Some big news for those wanting to know the inside story of Billy Idol, he has signed with Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster, to write his memoir, Dancing with Myself. Here is the announcement: Idol, a natural-born storyteller who helped forge the early punk music scene on his way to multiplatinum worldwide success, will write the book himself. His bold, strikingly literary account will capture not only his remarkably colorful life, but also an extended period in music history that saw punk rock's emergence through to its lasting impact on musicians across the world.
Stacy Creamer, Vice President and Publisher of Touchstone made the agreement for North American, open market and first serial rights with Kirby Kim at WME. In addition, Dancing with Myself will be published in the UK by Simon & Schuster UK, where Colin Midson will edit. Touchstone will publish Dancing with Myself sometime in late 2011 or early 2012.
An early architect of punk rock's sound, style, and fury who went on to become an iconic and controversial superstar through the nascent era of music video and MTV, Idol is penning a memoir that mixes punk's audacious, take-no-prisoners attitude with a voice that is both unflinching, as it describes the debauchery that success allowed, and profound, in its vulnerability as it exposes the human experience beneath the headline-garnering chaos.
"Life gave me a golden key when I fell in love with rock n roll music," said Idol. "It was the key to the answer of how to live and achieve your dreams. This world opened up to me with all the good opportunities but also every temptationthe drugs, the booze, the women, the 24-hour around-the-clock excess. And yet you have to write good songs to survive. Life had to be lived to do all that! Now I'm putting it all down in book formfrom the heart. I'm going out on a limb here, so watch my back." Commented Creamer: "In part a survivor's story, but equally a very funny, sometimes chilling, and always riveting account of one man's creative drive joining forces with unbridled human desire, Dancing with Myself is unambiguously literary in its character and brave in its sheerwillingness to tell. Billy Idol is destined to emerge as one of the great writers among his musical peers."
