Eighties bottoming-out phase. He evokes his early folk-rogue days in New York, even though he hated being perceived as the voice of a generation: “I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.” So where’s that Nobel Prize already?

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Best rock star biographies and memoirs: it's pure debauchery

We're talking sex, drugs and bloody good stories

Rock stars of yesteryear had all the fun. The best rock star biographies shed light on those glory days, answering questions you didn’t know you wanted answering.

From tales of debauchery to gritty insights into life on the road, the best biographies share the low points as well as the highs. Teasing details about their lives, many of these access-all-areas biographies allow you to be a fly on the wall for some of the most dramatic moments in musical history.

UPDATE: We've added a couple more key picks from the world of rock autobiographies. Elton John's Me makes the cut for the sheer style of its retelling of one of the iconic careers in rock music. And for those after a less classic biopic-style approach should check out Viv Albertine's 2014 memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. It's a top read.

• Need something for your music collection? These are the best bluetooth speakers and the best record players around.

Here we’ve picked out a selection of the very best rockstar memoirs. They feature some of rock’s most prominent figures… as well as some who we’re glad we’ve been able to find out even more about.

Upvote your favourite read, and suggest any we've missed at the bottom.

Best rock star biographies

1 . Keith Richards – Life

No list of rockstar memoirs would be complete without a mention of the Rolling Stones guitarist and rock stalwart Keith Richards. Life spans several decades of music, drugs and life on the road – from the more glamorous elements to the hard reality of some of what he went through. As with all the best memoirs, Life shows a new side of its subject while retaining the kind of honesty and vulnerability which was often hidden from those who only saw his public persona.

2 . Mötley Crüe - The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band

Known for their extreme antics and tales of debauchery, Mötley Crüe has become synonymous with a life of excess that accompanies rock music. A culmination of 30 years worth of jaw-dropping material involving Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, and Mick Mars , the book features scandalous celebrity love affairs and dark stories involving extreme drug addiction. The book has also since been made into a Netflix Original Movie starring Machine Gun Kelly and Douglas Booth.

3 . Anthony Kiedis – Scar Tissue

The Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman is a 21st-century rocker you’d expect to have plenty of revealing stories, and Scar Tissue is certainly a revealing read.

Kiedis’s drug use has hardly been a secret throughout his career, but this is an at-times-sensitive look at his early exposure to substances and how it shaped his life and experiences as his band enjoyed a rapid rise and ultimately grew into one of the world’s biggest.

4 . Slash — Slash: The Autobiography

Few rock stars of the 80s and 90s are as instantly identifiable as Slash, and the Guns N’ Roses guitarist lived a proper rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle during his time with the band. This is documented in detail in his 2007 autobiography, with covers ups, downs, excess and near-death in the kind of detail you can only get from someone who lived through it all… and almost died in the process.

5 . Lemmy – White Line Fever

The title of Lemmy’s autobiography gives a bit of a clue to what to expect, but there’s more to it than just drugs and excess. It’s not just about Motörhead, either, although the band does have a big role to play. White Line Fever is often conversational in tone, and that gives you an idea of Lemmy’s real, authentic voice – it’s the sort of thing which not every memoir needs, but the feeling of him being right there with you certainly helps in this case.

6 . Patti Smith – Just Kids

Smith’s memoir isn’t just about music or even just about her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, but rather a poignant look back at a very specific version of New York which we will surely never see again. Published in 2010, Just Kids captures a time, a place and the people united by both to make for a fascinating memoir, and we’re grateful to Smith for bringing it all back to life with such honesty.

7 . Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

'Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.' — notes Bruce Springsteen, from the pages of his autobiography, Born to Run . The concept for the book spawned from his 2009 Superbowl half time show, which Springsteen noted as being so exhilarating, the experience simply had to be documented. From his Catholic upbringing in Freehold, New Jersey , to the traumatizing events which shaped some of his greatest lyrical work, this is a delightfully gritty tale depicting a rock 'n' roll great

8 . Nikki Sixx – The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star

Some of the most eye-catching rock memoirs aren’t even really about the music, and this work from the Mötley Crüe man is a case in point. The bassist presents a no holds barred depiction of life on tour, in the studio and on heroin, all presented in diary form, during a period where addiction to the drug almost killed him. Throw in retrospectives from Sixx and his bandmates and it makes for compelling reading.

9 . Kim Gordon – Girl in a Band: A Memoir

Girl in a Band takes us back to the 1980s heyday of Sonic Youth through the words of founding member Kim Gordon. The memoir looks back at Gordon’s childhood before exploring her career in music, her marriage to bandmate Thurston Moore, and the eventual unravelling of that relationship. The portrait of Gordon’s life in Rochester and LA is honest and exploratory without ever being performative, while painting a picture of plenty of her contemporaries from Sonic Youth’s rise to prominence.

10 . Mark Lanegan - Sing Backwards and Weep

Coming from Seattle in the 80s, Mark Lanegan saw everything grunge had to offer and managed to get out the other side. This frank autobiography does not paint an idolised life of a rockstar, but one that has knocks, scrapes and near misses. It's packed with the lowest of lows and the highs are all, well, something else. You need to read this and it's even more poignant after his passing.

11 . Elton John - Me

This autobiography covers Elton John's pre-fame years, his early career and most riotously depraved years. It's hilarious, touching and, as far as we can tell, pretty honest given how often John is not depicted as a flawless hero character. This biography was written in collaboration with music critic Alexis Petridis, who captures John's voice perfectly while delivering thoroughly well-written prose.

12 . Viv Albertine - Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

Slits guitarist Viv Albertine's 2014 autobiography made an impact that went far beyond punk fans interested in her band. It's a feminist work that looks at the realities of being a woman in the 70s and 80s, amped up by being a pivotal part of the punk scene. The book also covers her work after the Slits, who disbanded in 1982.

13 . Laura Jane Grace - Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout

Grace, the vocalist for punk band Against Me!, has a unique story to tell. And she tells it brilliantly in Tranny. The singer and guitarist came out as transgender in 2012, and her memoir – written with journalist Dan Ozzi and published four years later – is a brutally honest look at her experiences with gender dysphoria alongside her breakthrough into the punk scene. As well as shedding light on Grace’s past, it allows us a look at Butch Vig and Bruce Springsteen through fresh eyes.

14 . Mark Oliver Everett – Things the Grandchildren Should Know

Everett, better known as E, has enjoyed a strong following with his band Eels without ever attaining worldwide superstar status. Everett’s emotional depth has always come through in his songwriting, so it’s no surprise to see him eloquently and sensitively detail the role of others’ deaths in his own life after losing both parents and his sister before turning 35. There isn’t the excess of other memories, but it’s just as emotionally affecting, if not more so.

15 . John Lydon – Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten during his time with the Sex Pistols, had front-row seats to the birth of punk in the UK. As you can guess, this makes for great memoir fodder. The Londoner tears in to anyone and everyone you can imagine from the “boring” society infiltrated by his band. As the man himself says: “A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative. I agree, and what the fuck is wrong with that?”

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30 Great Rock Memoirs

Many legendary musicians have taken literary guitar solos off-stage by penning great rock memoirs. Music fans adore delving into their favorite artists’ juicy, tell-all autobiographies. Rock memoirs allow average Joes to experience the scandalous debauchery of the rock and roll lifestyle. From hit records and red carpets to drug addiction and sleazy groupies, these memoirs take readers on the rollercoaster ride of stardom. Whether written in 1960 or today, rock memoirs capture the drama of music heroes journeying towards their big dreams.

However, rock memoirs aren’t always the fascinating, soul-baring reads you’d expect. The genre has plenty of autobiographies filled with fluff already well-known on the Internet. Rock memoirs can also become garbled, indecipherable accounts by musicians who are more accustomed to writing notes than paragraphs. The best memoirs avoid the usual road-worn clichés and plots to eloquently share unhindered truths about rock stars.

Below we’ll recognize 30 great rock memoirs that deserve a sacred space on your bookshelf or Kindle library.

#1 – I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir

Brian wilson.

Releasing in October 2016, this much-anticipated memoir tells the story of Brian Wilson, the co-founder of the Beach Boys. Starting with his turbulent childhood with an abusive father, Wilson relays the mental illness, drugs, and sorrow that plagued his early life. He also offers glimpses into the songwriting process for hits like “Good Vibrations.” Readers witness his never-ending climb to survive the industry and remain one of music’s most revered figures.

#2 – Walk This Way

Divided in two,  Walk This Way  chronicles the history of the legendary hard rock band Aerosmith. Members Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer, and Brad Whitford take turns sharing recollections never publicly released. Book One focuses on the early years after their album  Toys in the Attic  debuted. Book Two takes place after their 1980s downfall and resurgence. Candid stories of concerts, drugs, partying, and women abound.

#3 – The Dirt

Motley crue.

Perhaps the world’s most notorious rock band, Motley Crue collaborated to publish  The Dirt  in 2001. Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Nikki Sixx detail their 30-year career without holding back. Fans journey beyond their immortal music to learn about backstage scandals, love affairs, and addictions after their rise to fame. Over 100 photographs are included to depict the pleasures and perils of decadent rock star lifestyles.

#4 – Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir

Carrie brownstein.

Named a  New York Times  Notable Book of 2015, Carrie Brownstein’s novel allows a deeply personal look into how she redefined gender limitations in rock. From her childhood in the Pacific Northwest, Brownstein depicts the search for her true calling. The exuberant guitarist details her rise to prominence with Sleater-Kinney in the growing feminist punk rock movement. She also shares the experiences that spawned the TV hit  Portlandia.

#5 – Born to Run

Bruce springsteen.

After his Super Bowl halftime show, “The Boss” himself began writing an extraordinary autobiography detailing his life from a childhood in Freehold, New Jersey. Set for release in September 2016,  Born to Run  vividly recounts Springsteen’s relentless drive for music. Readers watch as his career progresses from playing bar bands to headlining the E Street Band. Bruce Springsteen details the light and darkness of his experiences with raw honesty.

#6 – Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts and Madness

Ronnie spector.

Ronnie Spector published this 384-page tell-all novel about her time as lead singer for the Ronettes, the hit 1960s “girl band.” Although there are glimpses into the glamour of rock stardom, much of the memoir centers on her rocky relationship with Phil Spector. She details how her powerful producer husband turned cruel and reclusive. Follow her inspiring battle to break free, overcome alcoholism, and recreate a life worth living.

#7 – Crazy From The Heat

David lee roth.

Van Halen lead vocalist David Lee Roth produced the ultimate rock memoir with  Crazy From The Heat  in 1998. The archetypal rock star shares his life’s narrative in guerrilla style with plenty of expletives. With candor, Roth depicts the backstage life for the Guinness Book’s highest paid American rock group of the ’80s. David Lee Roth also shares his recording experiences as a solo artist and several unpublished poems.

#8 – Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, wrote this unique rock memoir about his time with the ’70s punk band. The “God Save the Queen” singer depicts how the Pistols were working-class rockers with families, friends, and financial woes. Lydon is unabashedly spiteful in shedding light on the British class system and the music industry. John Lydon also adds perspectives on his band mates, including the notorious Sid Vicious.

#9 – Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Marilyn manson.

America’s most controversial rock idol Marilyn Manson published a shocking memoir titled  Long Hard Road Out of Hell.  Born as Brian Hugh Warner, Manson discusses his unstable childhood, including his grandfather’s sexual fetishes. Its pages go in-depth on how the Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids formed and recorded the infamous “Antichrist Superstar.” Like other rock memoirs, the book references bitter breakups and dysfunctional relationships.

#10 – Many Years From Now

Paul mccartney.

With author Barry Miles, Paul McCartney wrote  Many Years From Now  to disprove that the late John Lennon was the Beatles’ only creative leader. The 650-plus memoir centers on the duo’s 50-50 songwriting partnership through hits like “I Feel Fine” and “A Hard Day’s Night.” From Beatlemania on, McCartney reminiscences on the genesis for every song penned with Lennon while taking credit for the band’s immersion into the avant-garde.

#11 – Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust

David bowie.

David Bowie’s debut novel gives unprecedented insight into his intriguing, sexually ambivalent stage persona Ziggy Stardust. Photographer Mick Rock assists in chronicling imagery from Ziggy’s stratospheric two-year stardom. Vast albums of images compile to detail the onstage performances and backstage scandals through his blockbuster retirement. It’s among the finest rock memoirs that beautifully immortalizes the late icon in high-definition.

#12 – Chronicles: Volume One

Through his own eyes,  Chronicles: Volume One  details the critical crossroads in Bob Dylan’s early life to begin the planned three-volume memoir. The National Book Critics Circle Award finalist shows Dylan’s first arrival in magical Manhattan. The story poignantly shares details about his 1960s breakthrough album. From nightlong parties to fleeting loves, readers witness Bob Dylan’s rise into fame as the “spokesman of a generation.”

Johnny Cash

Having sold over 90 million records globally, Johnny Cash is deemed one of the most influential musicians for songs like “Ring of Fire” and “Man in Black.” Cash’s deep baritone voice crossed lines from country and blues to rock and roll. From his boyhood in Arkansas to super-stardom in Nashville,  Cash  reminiscences on the legend’s lifetime. The autobiography highlights his 40-year career, including his marriage to June Carter, with wry humor.

#14 – Scar Tissue

Anthony kiedis.

Released five years after  Californication,  this rock memoir follows the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ lead vocalist through his drug addiction battle. Son of Blackie Dammett, Anthony Kiedis first experienced drugs with his father at 11. When the band formed in the ’80s, Kiedis had a hardcore addiction. He details the effect of Slovak’s overdose death on his downward spiral. Audiences witness his fight against relapses to restart a productive, happy life.

#15 – Just Kids

Patti smith.

Chosen for  Publishers Weekly’s  top 10 best books, Patti Smith’s memoir provides the same lyrical quality as her influential album  Horses.  Beginning in 1967, the book portrays Smith’s early career homeless and hungry in Brooklyn. That’s when she encounters Robert Mapplethorpe, a young photographer, and her life forever changes. Patti Smith tells their inseparable friendship’s moving story during the halcyon days of the Hotel Chelsea.

#16 – My Damage: The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor

Keith morris.

Hardcore punk icon Keith Morris chronicles his revolutionary 40-year career as one of music’s hardest working men. Beginning with his childhood in Los Angeles’ South Bay, the book provides a lens into Morris’ development to legend status. From leading the Circle Jerks to appearing in cult films like  Repo Man,  Keith Morris shares interesting perspectives on the entertainment industry and his battle with diabetes.

#17 – The Beatles Anthology

The beatles.

Released with the documentary series in 2000,  The Beatles Anthology  is a large-format hardcover book infused with photographic artwork. Archived interviews with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as well as producer George Martin are combined into one epic rock memoir. Every page is brimming with recollections from their early days in Liverpool to their ultimate breakup, including Lennon’s marriage to Yoko Ono.

#18 – I, Tina

Tina turner.

Adapted to the film  What’s Love Got to Do with It  with Angela Bassett in 1993, Tina Turner’s rock memoir retells her life from growing up as Anna Mae Bullock. The best-seller transports readers from her meager beginnings in Tennessee to her volatile relationship with blues musician Ike Turner. Her superstar account shares the pain and abuse that sparked one of rock music’s greatest comebacks.

#19 – Slash

Legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash opens up to share his own experiences with the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle. The notoriously private musician pens a jaw-dropping memoir detailing the factors leading to the band’s demise. Beyond wild parties, groupies, drugs, and never-ending tours, Slash depicts the dictatorship rule of Axl Rose. He explains how Axl’s determination to change the band’s sound with synthesizers ripped them apart.

#20 – I Am Ozzy

Ozzy osbourne.

Prized for its laugh-out-loud humor,  I Am Ozzy  provides a rambling memoir of the Black Sabbath frontman’s life. Born John Osbourne, he grew up within an impoverished British family in Aston and seemed destined for manual labor. On a trip to prison, Ozzy became enamored with the darker side of rock and roll. Life spirals out of control with recording, drinking, drugs, and women. But the unpolished autobiography then shares the satanic rocker’s rebirth.

#21 – Clapton

Eric clapton.

Clapton  portrays the rock star’s life in an unseen light starting with his debut in Cream and their untimely breakup two years later. Eric Clapton shares his experiences working with Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, and long-time friend George Harrison. Here readers discover his love for George’s wife, Pattie Boyd. His heartbreak leads to heroin, despair, and hit songs like “Wonderful Tonight.” Life seemingly improves as he wins Pattie’s affection, until the devastating death of their four-year-old son.

#22 – Amy, My Daughter

Mitch winehouse.

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse’s memoir was written in 2013 by her closest advisor and friend, her father Mitch. The intimate account separates fact from fiction by detailing the true events that shaped her music career. Mitch doesn’t shy away from discussing her drug addiction that inspired the hit song “Rehab.” Audiences witness what happened behind-the-scenes in the months leading to the talented musician’s tragic death.

#23 – I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp

Richard hell.

Since retiring from the music industry in 1984, Richard Hell has published countless books, including his own rock memoirs. This novel renders his shift from a bucolic childhood in Kentucky to New York City’s punk rock movement. Known for co-founding bands like The Heartbreakers and working with artists like Patti Smith, Hell forever cemented CBGB as the epicenter for punk. The memoir celebrates his passion while warning of its implicit risks.

#24 – Journals

Kurt cobain.

Originally contained in over 20 notebooks,  Journals  presents a collection of Kurt Cobain’s handwritten notes and drawings. From a kid in Aberdeen, Washington, to a morbid punk rocker, the entries depict Corbain’s unlikely rise to fame. Readers glimpse his innermost thoughts as Cobain signs with Sub Pop, forms Nirvana, and writes “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” But entries turn darker as coping with the fame ultimately leads to heroin addiction and suicide.

#25 – Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout

Laura jane grace.

Laura Jane Grace, the lead singer for Against Me!, will offer this vivid memoir of her tumultuous search for self-identity in November 2016. Born Thomas James Gabel, Laura shares how she grappled with feeling detached from her body.  Tranny  shares her struggles with gender transition, sex, failed relationships, and drug addiction while becoming a punk rock icon.

Keith Richards

As winner of the 2011 Norman Mailer Prize, Keith Richards’ memoir  Life  was written with journalist James Fox to chronicle the Rolling Stones guitarist’s rousing stardom. Richards delivers an unfettered story of his career from small gigs to sold-out stadiums. Rock fans are entranced with firsthand accounts on his love for Patti Hansen, rocky relationship with Mick Jagger, tax exile in France, and more. His journey becomes immortalized like the riffs of “Satisfaction.”

#27 – The Autobiography

Chuck berry.

Pioneering rock and roll guitarist Chuck Berry’s memoir not only shares his own past, but also uncovers dark truths about race in America. Growing up in a poor, segregated St. Louis neighborhood, Berry discusses his family roots and his feeling “black.” From performing with Johnnie Johnson’s trio to signing with Chess Records, he recounts his galloping success redefining rhythm and blues to the distinctive rock sound.  The Autobiography  also includes a discography of his musical masterpieces.

#28 – Don’t Try This at Home: A Year in the Life of Dave Navarro

Dave navarro.

After messy breakups with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction, guitarist Dave Navarro partnered with writer Neil Strauss to chronicle 12 months of his life. He purchased a photo booth to record every celebrity, dealer, and hooker who stopped by his house. The resulting 57 chapters speak to the quasi-glamorous rock and roll lifestyle. However, readers eventually witness Navarro’s sobriety as his career and marriage restarts.

#29 – Girl in a Band

Published in 2015,  Girl in a Band  shares the autobiographical story of Sonic Youth’s bass guitarist and fashion icon Kim Gordon. The memoir’s vivid pages open several chapters of her life for inspection from California to New York City. She visually details her music and passion for taking women into the unchartered territory in the Alternative revolution. Gordon also describes her personal life, marriage, and relationship with her daughter, Coco.

#30 – Take It Like a Man

Boy George strutted into rock stardom in the early ’80s with “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” His platinum Culture Club hits, avant-garde style, and captivating melodies fueled media’s obsession with the English singer. That’s until his life took a downward spiral. Boy George’s relationship with Jon Moss disintegrated, Culture Club collapsed, and drug addiction wreaked havoc.  Take It Like a Man  retells his highest highs and most desperate lows in mesmerizing detail.

Search for these 30 great rock memoirs to read profound, inspiring recollections from one-of-a-kind music icons who’ve experienced successes and downturns in the public eye.

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Best Music Autobiographies: 20 Memoirs From Legendary Rockers

Exploring the life and times of rock’n’roll’s most iconic stars, the best music autobiographies give us an insider’s look at stardom.

Providing a unique opportunity to glimpse into the minds of rock’n’roll’s most legendary figures, the best music autobiographies serve as a reminder of just how much these icons have shaped popular culture. From blues-rock journeyman Eric Clapton to genre-shaping visionary David Bowie , these memoirs delve deep into their authors’ psyches, going beyond their stage-based antics to explore their upbringing and give us a behind-the-scenes insight into their experiences of fame and stardom. Here, then, are the best music autobiographies – books that provide an intimate look at the lives and careers of some of the industry’s most legendary figures.

Listen to our Rock Classics playlist here , and check out the best music autobiographies, below.

20: chrissie hynde: ‘reckless: my life as a pretender’ (2015).

Reckless: My Life As A Pretender , by Chrissie Hynde, is a humorous and frank account of the new wave era songwriter’s life story. Known for her incomparable voice, style and attitude, Hynde weaves a witty and colourful narrative that follows her career journey from Akron, Ohio, to London in the 70s, where she formed Pretenders . Hynde candidly describes her harrowing experiences with grief following the deaths of bandmates James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon, and reveals intimate details about her exploration of music, love and identity. Full of vivid storytelling, Reckless is a sharp-witted and eye-opening read among the best music autobiographies.

19: John Densmore: ‘Riders On The Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison And The Doors’ (1990)

Taking readers on a journey through his experiences as a founding member of The Doors , drummer John Densmore’s memoir, Riders On The Storm: My Life With Jim Morrison And The Doors , preceded the release of Oliver Stone’s 1991 Doors biopic, starring Val Kilmer. Given that Densmore acted as a consultant for that film, it’s hardly a surprise to discover that his memoir is just as compelling, recalling the time he spent making music with one of the best rock frontmen of all time , Jim Morrison , along with bandmates Ray Manzarek (keyboards) and Robby Krieger (guitar). The drummer guides readers through the wild ride of The Doors’ Los Angeles origins and on to their ascent as classic rock’s warrior kings. Readers will be fascinated by Densmore’s candid revelations about living in the eye of the storm that was the 60s counterculture, replete with details about all aspects of his life during that era, as well as reflecting upon how it shaped who he is today.

18: Debbie Harry: ‘Face It: A Memoir’ (2019)

Covering everything from her CBGB-era punk beginnings in the 70s, as the frontwoman for Blondie, to her various side projects as an actress and solo artist, Debbie Harry’s memoir, Face It , is a typically provocative account of her rise to frame. Unafraid to share secrets and embarrassing moments from her life – from details about her wild romantic relationships to discussing her struggles with heroin addiction, Harry’s frankness makes Face It a truly eye-opening read. Offering a window into her deep insights into how she fought bouts of depression, the book is a truly self-reflective primer on how to maintain a sense of confidence while navigating the darker aspects of fame.

17: Neil Young: ‘Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream’ (2012)

A gold rush of memories, Neil Young ’s memoir Waging Heavy Peace is an idiosyncratic and non-linear retelling of the singer-songwriter’s life. One of the best music autobiographies of recent years, it details the ups and downs of Young’s career, from his days as a folk-rock pioneer to becoming one of the best songwriters of all time . Through this book, readers get to see how the Canadian rocker has infused his music with personal stories and emotions that transcend generations. Speaking candidly about his passion for recording music and writing songs that have become evergreen classics, Young reflects on both his successes and failures, offering valuable lessons on how to be creative without compromising your values or goals. His words will inspire any budding creative.

16: Rod Stewart: ‘Rod: The Autobiography’ (2012)

Rod Stewart’s memoir, Rod: The Autobiography , is an entertaining and amusing story that goes beyond handbags and gladrags to follow Stewart’s career path from London mod to world-renowned rock star. The former Faces frontman and Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? hitmaker recounts his rollicking journey with impish humour, his natural charisma shining through every page as he reflects on the struggles and successes he has experienced during his long career. Throughout it all, while recounting stories about early influences such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, Stewart remains self-deprecating and witty while never forgetting to mention those who have helped him along the way.

15: Eric Clapton: ‘Clapton: The Autobiography’ (2007)

The music industry is filled with legends, but few have had as big an impact as Eric Clapton. With a career spanning almost six decades, Clapton’s influence on popular music has been profound and enduring, so it’s hardly a surprise that his autobiography is also remarkable. Already known for his virtuoso guitar talents, Clapton’s writing style is accessible and heart-rending, containing stories such as the tragic death of his four-year-old son and his personal triumph of overcoming alcoholism. By candidly detailing his difficult upbringing, his childhood struggles with abandonment and identity, and the romantic relationships that defined different stages of his life, this is a must-read among the best music autobiographies.

14: Bob Dylan: ‘Chronicles: Volume One’ (2004)

Bob Dylan, the era-defining songwriter, caused a cultural earthquake when he released Chronicles: Volume One . Often cryptic and mysterious in his lyrics, nobody expected Dylan to reflect upon his life and career as eruditely as he does here, running as he does through a series of honest and introspective stories and recollections. From his early days as an up-and-coming folk musician in New York City’s Greenwich Village to his rise to global stardom and the subsequent demands of living with the baggage of the “voice of his generation” tag, Dylan offers an intimate look at how his journey has shaped him both as an artist and a human being. An enlightening entry among the best music autobiographies, Chronicles: Volume One has a raw honesty that captures the essence of Dylan’s unique voice, providing readers with an insight into the mind of one of a truly world-changing artist.

13: Keith Richards: ‘Life’ (2010)

It goes without saying that Keith Richards is the ultimate rock’n’roll survivor. Giving us a first-hand look at the wild world of The Rolling Stones, the legendary guitarist’s biography, Life , chronicles his life from childhood to adulthood and everything in between, including his humble beginnings growing up in Dartford, England, and international fame as the spiritual figurehead of one of the British Invasion’s most notorious rock bands. An intimate portrait of Richards’ personal journey through celebrity, Life features stories about Richards’ escapades with Mick Jagger, as well as his headline-grabbing experiences with drugs. In addition to humorous anecdotes about life on the road, the guitarist talks candidly about how he was able to emerge from addiction intact and how music has been a source of solace throughout his life.

12: Phil Collins: ‘Not Dead Yet: The Autobiography’ (2016)

Phil Collins ’ autobiography, Not Dead Yet , is an honest recount of his life and career. From the start, Collins speaks openly about his upbringing – he was drawn to music from an early age, taking up the drums at five years old and eventually becoming the drummer for prog-rock band Genesis. Written with great humility, the book moves between periods in Collins’ life, discussing his experiences with divorce as well as his professional successes, such as recording with Genesis and launching a successful solo career. Whether speaking about recording sessions or touring experiences, it becomes clear that Collins has lived an extraordinary life full of unique moments that have helped shape him into the star we know today.

11: Peter Hook: ‘Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division’ (2012)

As the bassist for Joy Division – one of the most influential post-punk bands of the late 70s – Peter Hook provides an intimate look at the band’s rise to prominence in Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division . Through a series of personal reflections, he takes readers behind the scenes to explore how Joy Division created its foreboding sound. Revealing unknown details about life on tour and what it was like working alongside frontman Ian Curtis , who committed suicide at age 23, the book offers captivating accounts of the band’s turbulent history. Through Hook’s words, we come to understand why Joy Division was so special – they were able to take dark themes such as death and despair and turn them into something beautiful through their music. Having penned one of the best music biographies of all time, Hook then went and did it all over again with a follow-up. Substance: Inside New Order , which continues the story of his game-changing career.

10: David Bowie with Mick Rock: ‘Moonage Daydream: The Life And Times Of Ziggy Stardust’ (2002)

Moonage Daydream: The Life And Times Of Ziggy Stardust is a captivating visual biography documenting the incredible rise to fame of one of music’s most influential figures. Alongside extraordinary photographs by Mick Rock, the ever mysterious David Bowie himself recounts his creative journey from glam-rock provocateur to art-rock Renaissance man, providing an insightful look into his genius and offering a rare glimpse into the work he created in the 70s. Capturing the energy and spirit of Ziggy Stardust’s artistic inception, Moonage Daydream truly highlights how Bowie’s contributions to popular culture profoundly affected music for generations to come.

9: Johnny Marr: ‘Set The Boy Free: The Autobiography’ (2016)

Set The Boy Free , the autobiography of The Smiths ’ guitarist Johnny Marr , serves as an incredible and honest look at the indie sensation’s life. Following Marr from his childhood in Manchester, England, to becoming one of the best guitarists of all time , the book vividly recounts his experience teaming up with Morrissey to form The Smiths, and how the pair revolutionised the 80s indie-rock scene. Weaving together tales from throughout his life – growing up as a working-class kid on a council estate; falling in love with the guitar – Marr’s autobiography offers a definitive take on how he did the unthinkable and made guitar music cool again.

8: Nile Rodgers: ‘Le Freak: An Upside Down Story Of Family, Disco And Destiny’ (2011)

Le Freak: An Upside Down Story Of Family, Disco And Destiny invites readers to learn more about the life of one of the world’s most influential musicians – the guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers . From his early days as a session musician to becoming a gatekeeper of funk and disco as the guitarist for Chic , Rodgers tells a rich and captivating story, drawing from his unconventional upbringing as well as his personal accounts of mental-health issues, and substance abuse. An intimate look at how the genre-defying artist found success despite life’s many roadblocks (he would go on to produce records for David Bowie, Duran Duran and Madonna , and collaborate with Daft Punk on the globe-straddling hit Get Lucky), Rodgers strings together anecdotes that are both funny and heartbreaking, and his free-spirited energy sees him faithfully recapture moments of joy and sorrow through vivid accounts of his career highs and lows.

7: Stephen Morris: ‘Record Play Pause: Confessions Of A Post-Punk Percussionist’ (2019)

Much like his bandmate Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris’ memoir Record Play Pause is an account of Joy Division’s early punk and post-punk days in 70s Britain. Through his personal recollections, readers gain an inside view into what it was like for Morris to be part of the musical revolution Joy Division engendered, as the drummer offers a glimpse into his childhood in Macclesfield, as well as his teenage years spent largely discovering music and exploring the sounds that would define him for years to come. From getting his first drum set at 14, through to recording with Joy Division, this memoir provides a candid look at how post-punk began. Record Play Pause also has a sequel, Fast Forward , which takes the story into the New Order era and also deserves a mention among the best music autobiographies.

6: Rob Halford: ‘Confess: The Autobiography’ (2020)

Rob Halford, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Judas Priest, gave fans a raw and honest look at his life in his autobiography, Confess . As he reflects on his career, personal struggles and relationships, it’s easy to see why Halford has become an icon for heavy metal music over the years, so diehard fans of Judas Priest will definitely want to pick up this book and read more about the man behind some of their favourite songs. Confess offers an in-depth look into Halford’s surprisingly multi-faceted life, with plenty of stories about his time in Judas Priest, touring the world, coming out as a pioneering LGBTQ+ icon and dealing with addiction issues. Halford also talks candidly about how it felt to be a rock star in a genre that wasn’t always accepted by mainstream society. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of heavy metal, this book is an insightful entry among the best music biographies.

5: Ozzy Osbourne: ‘I Am Ozzy’ (2009)

As the “Godfather Of Heavy Metal”, Ozzy Osbourne uses I Am Ozzy as a chance to run through his thrilling and tumultuous career, allowing fans to get a deeper look at his life as he recounts all his ups and downs in an honest and often humorous way. Written in a conversational style that feels as though you’re sitting with a long-lost friend, I Am Ozzy gives readers insight into what it was like growing up in post-war England, becoming the frontman for hard-rock giants Black Sabbath, dealing with drug addiction and depression, and finding success again with solo hits such as Crazy Train. Osbourne also dives into his latter years, discussing his family and how his wife, Sharon, is responsible for putting him on the path to sobriety.

4: Nick Mason: ‘Inside Out: A Personal History Of Pink Floyd’ (2004)

Inside Out: A Personal History Of Pink Floyd , by drummer Nick Mason, is a must-read for any fan of the iconic band. In this first-hand account of the group’s history, Mason recounts Pink Floyd’s incredible journey, from their early psychedelic-rock days to their massive prog-rock successes in the 70s and 80s. With vivid detail, Mason takes readers through every major moment in the group’s history, including the stories behind their first hit single, Arnold Layne, and their ambitious concept album The Wall. Throughout, Mason paints an evocative picture of life inside one of Britain’s most renowned bands, not only addressing the creative process but also shedding light on moments of joy and camaraderie, when his bandmates supported each other during some of the toughest times. It’s an engaging and fascinating read.

3: Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born To Run’ (2016)

Born To Run is a testament to Bruce Springsteen’s personal resilience and his unwavering commitment to the spirit of rock’n’roll. Chronicling The Boss’ early days growing up in New Jersey, as well as his rise to fame as the lead songwriter in The E Street Band, it’s an emotional journey from the man’s own viewpoint, filled with both joy and sorrow. As well as Springsteen’s recollections of life on tour, we also get honest accounts of his long-standing relationships with family members. From tales of personal struggles and career triumphs to reflections on the power of music in our lives, Born To Run is one of the best music autobiographies out there, regardless of whether you’re a Springsteen fan or not.

2: Elton John: ‘Me’ (2019)

Elton John’s Me is a witty and self-effacing autobiography that traces the life of one of Britain’s greatest songwriters. Covering decades of John’s emotional ups and downs, the book offers revealing accounts of his drug addiction, his troubled love life and his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality, as well as his career as a celebrated singer-songwriter. With behind-the-scenes stories about how some of his best-loved songs were written, John speaks most profoundly about the impact fame has had on him, and Me explores themes such as loneliness and depression to great effect. A companion piece to the 2019 biopic Rocketman , starring Taron Egerton, Me does wonders in capturing the essence of Elton John.

1: Anthony Kiedis: ‘Scar Tissue’ (2004)

Anthony Kiedis’ memoir, Scar Tissue , is a revealing and no-holds-barred account of the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman’s life. Following Kiedis through both tremendous career success and deep personal pain, readers will discover the highs and lows of a life lived on the edge – expect rampant substance abuse, wild sexual escapades, broken relationships and many other extreme experiences. Kiedis writes candidly about his struggles with addiction as well as his spiritual journey to sobriety while balancing his personal life with the demands of being in one of the best 90s bands . Kiedis also shares stories from his unconventional childhood growing up in Los Angeles, where fame was always nearby – he even recounts once being babysat by Sonny And Cher. In the end, Scar Tissue is a heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting read, as Kiedis eventually finds peace through self-acceptance and redemption. And that’s why it tops our list of the best rock autobiographies.

Now check out the best music biographies .

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13 books every rock fan needs to read

These indispensable books should take pride of place on every discerning rock fan's shelves.

Chock full of colourful characters, constantly adrift on a sea of international adventure and not shy of a plot-twist or 25, the rock world feels predestined to generate some of the most horrifying, inspiring and downright incredible stories imaginable. We’ve stopped short of naming the 'top 13' rock biographies – simply because there are literally hundreds out there more than worth your time. Instead we have listed thirteen of the best rock music books you should read right now.

The Dirt: Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band (Mötley Crüe with Neil Strauss, 2001)

The classic. A title that’s become synonymous with the bad-boy rock biography, The Dirt feels like the ultimate chronicle of the genre’s ’80s excess. Looking back now, the idea that Mötley Crüe classics like Wild Side and Girls, Girls, Girls only scratched the surface of their unshackled debauchery seems almost unbelievable. A kaleidoscopic odyssey of booze, drugs, groupies, dealers, cops, tour buses, strip-clubs and car-wrecks, both figurative and literal, it’s a tale that needs to be read to be believed. If you only pick up one rock bio today, probably best to make it this one. Devotees should be sure to grab Nikki Sixx’s bleaker but equally essential 2007 follow-up, The Heroin Diaries, too.

Tranny: Confessions Of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout (Laura Jane Grace, 2016)

Known, during writing, as Killing Me Loudly, the autobiography from Against Me! ’s Laura Jane Grace draws extensively from the journals she had been compiling since third grade. Its eventual title ‘Tranny’ is a term the singer hates, but its appropriation here is symbolic of her taking ownership of a personal struggle through which she noted the supposedly accepting punk community were “more closed-minded than the church”. Illuminating. Poignant. Inspiring. It’s equally essential reading for individuals struggling to come to terms with themselves and those same closed-minds struggling to understand.

White Line Fever: The Autobiography (Lemmy Kilmister, 2002)

Possessed of a godlike air like few others, Lemmy always seemed like something of an unapproachable icon even for those of us fortunate to make his acquaintance. As such, this exceptionally grounded autobiography – charting the life of Ian Fraser Kilmister, son of an RAF chaplain from Stoke-On-Trent – brought us brilliantly closer to the man behind the myth. Of course, from his early musical exploits with Jimi Hendrix and Hawkwind to decades-long scene leadership at the helm of Motörhead , the man led a life that most of us could even imagine. “It’s a fallacy to say I taught him how to drink,” the legend writes at one point, remembering a young Lars Ulrich. “I actually taught him to throw up, and that’s what he did, all over himself. That’s what he got for trying to keep up with older people’s habits…”

Girl In A Band (Kim Gordon, 2015)

Sonic Youth were never a band to shy away from unpleasantries in their dogged pursuit of beauty and authenticity. Fittingly, bassist Kim Gordon’s chronicle of her break-up with guitarist Thurston Moore and the dissolution of their seminal indie-rock outfit isn’t just a tale of heartbreak; it’s one of the sporadic mundanity, unpredictability and seat-of-your-pants adventure of holding a prime seat on the alt.rock roundabout for the best part of three decades. Girl In A Band proves itself essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the New York noiseniks – or the scene they helped define.

Hammer Of The Gods (Stephen Davis, 1985)

Another of the classics. It’s probably not that difficult to write a rollicking recount of one band’s tumultuous journey when that band is Led bloody Zeppelin . From quaaludes to bathtubs full of baked beans to the extremely questionable use of one taxidermied shark, many of the anecdotes here have slipped into rock’n’roll folklore, but that takes little from the experience of finding them compiled into this singular volume. It's best not to spoil them too much further here. Let’s just say this is another must-read addition, for rockers or anyone else with a heartbeat…

This Is A Call: The Life And Times Of Dave Grohl (Paul Brannigan, 2011)

It can be difficult, at times, to get a real sense of what goes on under the surface with The Nicest Man In Rock™. K!’s own Paul Brannigan charts his fascinating story with a dextrous grip on the evolving scenes through which Dave Grohl has endured and a spectacular sense of the adventure he’s experienced along the way. From the kid from the D.C. suburbs who dropped out of school to go on tour with Scream, to the sticksman catapulted to superstardom with Nirvana , to the iconic Foo Fighters frontman called upon to play for the Obamas on the White House lawn, few lives share the rollercoaster momentum of Dave’s.

Slash (Slash, 2007)

Most rock bios are about the gritty build and the glitzy payoff. Safe to say, the Slash bio is virtually all payoff. Born Saul Hudson in England in 1965 to a white British graphic artist father and a black American costume designer mother, Slash’s story was never going to be that of your garden variety guitarist. Growing up in Los Angeles’ ’70s bohemia, his mum dated David Bowie, hung out with Joni Mitchell and taught the youngster that “being a rock star is [about finding] the intersection between who you are and who you want to be”. As the story of Guns N’ Roses’ meteoric rise and incendiary fall-out (their latter-day reconciliation is not part of this 2007 volume) unfold, they seem like simply the logical narrative developments of one of music’s most dramatic life stories.

Lords Of Chaos (Michael Moynihan, 1998)

Before you see the movie, read the book. As feels inevitable for any volume skewering the adolescent, corpse-painted pomposity of the ’90s Norwegian black metal scene – and laying bare the narcissistic inhumanity of the suicide, church burnings and murders that followed in its wake – the accuracy of Michael Moynihan’s Lords Of Chaos has been called into question by many of those involved at the time. Regardless, this is a fascinating trip into metal’s most evil sub-genre, and a chilling reminder of what can happen when the lines blur between trve cvlt theatre and stark reality. Special mention to Dayal Patterson’s Evolution Of The Cult (2013) and The Cult Never Dies (2015) for further deconstructing the scene’s horrifically compelling progression, too.

Heavier Than Heaven (Charles R. Cross, 2001)

Much (perhaps too much ) has been written about the life and death of Kurt Cobain . This first (arguably definitive) long-form retelling of his life story does spectacularly well to disperse the rumour that hangs around an individual who was, at his core, a musically prodigious slacker from the lower-middle-class of North Seattle. Even better, it charts Nirvana’s explosion of incredible cross-cultural success – one that, we should remember, lasted a fleeting three years – with a remarkable blend of cool analysis and awe. It’s in a chilling final forensic analysis of Kurt’s self-destructive streak, though, that Heavier Than Heaven comes into its own: daring the reader to put aside music and mythos to pass judgement on the individual in the harsh light of the bare facts.

Smash: Green Day, The Offspring, Bad Religion, NOFX And The ’90s Punk Explosion (Ian Winwood, 2018)

It’s strange how the story of ’90s skate-punk has been distorted through the retrospective lens of the last two-and-a-bit decades: its lineage conflated and confused with that of the pop-punk genre it helped inspire. Veteran K! contributor Ian Winwood’s book shatters those perceptions, transporting us back to the poverty, addiction and unhinged chaos of the era that spawned so many of our favourite bands. Finding The Offspring guitarist Noodles working as a janitor, Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong living in a Salvation army shelter and Green Day maestro Billie Joe Armstrong infested with body lice during a debut European tour, it’s a fascinating look at the underground grit and shit before the platinum-rated sheen that followed.

Get In The Van: On The Road With Black Flag (Henry Rollins, 1994)

Something of a gritty yin to The Dirt’s glamorous yang, Get In The Van is a superb, zero-bullshit diary of life on the road with LA hardcore legends Black Flag . Fronting the band between 1981 and 1986, punk’s storyteller supreme Henry Rollins had a drivers-seat view of the violence, squalor and sheer chaos of hardcore’s early days. From roadies forced into eating dog food to hard-nut cops to borderline psychotic fans, it’s a dirt-beneath-the-fingernails classic unafraid to show the bleak underbelly of life in a touring band – albeit one with an ultimately triumphant arc. Any fledgling rock star wannabes out for fame and fortune should really stop to read this first…

Dark Days: A Memoir (D. Randall Blythe, 2015)

On May 4, 2010, in the Abaton club in Prague, during a concert by Virginian metal legends Lamb Of God , 19-year-old fan Daniel Nosek sustained injuries to his head. Over the weeks that followed, he would slip into a coma and pass away. Although, following his initial release on bail, legal counsel advised against returning to the Czech Republic to face trial, frontman Randy Blythe insisted he "could not run away from this problem while the grieving family of a dead young man searched hopelessly for answers that he might help provide". Those events provide the tragic backdrop for the singer’s stunningly frank account of the dark days (and months) that followed his indictment on manslaughter charges and incarceration in a Czech prison. Even years since Randy’s release, it’s a story that delivers gut-churning jailhouse anecdotes, tales of galvanising camaraderie and an ultimate redemption that even the most optimistic dramatist might’ve struggled to conjure up.

Metallica: Enter Night (Mick Wall, 2010)

It’d be unreasonable to compile a list of great rock biographies without including at least one on the biggest metal band in the world . Tracking a path from the thrash kings’ spandex-clad genesis to their coronation as globe-straddling, genre-transcending megastars, this packs in all the drugs, booze and drama any self-respecting fan would expect. From early acrimony with Dave Mustaine through the devastating loss of Cliff Burton to the callous early treatment and furious departure of Jason Newstead, all the personal drama is captured. As are the band’s mid-’90s creative swerves, the (ever-more hilariously redundant) Napster fiasco and the cringing in-studio therapy that formed the basis of seminal rock-doc Some Kind Of Monster. Crucially, though, Enter Night perfectly charts the band’s place in the rock and metal scene forever evolving around them.

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Biographies About Rock Stars & Punk Rebels Electrifying guitarists, dazzling drummers, smokin’ lead singers, daring indie artists— famous or infamous, these musicians have thrilling life and tour stories to tell.

Born to Run

• By: Bruce Springsteen
• Narrated by: Bruce Springsteen
• Length: 18 hrs and 12 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 10,603
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 9,725
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 9,678

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it....

• 5 out of 5 stars

Me Springsteen's book moved me beyond words...

• By Ellen O'Brien on 12-12-16
• Release date: 12-06-16
• Language: English
• 5 out of 5 stars 10,603 ratings

• By: Keith Richards, James Fox
• Narrated by: Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley
• Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 5,671
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,175
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,162

Now at last, Keith Richards pauses to tell his story in the most anticipated autobiography in decades....

Ins and outs

• By Jesse on 11-07-10
• By: Keith Richards , James Fox
• Narrated by: Johnny Depp , Joe Hurley
• Release date: 10-26-10
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 5,671 ratings

Scar Tissue

• By: Anthony Kiedis, Larry Sloman
• Narrated by: Rider Strong
• Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,543
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,868
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,882

As lead singer and songwriter for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony Kiedis has lived life on the razor's edge....

• 3 out of 5 stars

Not A Favorite

• By The Kruels on 08-16-11
• By: Anthony Kiedis , Larry Sloman
• Release date: 05-01-12
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,543 ratings

Punk Rock Blitzkrieg

• My Life as a Ramone
• By: Rich Herschlag, Marky Ramone
• Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
• Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 286
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 266
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 266

Having outlived his bandmates, Marky is the only person who can share the secrets and stories of the Ramones' improbable rise from obtuse beginnings....

Dedicated Punk Fans Must Read

• By Leostriple on 03-26-15
• By: Rich Herschlag , Marky Ramone
• Release date: 01-14-15
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 286 ratings

A Dream About Lightning Bugs

• A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons
• By: Ben Folds
• Narrated by: Ben Folds
• Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 808
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 738
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 735

Ben Folds is a celebrated American singer-songwriter, beloved for songs such as "Brick", "You Don’t Know Me", "Rockin’ the Suburbs", and "The Luckiest", and is the former frontman of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five....

I wanted to like this more than I did.

• By R on 10-02-19
• Release date: 07-30-19
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 808 ratings

• Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
• By: Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, and others
• Narrated by: Sebastian York, Roger Wayne, Fred Berman, and others
• Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 3,775
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 3,298
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 3,277

Celebrate over 30 years of the world's most notorious rock band with the audiobook edition of The Dirt - the outrageous, legendary, no-holds-barred autobiography of Mötley Crüe....

1000x more detail than the movie

• By C. K. Lyons on 06-27-19
• By: Tommy Lee , Vince Neil , Nikki Sixx , Mick Mars
• Narrated by: Sebastian York , Roger Wayne , Fred Berman , MacLeod Andrews , Hillary Huber
• Release date: 06-25-19
• 5 out of 5 stars 3,775 ratings

The Wild Heart of Stevie Nicks

• By: Rob Sheffield
• Narrated by: Rob Sheffield
• Length: 2 hrs and 43 mins
• Original Recording
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 7,218
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 6,410
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 6,403

Best-selling author and Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield takes you on a full-throttle ride with the bona-fide rock goddess who has ruled the rock scene for five decades .... 

• 2 out of 5 stars

A bad recap of Rolling Stone interviews

• By kristen mukai on 05-08-19
• Release date: 05-02-19
• 4 out of 5 stars 7,218 ratings

Gold Dust Woman

• The Biography of Stevie Nicks
• By: Stephen Davis
• Narrated by: Christina Delaine
• Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,255
• Performance 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,075
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,075

Nicks' work and life are equally sexy and interesting, and Davis delves deeply into each, unearthing fresh details from new, intimate interviews....

Disappointed

• By Amazon Customer on 12-22-17
• Release date: 11-21-17
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,255 ratings

Acid for the Children

• Narrated by: Flea
• Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,202
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 3,698
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,682

Iconic bassist and co-founder of the immortal Red Hot Chili Peppers finally tells his fascinating life story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you'd expect from an LA street rat turned world-famous rock star....

Flea gets it right...

• By Anonymous User on 11-15-19
• Release date: 11-09-19
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 4,202 ratings

• My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead
• By: Bill Kreutzmann, Benjy Eisen
• Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
• Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 554
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 493
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 491

On their 50th anniversary comes a groundbreaking rock-and-roll memoir by one of the founding members of the Grateful Dead....

Decent but not great

• By Monty S on 03-02-16
• By: Bill Kreutzmann , Benjy Eisen
• Release date: 06-22-15
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 554 ratings

Lips Unsealed

• By: Belinda Carlisle
• Narrated by: Belinda Carlisle
• Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 252
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 213
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 210

The women of the iconic '80s band the Go-Go’s will always be remembered as they appeared on the back of their debut record....

• By Kathleen on 04-18-17
• Release date: 06-01-10
• 4 out of 5 stars 252 ratings

Dancing with Myself

• By: Billy Idol
• Narrated by: Billy Idol
• Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 914
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 822
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 816

Billy Idol delivers an electric, searingly honest account of his journey to fame....

• 4 out of 5 stars

Brutally Honest

• By Katana Rogue on 01-25-16
• Release date: 09-29-15
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 914 ratings

Don't Stop Believin'

• By: Olivia Newton-John
• Narrated by: Olivia Newton-John
• Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 784
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 708
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 705

With humor and warmth, legendary musician, actress, activist, and icon Olivia Newton-John shares her fascinating life story - from her unforgettable rise to fame in the classic musical Grease to her passionate advocacy for health in light of her battles with cancer....

An Inspiring story from an Amazing woman

• By Goldustgirl on 03-16-19
• Release date: 03-12-19
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 784 ratings

Backstage Pass

• By: Paul Stanley
• Narrated by: Sean Pratt
• Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
• Overall 4 out of 5 stars 161
• Performance 4 out of 5 stars 143
• Story 4 out of 5 stars 141

The New York Times best-selling author and front man and rhythm guitarist of Kiss grants fans an all-access backstage pass to his personal life and shows them how to pursue a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of their own, offering hard-won advice from a music legend....

• 1 out of 5 stars
• By Kevin Wilson on 05-09-19
• Release date: 04-30-19
• 4 out of 5 stars 161 ratings

Face the Music

• A Life Exposed
• Narrated by: Paul Stanley
• Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 2,197
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 2,012
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 2,002

Face the Music is the shocking, funny, smart, inspirational story of one of rock’s most enduring icons and the group he helped create, define, and immortalize....

Part 6 Could Stand Strongly on Its Own Content

• By J. York on 04-27-14
• Release date: 04-08-14
• 5 out of 5 stars 2,197 ratings

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite

• By: Roger Daltrey
• Narrated by: Roger Daltrey
• Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 863
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 773
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 764

Amidst all the music and mayhem, the drugs, the premature deaths, the ruined hotel rooms, Roger Daltrey is our perfect narrator, remaining sober (relatively) and observant and determined to make The Who bigger. Not only his personal story, this is the definitive biography of The Who....

Wonderful storytelling

• By Martin B. Forstner on 11-08-18
• Release date: 10-23-18
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 863 ratings

This Is Gonna Hurt

• Music, Photography, and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx
• By: Nikki Sixx
• Narrated by: Nikki Sixx
• Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 727
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 631
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 628

It's all Nikki Sixx. This is a collection of compelling photography and stories that capture the rage, love, optimism, darkness, and determination that shape his work....

MUST HAVE!!

• By Yvonne on 05-28-11
• Release date: 05-03-11
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 727 ratings

The Heroin Diaries: 10 Year Anniversary Edition

• A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star
• Narrated by: Nikki Sixx, Sophie Kargman, Ross Marquand
• Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
• Overall 5 out of 5 stars 4,745
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 4,211
• Story 5 out of 5 stars 4,196

In honor of the 10-year anniversary of The Heroin Diaries, Nikki Sixx’s definitive and bestselling memoir on drug addiction is now available on audio for the first time, read by Nikki Sixx....

Sixx Review

• By Anonymous User on 02-12-20
• Narrated by: Nikki Sixx , Sophie Kargman , Ross Marquand
• Release date: 10-24-17
• 5 out of 5 stars 4,745 ratings

18 and Life on Skid Row

• By: Sebastian Bach
• Narrated by: Sebastian Bach
• Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
• Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,405
• Performance 5 out of 5 stars 1,277
• Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,270

Throughout his career, Sebastian Bach has sold over 20 million records both as the lead singer of Skid Row and as a solo artist....

Like Sebastian Bach?? BUY THIS NOW!

• By Sebastian on 12-17-16
• 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,405 ratings
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From Madonna to Barbra Streisand, it was the year music took over books

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Maybe it was the continued rude health of indie bookstores in 2023, or perhaps a millennial fascination with the pop antiquities of the pre-smartphone era. Or maybe it’s just Mom and Dad Rockers desperate to reel in the years with the gods of their youth . For whatever reason, this year has turned out to be a banner publishing moment for musical giants who until now have not been graced with the full-dress books they deserve — some rigorously researched deep dives, other chatty memoirs or anthologies, many of them illuminations of life and art in urban milieus with all their messy interactions.

Our critics and reporters select their favorite TV shows, movies, albums, songs, books, theater, art shows and video games of the year.

Among the ill-served icons getting their propers in print this year is Lou Reed : New York’s leather prince, the street poet who launched at least three musical genres with his band the Velvet Underground , a lodestar for gender fluidity long before anyone else bothered to write songs about LBGTQ+ and the subculture that nurtured it. Before Will Hermes’ riveting biography “ Lou Reed: The King of New York ,” the artist’s biographers have tended to be either mean-spirited or bone-dry, glossing over the rough magic of Reed’s inner life.

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Hermes, a veteran music critic, has written what will surely be the definitive Reed biography for years to come, a complete portrait of this inconstant, erratic genius, the most eloquent voice of the marginalized during the Nixon era. An elegant prose stylist with a sharp critical eye, Hermes appears to have scared up everyone alive whose life intersected with his subject. And he embraces the contradictions of a musical empath who could be heartless and malicious, tender and vulnerable to friends and lovers — a great bully poet much like Reed’s literary hero and mentor, Delmore Schwartz .

Hermes skillfully twines together the many strands of Reed’s singular life — a benumbing suburban childhood, electroshock therapy, heroin addiction and artistic flowering at the feet of Schwartz and the Beats. Providing fresh stories at every turn, he is particularly adept at conjuring the meth-enabled swirl of Andy Warhol’s Factory universe and Reed’s attachment to the Pop artist, his beloved mentor and bête noir. This is the best biography of a composer since Alex Ross’ 2020 book “ Wagnerism .”

One of Reed’s most talented acolytes graced us with a memoir this year. Thurston Moore hit New York as a 14-year-old Reed fanatic in the late ‘70s, right before his idol’s old, weird downtown was forever lost and Wall Street money moved in. Into this liminal space emerged the squalling, post-punk deconstructions of the No Wave movement : saxophonist James Chance and his Contortions, singer-poet Lydia Lunch and, most crucially for Moore, composer Glenn Branca , whose ear-bleed guitar symphonies alerted the Connecticut native to the beauty of Loud. He would harness that volume with his avant-rock band Sonic Youth for 30 years. Moore has a lot of great stories to tell, and he does so engagingly in “ Sonic Life ,” the tale of a record collector geek made good, a seeker after new sounds who in turn became a key architect of experimental rock in the two decades that followed.

In “Sonic Life” Moore, a suburban outcast like Reed, becomes a pilgrim in search of transcendence through noise and muscles his way into an East Village tempest of brash risk-taking. He meets future bandmates Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo . Sonic Youth pulls the throttle all the way out: Moore threads drumsticks into his guitar strings, Ranaldo utilizes an electric drill onstage, Gordon barks out her bold feminist anthems on the seductions of consumer-driven desire. Moore has set it all down, and his book is an engaging memory piece through a golden era of busted toilets and secondhand smoke that now seems as distant as Montparnasse in the 1920s. If you’re looking for juicy bits about Moore and his ex-wife Gordon , you mercifully won’t find it here. He keeps that part of his private life to himself.

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Winning the box office, playing record-setting concert tours, rallying striking unions, shaking up TV: Women ruled pop culture in 2023.

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While Sonic Youth was cultivating a following on the margins, another downtown scenester was hitting dance clubs like Paradise Garage and Danceteria with designs on something bigger. As a young Michigan exile, Madonna Ciccone found her people in these spaces, and when she insisted DJs spin her record “Everybody,” the fuse was lit. Mary Gabriel’s comprehensive biography “ Madonna: A Rebel Life ” can be read as the uptown analogue to “Sonic Life,” as this force of nature quickly outgrows New York clubland and in a few short years enters the pop icon pantheon.

Gabriel has done her homework, giving equal weight to Madonna’s private and public selves in a sprawling survey that offers a strong argument for Madonna as a sound-and-vision innovator every bit as crucial as David Bowie . But you have to really care about her relationships with Sean Penn and Warren Beatty to get there.

Decades before Madonna lit up the New York night, Ella Fitzgerald had audiences standing on their seats at the Savoy Ballroom as the singer for Chick Webb’s swing band, a powerhouse vocalist who had to overcome her “pretty plain looks” before she became the 20th century’s tower of song. In her excellent biography “ Becoming Ella Fitzgerald ,” Judith Tick makes a compelling case for Fitzgerald as a modernist innovator. Promoters and managers told her to stick to one marketable sound, but that wasn’t an option, as Fitzgerald contained multitudes: novelty songs (her self-penned 1938 hit “A Tisket-a-tasket” put her on the map); classic recordings of the Great American Songbook; and the expertly knotty ululations of her scat singing in the bebop era — a genre in which Fitzgerald became the acknowledged master.

Twenty-eight years after Fitzgerald recorded her 1945 hit “ Flying Home ,” a record that placed scat singing front and center in popular music, Sly Stone was recording his own half-whispered version of scat live in a Sausalito studio. It would become the vamp-out to 1973’s “If You Want Me to Stay,” the last big hit for Sly and his band, the Family Stone.

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Alex Edelman’s ‘Just for Us,’ the genius of Stephen Sondheim and a Tony Award for the Pasadena Playhouse were among the highlights of Los Angeles theater in 2023.

Stone fans have been waiting a long time for the reclusive singer to finally break his silence about his life and career. While his memoir “ Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) ” offers up its share of gonzo tales involving drugs, guns and pet baboons, the erstwhile superstar, 80, provides only tantalizing crumbs of real insight into his messy life. Still, there are some ripping anecdotes (baboons!), and origin stories behind “Stand!,” “Everyday People” and Stone’s other funky one-world anthems.

Perhaps Stone surmised that it’s best to keep his mystique alive, as opposed to expounding on his life at great length in the fashion of Barbra Streisand ’s “ My Name is Barbra .” Alas, no one has ever told this to the countless fanboys (yes, they are almost always boys) and academics who continue to write books about Bob Dylan , coming at the Nobel laureate from every conceivable angle. And yet, somehow, this year has brought something entirely new: A lavish, glossy scrapbook with material provided by Dylan himself.

“ Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine ” is a stunning visual trip through the artist’s life and art as revealed via Dylan’s own ephemera and Zimmerman-adjacent mementos from friends and musicians. Published in conjunction with the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Okla., this immaculately designed coffee-table confection also features a collection of informative essays from Lucy Sante , Greil Marcus , Ed Ruscha and others. They provide context for what we’re seeing, which is quite a bit — grade school class photos, Dylan’s notebooks, manuscripts and legal pads and, yes, even photos that this Dylan freak has never seen before.

18 best nonfiction books for fans of Madonna, memoirs or cultural histories

2023 is the year of the star-studded gift book, with memoirs and biographies covering rockers, auteurs, poets, controversial executives and, yes, Julia Fox.

Nov. 1, 2023

Which reinforces a couple of valuable lessons from this year’s joyful glut of music tell-alls. First: While they’re no substitute for the brilliantly written, category-killing, milieu-rich biography, no format is inherently better or worse at delivering the goods. And second: There’s always something new under the sun.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and The Real Chinatown.”

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Music & Drama » Music » Rock

The best books on rock music, recommended by peter lawlor.

Successful musicians don't necessarily need formal training or 10,000 hours of practice under their belt; what they must have is a feel for music, an innate gift. But many of rock's brightest burning stars were lost to drugs. Here, Peter Lawlor —who combined a career as a senior economic advisor with that of an award-winning songwriter, producer and record label executive—selects five of the best books on rock music, focusing on revelatory biographies that peer behind the veil.

Interview by Nigel Warburton

Nico: The End by James Young

To Hell and Back: My Life in Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers by Walter Lure

The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren: The Biography by Paul Gorman

Life: Keith Richards by Keith Richards

Girl in a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

1 Nico: The End by James Young

2 to hell and back: my life in johnny thunders' heartbreakers by walter lure, 3 the life & times of malcolm mclaren: the biography by paul gorman, 4 life: keith richards by keith richards, 5 girl in a band: a memoir by kim gordon.

C ould you say something about your relationship with music? You’re now an economic advisor. It might not be obvious to people who know you in that role why you are selecting books on rock and roll.

However, when I was over there, my dad died, and I had to come back to look after my mother. I carried on working for Salomon in London for a while, but it was impossible to concentrate. So I thought, I know: I’ll start a production company based around a high-end recording studio.

“I see a very strong analogy between the philosophy of science and certain aspects of music”

I was a kid. I was 24 and I didn’t know what I was doing. The first few years were very bleak. It was, at best, a hand-to-mouth existence. Fortunately for me, it started to go well, and then really took off. I ended up owning a record label which in 1994 had the third highest turnover of any UK label. I then sold various IP assets to Virgin and Warners but carried on working in the business. I wrote or produced for Adam and the Ants, Hamish Stuart and Blair Cunningham from Paul McCartney’s band, Viv Stanshall, Squeeze… loads of others. I worked with Sir George Martin, and in a live capacity, I also got to work with Robert Plant, Tom Jones, Paul Weller and many others.

My production company also did a lot of film and TV music, and we gradually built up an amazing roster of composers including Barrington Pheloung (who wrote the Inspector Morse theme); Robert Lockhart ( Distant Voices, Still Lives ), Mark Russell ( Cold Feet ), Mark’s brother Simon ( The 911 Faker ), and Alex Heffes ( Last King of Scotland  and Mandela: Long Road to Freedom ). I co-wrote with the guys or just produced and engineered their stuff. I personally wrote things like the main BBC 1 idents; the worldwide Premier League theme, the World Service; and the BBC Olympic Games theme. We also did a ton of high-end commercials, up to eleven a week, including five Levis commercials over the years. The song I wrote from one of these, ‘Inside’ , got to number one in the British charts. I’d put a fake band around that and the subsequent album—which I had to write and record very quickly—turned out to be the highest-selling British album in the world that year.

And this is not just as a producer; you were fully involved as a composer and a musician as well.

On ‘Inside’? Yes, I wrote and played everything on the track. I didn’t do the lead vocals, that was a guy that came to us through an ad in Melody Maker , and of course, I hired a choir, the Ambrosian Choir, to sing the opening section.

It’s almost as if you’ve had two careers.

I guess so. I never stopped reading and thinking about economics and I’d kept in touch with friends in the City. I gave informal economic advice to people I knew; pretty informal meetings with friends at places such as Goldman or UBS. These began to solidify and gradually become more formal. There were a few job offers, and finally, I was offered the position of chief economist at the German Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse, which was too much of a big deal to say no to. So off I went.

I had to let the music slide for a few years because Deutsche Börse was so full-on. I was in Frankfurt a lot. But then I left the German stock exchange and am currently in the process of resurrecting the label.

Are these two activities completely distinct? Or is there some kind of symmetry in what you are doing?

A superb philosopher’s question! I think there are many parallels and a great deal of symbiosis. For one thing, being in the deep end of the music business provides a magnifying glass on human behaviour—you see all sorts of strange behaviour—and that can be very translatable to economics. Secondly, I’ve always been very interested in the philosophy of science . I’d go so far as to say an economist without a solid grounding in the philosophy of science is at sea; liable to fall into all sorts of traps.

Anyway, I see a very strong analogy between the philosophy of science and certain aspects of music. For example: take a simple, say, four-note melody. Is it any good? Well, that depends on the chord sequence behind it. I see that as a precise analogue for the relationship between data and theory; theory without data is empty, and data without theory is meaningless.

And there are also similarities in such things as ‘underdetermination’, or in the process of seeing things through paradigms… that’s second nature to people in music. The paradigm thing—if you’re working with, say, a musician who’s only worked in classical music, they’re probably going to get rock very wrong, and vice-versa. That’s because the genre you work in actually comes to determine the way you hear music; it determines the rules for what sounds good. This is precisely equivalent to the way a prior theory determines what data count as evidence. This kind of thing is second nature to a lot of people in music. Whereas if you’re not in music, it can be counter-intuitive. It takes a lot of intellectual heavy lifting to free yourself from misconceptions such as the idea that ‘evidence’ is an objective category, theory-free category, which of course it isn’t.

At a simpler level, there’s an obsession with form, an obsession with patterns.

Let’s get to your five rock book choices. Your first is a book about Nico by James Young, Nico: the End.  Could you start by saying briefly who Nico was?

Nico was a very successful German model. She was a feature in the Andy Warhol Factory scene, and then Warhol put her in the Velvet Underground. Which was a strange move, and perhaps not altogether successful. However, John Cale, who I think it’s safe to say was the musical brains of the Underground, made some absolutely magnificent albums with her. If you don’t know The Marble Index , I recommend it, it’s an absolute masterpiece. Nico was without musical training but I think she had an extraordinary musical gift; I reject that ‘all you have to do to be good is to practice for 10,000 hours’ idea, it couldn’t be more wrong.

You think that some people have it and some people don’t?

Just like, say, athletics. I mean, you have to work at it too. But if the musical gift isn’t there, it makes no difference how hard you work.

We used to be inundated with tapes from hopefuls. Sadly the overwhelming majority weren’t any good at all. I eventually came to the conclusion that the kindest thing to say was: ‘don’t sacrifice your life to this.’ It’s a harsh thing to say, but it can save people. I know people well into their fifties who are still chasing the musical dream, it’s tragic.

However, you have to be very careful, because you’re playing with people’s identities and as the all too familiar story of Dick Rowe warns us, we may be convinced that a band or a piece of music has no potential and be absolutely wrong . Dick Rowe, for anyone who doesn’t know, was the guy at Decca who in 1962 turned down The Beatles with the phrase that haunted him for the rest of his life: “Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr Epstein.”

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Yet it’s bizarrely common to come across people who think they’ve done something incredible, when they’ve just come up with a straightforward three-chord sequence. They genuinely think they’ve revolutionised music. A tragi-comic case was a guy who signed to our label. He went on to do quite high-profile stuff, so I’m not going to say who it was, but he came to me with his new song. This song had the melody from Duran Duran’s song ‘Ordinary Day’. He’d even chosen an almost identical title for ‘his’ song. The extraordinary thing was that he genuinely wasn’t aware. He’d somehow managed to fool himself. Very strange.

Let’s get back to Nico.

One of the guiding principles I set myself for these recommendations was that you don’t have to be a fan of the artist in order to find the book interesting. I say that now because Nico’s music isn’t to everyone’s taste. Anyway, the book was written by a guy called James Young; a member of Nico’s band. I was introduced to James at a party in the 1990s by my much-missed friend Robert Sandall. At the time I’d only vaguely heard of Nico really. But Robert told me it was an incredible book, so I got it and he was correct, it’s quite brilliant. It is, it has to be said, very dark. James manages to place the reader in the middle of the visceral squalor that surrounds heroin addiction. It’s not an easy read, but it’s brilliantly written and fascinating.

It covers the extreme trials of touring with Nico. There are lots of colourful characters, and then he covers the making of the album. Unfortunately, in my view, the album, Camera Obscura, isn’t all that great. It suffers from being made in 1985! Whereas the earlier albums were made with real instruments, this one relies on the then fashionable DX7 synth. At the time everyone thought… and I include myself in this… that it was the most amazing thing. But its sounds dated very quickly. Sound dates faster than humour.

But this book isn’t about Nico at her height. It’s about the decline, her final year.

Yes, it’s the period leading up to her death.

It was written after her death?

Is it a book she would have been pleased to see?

I don’t think anything pleased her very much. A junkie’s personality is gradually subsumed by their habit; eventually, they pretty much become a zombie; caring about nothing except for their next hit.

Nico had a pretty tough early life. Born just before the second world war, her father was in the German army but somehow fell from grace and, according to some accounts, was sent to a concentration camp where he was shot. Post-war Germany was a very difficult place to be. She was abused, and in her teens, raped by an American soldier. There’s a story that Nico had to give evidence at the soldier’s court martial, a court martial which led to his execution. However, as is so often the case in Nico’s life, it’s extremely difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Regardless, when you hear the early albums she did with Cale you realise she had real talent. As you say, the book is about decline, it’s about decadence, it’s about the tedium of being on tour. Being on tour, by the way, is extraordinarily tedious. If you want to know what being on tour is like, go and sit in an airport for three hours every day for three months: that’s what it’s like. I think that’s why it so often leads to drugs; people are very, very bored.

Your next book choice is Walter Lure’s To Hell and Back .

I’m a big fan of this one. Walter was one of Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers. Do you know anything about that band? They emerged from the ashes of the legendary New York Dolls. For a brief period, Malcolm McLaren was the Dolls’ manager. It was the first band he’d ever managed, so he was very much learning on the job and, naturally enough, made some terrible mistakes. Anyway, the Dolls had a troubled history, during their first UK tour in 1972, their 21-year-old drummer, Billy Murcia, died at a party in Hammersmith. He is ‘Billy Dolls’ in Bowie’s song ‘Time’ by the way. Billy was replaced by Jerry Nolan, and it was Jerry that introduced the band to Heroin. Nolan and the band’s guitarist Johnny Thunders became inseparable friends and when the Dolls imploded in 1975, Nolan and Thunders teamed up with Richard Hell from the band Television, and our hero Walter to form an underground supergroup: The Heartbreakers. By the way, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers has nothing to do with this Heartbreakers.

“If you want to know what being on tour is like, go and sit in an airport for three hours every day for three months”

Walter played the guitar and sang. In the autumn of 1976, The Heartbreakers came over to the UK to take part in the infamous Anarchy tour—together with the Sex Pistols, The Damned, and The Clash.

In the book, Walter gives us a great account of arriving at Heathrow and being met by a desperate Malcolm McLaren a matter of hours after the Bill Grundy Today show, the notorious television interview with The Sex Pistols.

That was the show that generated all the publicity wasn’t it?

Precisely so. Grundy was an old-school broadcaster, and he really didn’t want this bunch of urchins on his show. The truth of it is that it really wasn’t the right show for the band to be on from any perspective. Getting the band on the show shouldn’t have worked at all…it was an example of McLaren’s naive cluelessness. Anyway, Grundy seemed to be very drunk and continually goaded the band. At one point, and very much under his breath, John Lydon (AKA Johnny Rotten) said in response to a question: ‘That’s their tough shit’. This would have gone completely unnoticed had not Grundy drawn attention to it—remember, this was live television— Looking at Rotten, Grundy asked “What did you say?” Rotten was clearly embarrassed and said ‘Nothing, a rude word.’ and tried to move on, but Grundy was having none of it and said: “What was the rude word?” to which Johnny, looking like a naughty schoolboy, was forced to say ‘shit’ directly into camera. Then Siouxsie Sioux started to flirt with Grundy, who flirted back. Now, the impossible to intimidate Steve Jones looked at Grundy and said “You dirty fucker.”

All this made the headlines, not just the next day but for about two weeks. Overnight the Sex Pistols were transformed from an up and coming underground band into the most famous band in the country.

Now, here’s where Walter Lure’s account is interesting. Malcolm McLaren, who we’re going to get onto later, always made out that he’d set the whole thing up; that it had all gone to plan; the brilliant work of a great PR mastermind, i.e. him.

He was the kind of guy who wanted to take credit where it wasn’t due?

As we shall see. Walter tells us that when the Heartbreakers arrived at Heathrow, McLaren was a babbling wreck. He kept saying, ‘They’ve ruined everything, they’ve ruined their chances.’ It was only some time during the following day that Malcolm saw the negative publicity as an opportunity. What he was in fact was a great post-rationaliser!

Returning to the Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders is worth knowing about. In the Punk pantheon, Thunders has a Lennon-like stature. He was the star of the scene. He must have had an incredible personal magnetism, but I don’t think that really comes across on film. People used to say he was a great guitar player… he really wasn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination. The Heartbreaker’s music was pretty shambolic and their one and only studio album, L.A.M.F. was poorly recorded but very influential nevertheless.

By the way, a couple of years later, the chaos which always surrounded Thunders turned the sessions for his solo album, So Alone , into such a drug-fuelled mess that Peter Perrett, at the time a man famously deep in the throes of heroin addiction, was considered to be the most together person present. However, on that album is a classic track, ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.’ That’s an amazing song.

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Walter and The Heartbreakers stayed in the UK for about two years. They kind of got stuck here. Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan both had terrible, long-standing smack habits. Shockingly, when Walter first joined the band his induction ritual was to be shot up by Jerry. He’d never taken heroin before, but now, he too became a junkie and the band moved into a squalid basement flat in Pimlico getting off their faces all day and playing gigs at night. They were in the position of being extraordinarily famous in the underground but making very little money.

For most of the band, the endgame was always inevitable: Johnny Thunders limped on through a heroin haze until April 1991, when he died in slightly mysterious circumstances in New Orleans. A few months later, Jerry too was dead. Walter, on the other hand, managed to get off the smack. So it’s a redemption story, the complete opposite of Nico. What happened next is quite extraordinary: Walter got a job on Wall Street and ended up running a corporate brokerage. A very articulate guy, very self-effacing. Unfortunately, he died last year. I never met Walter, I wish I had.

This book is really something because of that redemption story. It’s fantastic. It’s very well written and the way he managed to turn his life around makes it very uplifting.

It’s quite surprising. There isn’t usually redemption in these rock stories, sadly.

No. Heroin is a dangerous thing to touch. Sid Vicious was 21 when he died. Nancy was only 20. I think people forget they were just kids.

In that case, they did seem to be heading that way. It doesn’t look like they were looking to live to 70.

Let’s move onto the third rock music book you’ve chosen to highlight. Paul Gorman’s biography The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren.

Malcolm was someone I knew. What I would say about Malcolm is that he was absolutely mesmerising company. Mesmerising. He was an extraordinary storyteller, who would draw you in. It was like being around the campfire with an elder telling stories: first-hand accounts of an extraordinary life.

His upbringing was disturbed and disturbing. He was an art student and somehow seems to have played a major role in the LSE riots in the late 1960s. He then moved into the fashion trade. He had a shop on the King’s Road, the name and identity of which changed multiple times: Let it Rock; Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die; Sex (which is where the name Sex Pistols came from); Seditionaries; and then World’s End.

Malcolm’s founding idea for the Pistols was straightforward and simple: he wanted to do a sort of Bay City Rollers, but with cooler clothes. You remember the Bay City Rollers? Shang-a-Lang, Bye Bye Baby? The band wore a sort of uniform; shortened trousers, caps, lots of tartan … and their legions of fans dressed in the same gear, tartan clothing became very big business. That’s what impressed Malcolm most. The Rollers had great pop songs. I wonder if you’re aware that Dee Dee Ramone was a big fan of the Rollers? He based the “Hey-Ho, Let’s Go” thing in Blitzkrieg Bop on the Roller’s song Saturday Night… but Malcolm had no real interest in the music. For him, image was paramount, image led to sales. He wanted to create a cool version of The Rollers. The idea being that he and his partner, Vivienne Westwood would style the band in order to drive sales of the clothes they designed.

Malcolm’s shop was a social hub…it’s where he first met the New York Dolls. Lots of people were hanging out there. Steve Jones, Paul Cook were always going there. Steve, of course, was trying to steal things, a self-confessed kleptomaniac. Glen Matlock was given a job as a Saturday boy at the shop. The three Johns: Lydon, Beverley (Sid Vicious), and Wardle (Jah Wobble) were a fixture. Chrissie Hynde was always there too. My buddy Marco Pirroni was a regular. It became an extraordinary meeting point for people and of course, it was from this crowd that Malcolm put the band together.

“Malcolm McLaren had no real interest in the music. For him, image was paramount, image led to sales”

So, Malcolm’s idea was to get a band together that would act as a vehicle to sell his clothes. But by one of those strange quirks of fate, the band turned out to be fantastic. You know, I don’t think Malcolm was ever able to understand that. I think he went to his grave thinking they couldn’t really play, but Steve was, and is, a great guitar player, Johnny is a superb lyricist and one of the best frontmen in the history of rock. Glen was a really good songwriter. Glen later left to be replaced by Sid Vicious—who looked great but couldn’t play at all. I think it’s fair to say that the Pistols’ days as a proper band ended when Glen left and Sid joined. At that point, they became a cartoon band.

Paul Gorman’s biography is magnificent: Malcolm was many-sided; mercurial. He was an extraordinarily charismatic person, and despite his many flaws, there was something very special about him. Some people have said that Gorman takes McLaren at his own word too much. Maybe, maybe not, but it’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. It’s unputdownable.

Do you get a feeling from Malcolm from it?

I’m not sure you do. I’m not sure you could. With most people, I think we could give a reasonable description of them which would be more or less accurate. With Malcolm, I could only say this is the Malcolm that I came across. Adam Ant always said that Malcolm was a genius, a fountain that sprayed out brilliant ideas. But he had no clue about implementation. He needed someone to enact the ideas for him.

Would you say he was chameleon-like? Or that he had many different facets, regardless of who was in front?

I think he actually became a different person depending upon circumstance. I’d run into Malcolm a few times down the years, but in the late 1990s he came to see us in our studio in Primrose Hill, he wanted to sign to our production company. He and I spent about three hours together, chatting away. So far as I was concerned, he was my new best friend. However, a few days later, I was walking down Erskine Road in Primrose Hill and saw Malcolm coming the other with a friend of mine, the promoter Rob Hallett. I said, “Hello Malcolm.” Rob said, “Oh, do you two know each other?”

Without even looking at me, Malcolm said, “No.” I never knew whether he’d genuinely forgotten me or whether it was because I’d decided not to sign him to my publishing company.

You know what? I’m making myself sound cleverer than I really am. In truth, I would have signed him. I was completely mesmerised by Malcolm, but Tessa—my wife, the managing director of the publishing company and, by the way, a far more sensible person than me—said we’d be crazy to sign him, he was trouble. And she was right. He fell out with everyone he worked with, and he was forever in litigation.

Now, you asked me whether Malcolm was the kind of guy who took credit for other people’s work. I think it’s difficult to avoid that conclusion. Hugh Hudson directed a classic British Airways commercial for which McLaren created a soundtrack, or at least was credited with creating the soundtrack. Remember that big one in about 1989? Really big news. They used a version of the Flower Duet from the Delibes opera Lakmé , but with a backbeat. It was a great success. However, there’s no way in the world that Malcolm could have come up with that arrangement, he simply didn’t have the ability.

After the success of the commercial, Malcolm decided he’d invented a brilliant new musical genre: Opera House. He made or at least was in some way involved in a pretty terrible record of that name. With the awful ‘we love opera house’ chant at the beginning. I’m sure the idea for that chant genuinely was Malcolm’s. Clueless. But the fact is that sometimes cluelessness works because let’s face it, only a clueless person would come up with the idea of creating a cool Bay City Rollers.

Punk didn’t really work in the way Malcolm had hoped. The culture which emerged was very much do-it-yourself. His designs were copied and he didn’t make the grand fortune he’d hoped. And then he made that ridiculous film, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle. But all this illustrates something very important about the music business. It’s what you do with what turns up that defines success or failure, and Malcolm was sometimes very good and dealing with what turned up!

So are you saying he just got lucky, or that he had the touch of genius?

I actually think it’s a touch of genius. With the Pistols, as we were discussing earlier, the Grundy show was the sine qua non of their success. That wasn’t planned. Malcolm used to make out it was a plan, but that simply wasn’t true. According to Malcolm’s original plan, it had gone badly wrong. For some reason, the press picked up on “the Filth and the Fury” and overnight they became the epitome of bad boy rock. Malcolm was clever enough to ride the storm.

If he was trying to recreate the Bay City Rollers, where did the anarchism come from? That was an art school thing, wasn’t it?

Completely. He had some vague understanding of Situationism, but as I say, the core of the idea was nothing more than getting his clothes on a successful band and then selling them by the shedload. That didn’t really work because the punks made their own stuff. And the anarchy talk… well I don’t think anyone really thought about it very deeply. It was just a cool thing to say, and it had a nice symbol that was easy to spray on walls.

Your next rock music book recommendation is Keith Richards’ biography  Life .

Right. This was recommended to me by my old mate, the top drummer Simon Lea. Simon has played with lots of big names, people like Dionne Warwick, Nicole Scherzinger, and… Ronnie Wood. I think it might have been playing with Ronnie that led him to Keith’s book. I’m not a particular Stones fan, but this is great stuff. It’s a big book, a great book. And once again, there are a lot of drugs. Fortunately, Keith managed to get off the smack in the end. It’s an extraordinary story. As was the case with The Beatles, the Stones came from very ordinary backgrounds, and suddenly they’re the coolest people around and everyone wants to know them. They’re suddenly hanging out with the cream of Bohemian aristocratic society and taking it all in their stride. And they managed not to lose themselves; to maintain who they are. I find that extraordinary and impressive.

I say that because, in my experience with the label, it was a very common thing to see someone go on Top of the Pops for the first time and come back thinking they were really important. Did I ever tell you about the guy who sulked with me for months because I wouldn’t ok a taxi from Elstree to Edinburgh? He thought he was way too important for public transport! Apparently, Brian Jones went down that kind of road too. Two TV shows and he became insufferable. But Keith is a person you want to spend time with. He’s not like any person I’ve ever met. There’s the junkie side to him, but there’s a fearlessness—like from another century, he’s like a sort of brigand. The world doesn’t seem able to touch him, he just glides down the sides. His life is extraordinary.

And he is really into the music. He came across a five-string guitar technique—tuning a bottom A, then GDGBD—all the Stones stuff is played that way. And he was very open. He said something really interesting about reggae music—that you can explain a lot of it by the fact that you’ve only got two types of American radio in Jamaica: country music and New Orleans . He said reggae is an exact fusion of country melodies with a New Orleans groove. The guy really knows what he’s doing.

It’s a bizarre story. There are a lot of casualties, a lot of people die. But he really is a pirate. How the hell is he alive? He once stayed up for nine days. Nine days. How? In another story, which I thought was hilarious, he was working in a studio in France. Famously he hardly ever sleeps. Eventually, after a few days, he fell asleep under the mixing desk, and woke up the next day—or probably the next day, he doesn’t know—to see from his vantage point under the mixing desk, lots of legs in the control room. These legs, it turned out, belonged to the Parisian police brass band who were making a charity record.

So, Keith is asleep under the mixing desk with a syringe and heroin paraphernalia. I mean, what do you do? Well, he just wrapped it all up, crawled out and said ‘excuse me gents’ and walked through them and out of the door. There are a lot of laugh out loud incidents here. But there’s terrible tragedy too. He lost a child. It’s quite dark. It’s not redemptive in the way Walter’s story is, but he did at least get off the dope.

With all these books, there’s been an extraordinary character at the centre. Do you need to know the backstory to appreciate the music?

I think maybe you listen more sympathetically when you know what’s going on. But a good song is a good song and a crap song is a crap song, regardless of who wrote it. If John Lennon’s mother hadn’t been killed, would that change the quality of his music? It might have changed what he wrote, I suppose, but I don’t know. You might say something about the immediacy of a singer’s voice: it can communicate all kinds of things about their past.

If you think of someone like Amy Winehouse, you can hear she’s sincere, you don’t have to be told that. But if you have a few more details, it makes it easier to believe that she’s singing from the heart and not from the song sheet.

However, some people sound sincere even when they aren’t. In fact, that’s the mark of a great singer. The late philosopher Roger Scruton loved REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’. As you know, Michael Stipe has a superb voice that always sounds sincere. Everything he sings sounds important and meaningful. Roger really didn’t like pop music, but he loved ‘Losing My Religion’. He mentioned it to me when we were having lunch just over the road there at Quod. I asked: “Do you know what that song’s about Roger?”

The last book on rock music you’ve chosen to recommend is Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band .

Kim was the bass player in Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth were a very innovative band that came out of the New York, ‘No Wave’ scene. In all honesty, Kim Gordon used to slightly annoy me, I always found her a bit humourless and pretentious. She was much older when I was on the scene, she was about 40 when touring with Nirvana. However, I think to her chagrin, she was always very elegant, and very beautiful. She’d try her best to punk herself up but in truth, she always looked like she worked for McKinsey.

Initially, I didn’t get Sonic Youth at all. That was my failing; I was too narrow-minded. Sonic Youth were very innovative, some of their stuff is fantastic. And the story behind all this, the story she tells in her book, is really interesting. The book has changed my opinion of Kim completely.

When she was growing up, she had an older brother who had incipient severe mental health problems. They weren’t understood at the time, but he was a paranoid schizophrenic. He gave her a hard time, a really hard time. She was always trying to prove herself to him. This is the root of why I thought she wanted to be cool at any cost, which I didn’t like. Genuinely cool people don’t care if they’re cool or not, or at least learn to give the impression that they don’t care. But with Kim, it was clear that image was very important. I suspect her art background was probably a factor…

Together with her boyfriend Thurston Moore, she formed Sonic Youth. I think even more than is usually the case, this band and her relationship with Thurston constituted her whole identity. Kim and Thurston had a child and then moved from New York out to the country, where they were treated a bit like they’d arrived from Mars. Kim, of course, knew everyone in the New York scene. Her take on The Heartbreakers was that they were just washed up junkies, that they were useless. Which is probably a lot more accurate than the ‘second coming’ stuff you get on the band.

“The late philosopher Roger Scruton loved REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’”

Anyway, the tragedy came when Kim discovered Thurston had been having an affair, an affair he wasn’t really prepared to end. They separated personally and split the band, and it broke her to pieces. Her entire identity was destroyed. It’s a searingly honest book. She can really write.

The book ends on a reasonably up note: Kim seems to have found herself again, and gone back to the art scene, and there is some happiness there. But the whole setup—from the relationship with the brother, through wanting to be cool, wanting to be less middle class, getting with this ultra-cool band—Kurt was a huge fan of Sonic Youth—and then the whole thing turned out to be unsupported; a house of cards.

It’s a tragic and brutally honest book, but brilliantly, brilliantly written.

April 6, 2022

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Peter Lawlor

Peter Lawlor was the principal economic advisor to the German Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse), and founded the successful UK record label White Water Records. His company Water Music Productions has won many awards including a Bafta, six Cannes Golds and numerous gold and silver discs; its clients have included the English Premier League, the Sydney Olympic Games, the BBC, Levi's Jeans, Vodafone, Coca-Cola and British Airways.

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Dancing with Myself Paperback – September 29, 2015

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• Print length 336 pages
• Language English
• Publication date September 29, 2015
• Dimensions 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 145162851X
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Touchstone; Reprint edition (September 29, 2015)
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8 Children’s Books About Rocks…That Rock!

Jaime Herndon

Jaime Herndon finished her MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia, after leaving a life of psychosocial oncology and maternal-child health work. She is a writer, editor, and book reviewer who drinks way too much coffee. She is a new-ish mom, so the coffee comes in extra handy. Twitter:  @IvyTarHeelJaime

View All posts by Jaime Herndon

I mean, what’s not to love, right? Rocks can tell us all about the history of the Earth if we know what to look for. Plus, many of them are cool shapes and textures or just feel really good to hold or fidget with. But learning more about rocks can unlock a whole new world for a child, and books are a great way to do that.

Here’s a roundup of some great children’s books about rocks and geology that I think rock (sorry, I had to) — both fiction and nonfiction — for you to explore. By no means are these all the books out there, and if you’re looking for something even more portable for a hike or a trip, the National Geographic Kids Ultimate Explorer Field Guide: Rocks & Minerals is a great resource. There are also various pocket guides to geology that you can find — some are even location-specific — that you can stash in a side pocket of your backpack.

Let’s take a look at the best children’s books about rocks!

What a Rock Can Reveal: Where They Come From and What They Tell Us About Our Planet by Maya Wei-Haas and Sonia Pulido

Wei-Haas, a science writer and geologist, has written a book that children and adults alike will love reading. Using the tool of observation, she introduces geology to kids by describing its characteristics and explaining how it was created, where it’s from, and how it changes over time, tying in history and the story of the earth. It’s vibrantly illustrated, making it a really beautiful book that kids will be drawn to.

A Rock is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long

Don’t let these thin books fool you — this series is jam-packed with information and beautiful, intricate illustrations. My soon-to-be-8-year-old still loves these books, and this one is no exception. Aston writes about how different rocks are formed, the history of geology, and reviews various different kinds of rocks, with plenty of colorful drawings to pore over. They’re engaging but calming books because of the mix of scientific facts and poetic language, making them perfect for any time. Don’t miss other great titles in the series, like A Butterfly is Patient and A Shell is Cozy !

Where Wonder Grows by Xelena González and Adriana M. Garcia

This lyrical book is a heartwarming story about a grandmother showing her granddaughters a special garden and exploring what things like shells, rocks, and crystals can tell them. She shows how the history of these natural objects tells stories, and she shares her Indigenous knowledge and traditions of the natural world with a new generation. It’s a quietly powerful story about connecting with nature, imagination, and the larger world.

Take-Along Guide: Rocks, Fossils, and Arrowheads by Laura Evert

Another great series, these smaller books are perfect for stashing in a backpack and taking with you on a nature walk or hike, and work just as well indoors for a read-aloud or reference book. Evert breaks the book down into three major areas: rocks and minerals, fossils, and arrowheads and artifacts. It also provides some fun experiments and crafts to do, including making your own rock candy. For each rock, she shares what it looks like, where it can be found, what it’s used for, and plenty of neat facts and detailed illustrations. For the budding geologists, there are also scrapbook pages in the back to take notes and add their own drawings.

Science Comics: Rocks and Minerals: Geology from Caverns to the Cosmos by Andy Hirsch

If you haven’t read these comics, you’re missing out. This nonfiction graphic novel series is perfect for middle grade readers and up, though even younger readers will enjoy them. In this volume, take a wild ride around the world, and even into space, with a geologist in this book while learning all about the rocks and minerals that tell us about the earth and its history. It’s a great blend of storytelling, history, and plenty of science that will keep readers engaged. It would also pair well with the Science Comics volume Volcanoes and Life.

Jada Jones: Rock Star by Kelly Starling Lyons and Vanessa Brantley Newton

If your rock-loving kiddo wants some fiction, here’s Jada Jones! It’s the first book of the early chapter book series, and Jada loves science; she especially loves finding new rocks to add to her rock collection. Plus, it’s easier to find new rocks than new friends. But when her teacher announces a science project on rocks and minerals, maybe this is her chance to shine. Except, one of her team partners doesn’t seem to like her very much. Can Jada navigate the project and maybe try to make a new friend?

The Rock and Gem Book: And Other Treasures of the Natural World by Dan Green

This is a DK book, and they’re always amazingly done, including this one. From drawings, diagrams, and photographs to plenty of history and science information, this is a resource to return to again and again. Rocks, minerals, fossils, and shells — they’re all in this encyclopedic text that’s super visual and very accessible for readers. The text brings in connections with art, history, science, and architecture, providing kids with a multi-disciplinary lens through which to see geology.

Grand Canyon by Jason Chin

While this book is more specific than the others, it’s an all-time favorite here and so well done. The story follows a father and daughter on their way through the canyon, but the book also details the geological makeup of the canyon, the different kinds of rock and stone, and how the canyon was formed. Plenty of back matter provides even more in-depth geology and history, with illustrations and a list of resources to explore. Not only is the text and information amazing, but the visual set-up of the book is stunning, making it enjoyable to read again and again and again.

With all of these great children’s books about rocks, which one will you read first?

For more children’s books about rocks and nature, check out this post on science and nature books for STEM-loving littles , and this post on books about rocks, minerals, gems, and crystals .

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