The Heroin Diaries – Nikki Sixx

In 2004, I relocated to Los Angeles to work with Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe on a memoir of his late-1980s heroin addiction based on his original diaries. As well as helping him to tidy up those crazy testaments, I talked to the shell-shocked friends and family he had tortured back then, from his Crüe bandmates, managers, A&R men and roadies to Slash, Nikki’s mother, sister and grandfather, and his on-off lover at the time, Vanity. On publication, The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star (Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, 2007) went  into the New York Times Top 10 bestseller list, staying there for months. It has since sold more than half-a-million copies worldwide. An updated, 10th anniversary edition came out in 2017: sadly, Nikki never did quite turn it into a stage musical.

Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae Cookbook

Levi Roots had only just entered the BBC’s Dragons’ Den and won the investment of Peter Jones for his BBQ Reggae Reggae Sauce when I first met him in 2007. When Harper Collins hit on the idea of a recipe book with autobiographical content interspersed between the foodie stuff, I spent a series of Sunday evenings sitting with Levi in the tiny kitchen of his south London takeaway, our conversations frequently interrupted as the ting! of the shop doorbell announced the arrival of another customer demanding jerk chicken. Levi told me all about his childhood in Jamaica, moving to Brixton at 11, his love of dub reggae sound systems, his little local difficulties with the law – and the BBQ sauce that he had by then been selling at Notting Hill Carnival for 15 years. Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae Cookbook (Harper Collins, 2007) turned out to be a fascinating mini-memoir – and a best-selling cookbook.

The Thing Is… – Dave Fanning

It is Dave Fanning’s fate to be forever known as the Irish John Peel. A Dublin pirate radio DJ during punk, he spent decades as Ireland’s late-night voice of left-field music on the national broadcaster, RTE, and for many years hosted its main TV movie-review show. The first man to play U2’s debut single, in 1980, he formed a close personal relationship with the band which endures to this day. On my trips to Dublin to ghost-write The Thing Is… (Harper Collins, 2010), Dave regaled me with tales of idiosyncratic encounters with Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Beyoncé and… how long have you got?  Bono wrote our foreword.

Over the Moon – David Essex

David Essex had already played for West Ham’s youth team, drummed in a blues band, understudied Tommy Steele in panto and given up on his showbiz career to be a van driver before his charismatic stage performance as Jesus in Godspell rocketed him to fame in 1971. In short order, he then lit up movie screens as Jim MacLaine in That’ll Be The Day, became one of 1970s Britain’s biggest pop stars, and reluctantly incited Essexmania. He’s since starred in films and TV shows, written a West End musical about maritime mutiny and a touring stage show about his gypsy roots and, when we co-wrote Over The Moon (Virgin Books, 2012), was appearing in EastEnders as a troubled Walford patriarch, Eddie Moon. The autobiography was a Sunday Times No 1 bestseller. ‘I’ve had a few No 1s,’ David told me, ‘but this is my first in a duet.’

My Side of Life – Shane Filan

When Westlife split in 2012, Shane Filan went bankrupt owing more than £18m. It seemed an inconceivable fate for the lead singer of a boy band who had enjoyed eight UK No 1 albums and sold more than 55 million records – yet for five years, Shane had hidden a dark secret. Unknown to his fans, Westlife manager Louis Walsh or even his bandmates, he had run up spectacular debts via ill-starred and badly timed investments in the Irish property market, and the global crash of 2008 sent him into a Kafkaesque financial tailspin. When we wrote My Side of Life (Virgin Books, 2014), Shane told me with uncommon candour of his charmed life that descended into a living nightmare, a personal meltdown – and eventual recovery. The Daily Mirror called it ‘a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride’. They could say that again.

Stick It! – Carmine Appice

He ran with teenage gangs in Brooklyn before becoming a global rock star with Vanilla Fudge in the Summer of Love. He was managed by the Mob, hung with Hendrix, trashed hundreds of hotel rooms, gave drumming tips to John Bonham, and had a front-row seat as Led Zeppelin deflowered a groupie with a mud shark in Seattle. He also starred in first-generation supergroup Beck Bogert Appice, joined Rod Stewart’s backstage Sex Police, married into Telly Savalas’s family, accidentally shared an apartment with Prince, became blood brothers with Ozzy Osbourne, and survived Sharon trying to incinerate him on stage. Along the way, there were five marriages – and an estimated 4,500 groupies. I co-wrote Stick It! My Life of Sex, Drums and Rock ‘N’ Roll (Chicago Review Press, 2016) with legendary rock drummer Carmine Appice. It would be fair to describe it as a page-turner. Rod Stewart wrote our foreword.

Like Farmer, Like Son – Adam Henson

After Carmine Appice, co-writing Like Farmer, Like Son (BBC Books, 2016) with Adam Henson was a distinct change of pace. Adam is arguably the best-known farmer in Britain after nearly 20 years as a host of Countryfile, the BBC’s prime-time rural affairs TV programme. He had followed his farmer father, Joe, into both agriculture and TV presenting – but on my many visits to his Cotswolds farm, I learned that his storied family had an extraordinary storied history involving scandal, old-time music hall, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, the world’s first rare-breed farm park, golden cufflinks from King George VI… and playing charades with Una Stubbs. Sadly, his father and hero, Joe, passed away as we were working on the book. Like Farmer, Like Son became Adam’s tribute.

Made in Scotland – Billy Connolly

In summer 2018, I went to Scotland with Sir Billy Connolly as he filmed a BBC TV series looking back on his early life and reflecting on his love for his native land. Billy told me about his catastrophic post-war childhood, his years in Glasgow’s shipyards, his time in the Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty, and his Seventies comedy breakthrough when he reimagined the Last Supper relocated to a Glasgow boozer. He talked of knitted swimming costumes, his distaste for religion and hatred of Brexit, and why you should never eat mince on a clammy day. Musing on inevitable late-life intimations of mortality, Billy also shared his desired epitaph: ‘Jesus Christ, is that the time already?’  Made In Scotland (BBC Books, 2018) was a Sunday Times bestseller and was voted book of the year at the 2019 Chortle Awards.

Confess – Rob Halford

Rob Halford knew that he was gay by the age of ten. He came out – on TV, by accident – when he was 47. That meant half a lifetime of sexual frustration, angst and paranoia for the lead singer of Judas Priest, totems of the macho world of heavy metal. I helped Rob to spill out his gospel truth in Confess (Headline, 2020), a jaw-dropping journey from our shared hometown of Walsall through global fame, sexual excess, alcoholism, drug addiction, police cells and bleak personal tragedy… to rehab, redemption, and finding love. To his relief, Rob Halford realised that confessing can be very good for the soul. He can also throw far better devil horns than me. The audiobook was submitted for nomination for the 2022 Grammy Awards.

‘A beautiful exploration of the human condition and one man’s capacity for love and self-love’

Forbes magazine

The Dreamer – Cliff Richard

Fixated with Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard catapulted to fame at 17 when he recorded the first British rock ‘n’ roll record, ‘Move It’, in 1958. More than sixty years on, he remains one of the defining figures of British pop music. As he neared his eightieth birthday, I worked closely with Sir Cliff on The Dreamer (Ebury Press, 2020), his definitive overview of his life and career. Cliff talked openly and freely of his boyhood in India, his musical false start in a skiffle band, his years as a teenage scream idol and in the Shadows, his conversion to Christianity and chart-strafing solo career… and the devastating global scandal of the 2014 South Yorkshire Police investigation, triggered by false sex allegations and amplified by the BBC, that he feared would kill him. On publication, it quickly sold 100,000 copies – a typical Cliff chart-topper.

Making It – Jay Blades

As the genial host of BBC1’s The Repair Shop, Jay Blades is a national treasure, yet for decades he felt unwanted in Britain. For his extraordinary memoir Making It (Bluebird Books For Life, 2021), Jay shared horror stories of early years blighted by an absent father, virulent racism, extreme violence, police brutality and chronic dyslexia, until a life change in his thirties led to community work then TV stardom. Covid necessitated conducting our interviews via Zoom but, luckily, Jay Blades is great at talking into a camera, whether discussing having 25 half-siblings, or the post-marriage-break-up nervous breakdown that left him suicidal. Making It was an Amazon No 1 bestseller. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

DIY with Jay – Jay Blades

After I helped Jay Blades to tell his remarkable life story, he and I promptly turned our attention to putting up shelves and home décor. I’ve never been sure which way up to hold a hammer but Jay is a home-improvement genius, as I quickly learned as we worked on DIY with Jay (Bluebird Books for Life, 2022), a definitive guide to sprucing up your gaff. Want to rethink your living room, turn your hall stairs into storage, give a bedroom added va-va-voom, or transform a dull outdoor space into a garden of delights? Jay had all the answers and I had a steep learning curve. Even if I’m still not great with a hammer.

Biblical – Rob Halford

After Rob Halford had shared his gospel truth in Confess, he had more sermons on the mount to deliver. Confess was his deeply personal life story; Biblical: Rob Halford’s Heavy Metal Scriptures (Hachette, 2022) was a very different testament. Here, gathered in these sacred pages, was the divine wisdom Rob has accumulated, in fifty years of fronting Judas Priest, on every aspect of the metal and rock world, from gigs to groupies, tour managers to tattoos, and riffs to riders. What do you do when your band’s twin guitarists are at each other’s throats, your heavy metal locks are falling out, and your Prince Albert keeps setting off the airport body scanners? Take a pew! It’s quite a Book of Revelations.

Life Lessons – Jay Blades

Having firmly established myself as the Boswell to Jay Blades’ Dr Johnson, he and I reunited to pen Life Lessons: Wisdom and Wit from Life’s Ups and Downs (Bluebird Books for Life, 2023). There’s a danger that celebrity advice books can tend towards the trite and platitudinous, but that was never going to happen with Jay. Instead, he dished out cogent, amusing, idiosyncratic thoughts on matters as various as embracing a hard start to life, overcoming seemingly insurmountable hurdles such as being unable to read, and the best way to chat to King Charles III, as well as musing on the right and wrongs of having, in his youth, administered a good hiding to many a racist thug. Marjorie Proops, frankly, may be revolving in her grave.

A Head Full of Music – Cliff Richard

Sir Cliff Richard has been an avatar of British pop for 65 years, yet is wearily resigned to writers only quizzing him about his private life and why he never married Sue Barker. So, he loved collaborating on A Head Full of Music (Ebury Spotlight, 2023), a celebration of the music that has moved him throughout his life. He rhapsodised about Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, reminisced about meeting Jerry Lee Lewis on the infamous 1958 UK tour when the Killer turned up with a 13-year-old wife in tow, and recalled being snubbed by Eddie Cochran six weeks before he died in a car crash. ‘It’s been a joy,’ said Cliff as we finished up, and it really had. Of course, having to trek all the way to Barbados to do the interviews was a chore. But them’s the breaks.