Jim Sullivan – Backstage & Beyond – Trouser Press Books

Trouser Press Books is proud to announce Backstage & Beyond Volume 2: 45 Years of Modern Rock Chats & Rants, the second anthology from award-winning music journalist Jim Sullivan, to be published in paperback and e-book on October 19. Pre-orders are available now.

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Sullivan — a 2023 inductee into the New England Music Hall of Fame — spent 26 years writing for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for national publications. He has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, many of them multiple times. The second volume of his music-writing anthology focuses on artists who came to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s: punk, new wave, post-punk, and beyond. Eleven of them are already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Over the course of 300 pages, Sullivan shares fascinating profiles of Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Patti Smith, Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Fall, Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, Stiff Little Fingers, Gang Of Four, The Pogues, The Police, The Cramps, David Byrne/Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Cars, The English Beat, Morrissey, Pixies, Mission Of Burma, The Feelies, Puff Daddy, Spiritualized, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Swans, and U2.

“My hope is that the recollections contained here trigger some memories,” writes Jim Sullivan in the book’s preface, “bring you back to where you wanted to be – backstage and beyond, as it were. And if you weren’t around then, I hope this transports you back to several golden ages of rock and roll.”

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From Backstage & Beyond Volume 2:

Johnny Ramone – “I hate disco music. It’s some kind of communist plot to

make our brains smooth, to take the crevices out of it.”

John Lydon (Sex Pistols, PIL) – “I’ve always been true to my word, and I mean what I say.

You might not like what I do, but at least I mean it.”

Joe Strummer (The Clash) – “People in England realize that anybody can be a star.

Beginners have to realize they can be stars; otherwise, they ain’t gonna bother with it.”

Patti Smith – “When I’ve had brief periods of the muse taking an extra-long vacation you wonder,

did it go to Zanzibar? Is it never coming back?”

Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks) – “We’re not a statement, we’re an adjective.

Each time we play it’s like an accident in creation.”

Captain Sensible (The Damned) – “If you think punk is monotonous, one-dimensional,

two-minute noise bombs then, yes, you’ll be upset by some of the Damned catalog.”

Mark E. Smith (The Fall) – “I sounded about 50 when I started out.

I was world-weary at 18. It’s an advantage when you think about it.”

Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order) – “The band came to a tragic end, but that does not

change the fact that Joy Division was a great band to be a part of.”

Robert Smith (The Cure) – “I loathe the Morrissey kind of wallowing in despair.

I don’t find it very entertaining to be around somebody who’s morose all the time.”

Jake Burns (Stiff Litle Fingers) – “We’re only political in the original meaning of the word: of the citizen.

All we’ve ever done is write about things we knew.”

Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four) – “If you’re not in conflict, you’re not making great art.

We made delightful noise, we enjoyed a few drinks, we got into fights with people.”

Shane MacGowan (The Pogues) – “I’m just following the Irish way of life: cram as much pleasure as you can

in your life and rile against the pain that you have to suffer as a result.”

Sting – “In the initial stages of the Police, it was very hard to get gigs.

We couldn’t feed ourselves, so I got an agent who sent me for TV ads.”

Poison Ivy (The Cramps) – “Our songs have to do with, from the male point of view,

being intrigued by the power and mystery of females.”

David Byrne – “If you play music outside the alternative rock spectrum it’s hard for people to conceive

that you can like this music the way you can a rock band.”

Mike Diamond (Beastie Boys) – “What started as us having a good time was manipulated into this big business. We said, ‘This is not why we started.’”

Elvis Costello – “I did interviews when I started out and they were mostly unsatisfactory.

I said, ‘I’ll show you — you want punk, this is fucking punk.’”

Billy Bragg – “I don’t think it’s my duty to change people’s minds. The most we can do is to begin the debate.”

Greg Hawkes (The Cars) – “The Cars were a new wave band. I always thought of us as a pop-art band,

in the Warhol sense, but also we were pop and sort of arty.”

Dave Wakeling (English Beat) – “Everything we feared came awfully true —

the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the health system became decrepit.”

Morrissey – “Celibacy is an unfortunate tag.”

Black Francis (Pixies) – “I am the Ernest Hemingway of indie rock.”

Bono – “The review has gone straight to our heads

and we’re discussing breaking up the band!!”

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Praise for Backstage & Beyond:

“I have spoken to many journalists in my time: some good, some bad, some terrible. And it is lovely when you meet someone who is just like you…a huge music fan! Jim Sullivan…is friendly, knowledgeable, forthright,

and opinionated! An expert in his chosen field. He is no pushover…

if you have faults or are resting on your laurels, he is the first to tell you off.”

—Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order)

“There’s a lot of history here, and a lot of reflecting on that history. For me, it’s interesting to see the conflict many artists have as they try to evaluate their own work and its place in the scheme of things. Jim Sullivan has been able to coax some of those reflections out of a broad spectrum of artists, and it’s fascinating to read.”

—Greg Hawkes (Cars)

“Jim Sullivan is an expert interviewer with an uncanny ability to connect with his subjects. In Backstage & Beyond, he brings out the humanity in a host of rock and roll icons who are too often portrayed as godlike figures. This an intimate and revealing look at many of the major personalities of the classic rock era.”

—Tom Perrotta, author of Election, Tracy Flick Can’t Win, The Leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher

“These are wonderful stories across the whole range of popular music, by one of rock’s finest journalists. As history lengthens and some of these legends move on, these become increasingly

precious fragments of lives lived at the sharp edge of music.”

—Richard Thompson

“Jim Sullivan has been on the front lines of rock and roll for 40-plus years, armed only with a notebook, a tape recorder, and a deep knowledge of the music he fell in love with as a kid. … These chats and rants go beyond the surface bromides we already know about these larger-than-life personalities and unlock the deeper stories they rarely share — by turns triumphant, tragic, and never less than illuminating.”

—Greg Kot, co-host of Sound Opinions

“Jim is one of those journalists that you feel comfortable with. No hidden agenda. If he likes your band, he says so. If he doesn’t, same. He’s always been kind about us. The thing is, unlike a lot of writers, if Jim said we did something that sucked, I would pay attention. That’s why these writings are worth reading. He’s the real deal.”

—Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers)

“Having been on both ends of his many years of reviews and interviews with all manner of artists — as subject and reader — I am always drawn to his writing; because I know he won’t have ambushed anyone or left them (us) feeling caught out, yet still end up with insight and history shared and some great stories.”

—Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four)

“With a twinkle in his eye, Jim cuts through the business, and, speaking from his heart, he gently gets you to do the same. You learn a great deal about an artist from a Jim Sullivan interview, including yourself!”

—Dave Wakeling (English Beat)

“It’s like getting an All-Access pass backstage for your musical heroes, but without all the awkward standing-in-the-corner stuff, not knowing what to say, eating too many funny-tasting carrot sticks from the pawed-over deli tray. Backstage & Beyond is every super music geek’s wet dream.”

—Clint Conley (Mission of Burma)

“How has Jim Sullivan maintained his access to the coolest artists in rock and roll for over 40 years?… he’s a mensch who knows his sh*t!”

—Andy Shernoff (Dictators)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Sullivan spent 26 years writing about music for the Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Boston Phoenix, Boston Herald, Trouser Press, Record, Creem, New Musical Express, The Guardian, Rock and Roll Globe, LA Weekly, Rock’s Back Pages, the Christian Science Monitor, Best Classic Bands, Newsweek, Playgirl, and The Forward.

ABOUT TROUSER PRESS BOOKS:

Trouser Press Books, a division of Trouser Press LLC, is an independent publisher based in New York City that specializes in music journalism and literary fiction. Editorial Director Ira Robbins co-founded the legendary rock magazine Trouser Press in 1974 and now operates its website. For more information, please visit www.trouserpressbooks.com.

Release from Big Hassle Media.