As lovable, engaging and entertaining as the Nutty Boys themselves, Before We Was We tackles the formative years of Madness in the band’s own inimitable words. From the backrooms of dodgy pubs to the glimmer of chart success, this is a rags-to- riches tale like no other in the music industry.
New Foreword by Irvine Welsh.
North London. The 1970s. Amid a grim landscape of bomb sites, squats, public baths and rough pubs, a loose gang of misfits and outsiders started making music together - riding freight trains, spraying graffiti, stealing records, clothes and musical instruments. Escaping the fringes of criminality, they formed a band...
These lairy but charismatic chaps became Madness, one of the most successful pop groups ever, in the UK and beyond. In Before We Was We, their first official book, they tell us the story of how they became them.
It's a journey full of luck, skill and charm, as they duck and dive by day and make the name in London's exploding music scene by night, zipping around the capital in their Morris Minor vans.
Their formative years, 1970-79, provided inspiration for many Madness classics, including 'Baggy Trousers', 'The Prince', 'Our House' and 'My Girl': songs that four decades later still soundtrack weddings and funerals and inspire mass singalongs in concert halls. This is the riotous coming-of-age tale of seven unique individuals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor basement to the Top of the Pops studio.
In their own words, they each look back on their past and how during those shared adventures, they formed a bond that's lasted forty years. Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
ISBN: 9780753553954
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 241 g
Dimensions: 198 x 126 x 126 mm
A rollicking oral history of Madness’s early years ... a goldmine of quirky anecdotes - Q Magazine
[One of] the best books to buy music fans for Christmas - The Telegraph
Brilliantly assembled by journalist Tom Doyle as an oral history featuring the voices of all the members … tells you more about how a band becomes a band than any number of anecdotes about life in the studio - Financial Times
As much as anything, the book is a social history of growing up on the edges of criminality - Financial Times
An amazing book … one of the best books about a band I have ever read. I've been raving about it to everyone I meet
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?