Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE
A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR
From the mountains of Algeria to the squats of South London via sectarian Northern Ireland, Ten Thousand Apologies is the sordid and thrilling story of the country’s most notorious rock band, Fat White Family. Loved and loathed in equal measure since their formation in 2011, the relentlessly provocative, stunningly dysfunctional “drug band with a rock problem” have dedicated themselves to constant chaos and total creative freedom at all costs.
Like a tragicomic penny dreadful dreamed up by a mutant hybrid of Jean Genet, the Dadaists and Mark E. Smith, the Fat Whites’ story is a frequently jaw-dropping epic of creative insurrection, narcotic excess, mental illness, wanderlust, self-sabotage, fractured masculinity, and the ruthless pursuit of absolute art.
Co-written with lucidity and humour by singer Lias Saoudi and acclaimed author Adelle Stripe, Ten Thousand Apologies is that rare thing: a music book that barely features any music, a biography as literary as any novel, and a confessional that does not seek forgiveness. This is the definitive account of Fat White Family’s disgraceful and radiant jihad – a depraved, romantic and furious gesture of refusal to a sanitised era.
Press Quotes
'The story of a band that's always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace' Observer
'You begin to wonder why more biographies aren't tackled with such invention' Record Collector ★★★★
'This book is a rarity, the kind I hold near and dear to my heart. The story of Fat White Family is equal parts high comedy and deep tragedy, just like life itself' Mark Lanegan
'One of the finest music books in aeons' Kevin Barry
'A fastidious portrait of chaos, displacement, and bad acid' MOJO ★★★★
'Ecstatic and wildly self-deprecating' Irish Independent
'Destined to become a classic of the genre' Louder than War
'A jawdropping rollercoaster' Rolling Stone
'Like many of the best biographies, the music is incidental, simply the backing track. For this is a book of wild, weird, better-than-fiction stories' Sunday Times
'A bruising and exhilarating read, which captures the nihilistic energy of this strange and brilliant band' Independent
'Funny, eloquent and self-deprecating' Irish Times
'A band biography like no other... it vividly captures the anarchic, free-spirited Brixton collective's disdainful disregard for the music industry playbook and conventional social niceties, illustrated by a wealth of pitch-black tales of self-sabotage, addiction and seemingly endless conflict' Louder Sound
'Read it and writhe' Spider Stacy
Details
Available to buy via Rough Trade, Waterstones, Bookshop.Org or your local independent bookshop
Published by White Rabbit (2022)
Hardback, paperback, kindle and audible formats