Books

TURN THE AMP DOWN. OPEN A BOOK. KEEP THE CHAOS GOING.

Welcome to The Riff Report Books — where rock ’n’ roll leaves the stage, crawls out of the tour bus and somehow ends up between two covers.

Because music isn’t just something we listen to.

It’s stories.

It’s ridiculous backstage incidents. Legendary gigs. Bands falling apart in spectacular fashion. Musicians sleeping on floors before becoming arena headliners. Festival fields turning into mud baths. Albums that nearly destroyed friendships. Tours nobody remembers properly. And enough questionable decisions to keep publishers busy until the end of time.

Basically…

Rock ’n’ roll makes bloody brilliant reading. 🤘📖🔥

Here at The Riff Report, we’re digging into the books that tell those stories.

🎤 ROCK & METAL BIOGRAPHIES

There’s nothing quite like a great rock biography.

One minute you’re reading about somebody learning three chords in their bedroom.

Fifty pages later they’re playing Wembley, arguing with their drummer, accidentally setting fire to a hotel room and wondering where the tour manager has disappeared to.

Standard Tuesday, really. 😂

We’ll be covering biographies and autobiographies from across the world of rock and metal — from enormous stadium legends to underground heroes whose stories deserve far more attention.

Expect tales involving:

🎸 Bands being formed
🔥 Albums being recorded
🎤 Life on the road
🍺 Backstage chaos
💥 Band arguments
🤘 Career-defining gigs
💿 Classic records
😈 Rock ’n’ roll excess
❤️ Friendships and family
🥁 And the occasional drummer-related disaster

Because behind every legendary band is usually an absolutely bonkers story.

📖 MEMOIRS FROM THE ROAD

Touring sounds glamorous until you discover how much of it involves motorway service stations.

For every triumphant festival headline set, there are thousands of miles travelled in vans, buses and suspicious rental vehicles held together by gaffer tape and optimism.

That’s why touring memoirs can be some of the funniest and most fascinating books in music.

They show us what happens between the gigs.

The missed flights.

The broken gear.

The dodgy promoters.

The tiny dressing rooms.

The strange hotels.

The service-station dinners.

And those magical nights where everything somehow comes together and a band walks onto a stage knowing something special is about to happen.

That’s the stuff we love.

🎸 MUSIC HISTORY

How did heavy metal happen?

Where did punk really begin?

Why did certain cities suddenly produce dozens of incredible bands?

How did tiny clubs become legendary venues?

And how did a bunch of musicians making ridiculous amounts of noise accidentally change popular culture?

We’ll be diving into books exploring the history of:

⚡ Heavy metal
🔥 Hard rock
🤘 Punk
🎸 Classic rock
💀 Extreme metal
🎤 Alternative rock
🇬🇧 British music
💿 Famous albums
🏟️ Legendary venues
🎪 Festivals
📻 Radio
📰 Music journalism
🎧 Underground scenes

From enormous cultural movements to tiny local scenes that changed everything, if somebody has written a cracking book about it, we want to know.

🏴 WELSH MUSIC BOOKS

Now we’re talking, mun. 🐉🤘

The Riff Report is proudly Welsh, so naturally we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on books exploring Wales and its incredible musical history.

From Cardiff clubs and Valleys venues to Welsh bands conquering stages around the world, there are thousands of stories worth preserving.

We want books about Welsh musicians.

Welsh venues.

Welsh festivals.

Welsh promoters.

Welsh fans.

Welsh music history.

And those legendary little venues where somebody once saw a future superstar playing to about 37 people and a bloke called Dai leaning against the bar.

Welsh music history matters — and we want to celebrate it.

🎪 FESTIVAL BOOKS

Ahhhh, festivals.

Beautiful, glorious chaos.

There’s an entire world of books dedicated to festival culture, and naturally The Riff Report is going wandering through it wearing muddy boots.

We’ll explore books documenting legendary festivals, historic performances, festival photography, backstage stories and the communities that make these events so special.

From gigantic fields filled with tens of thousands of people to independent festivals powered by volunteers, determination and approximately 400 extension leads…

We love the lot.

Because festivals aren’t simply collections of bands.

They’re communities.

And their stories deserve to be told.

📸 ROCK PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS

Sometimes you don’t need 100,000 words.

Sometimes one photograph tells you everything.

A singer hanging over the barrier.

A guitarist silhouetted against the pyro.

A drummer absolutely battering the kit.

Thousands of fans throwing horns into the air.

Or an exhausted band sitting backstage after the biggest performance of their lives.

Rock photography has captured some of music’s greatest moments, and we’ll be celebrating the photographers and books preserving those memories.

Coffee table books absolutely count.

Although ours will inevitably end up underneath a pile of festival wristbands.

⭐ THE RIFF REPORT BOOK REVIEWS

Not every music book deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Some are essential.

Some are fascinating.

Some are hilarious.

Some contain enough backstage gossip to keep you awake until 3am.

And occasionally you’ll find one that feels longer than the queue for the Download Festival village Co-op.

That’s where our reviews come in.

We’ll look at what works, what doesn’t and — most importantly — whether the book is actually worth your time and money.

No literary snobbery.

No pretending we’re sitting around wearing tweed jackets discussing symbolism.

Just music fans talking about music books.

Simple as that.

🆕 NEW RELEASES

Musicians apparently aren’t content with releasing albums, touring the planet and selling us another anniversary vinyl pressing.

Now they keep writing books too.

And we’re absolutely fine with that.

We’ll keep an eye on upcoming releases including:

📚 Autobiographies
🎸 Band histories
📸 Photography collections
💿 Album retrospectives
🎪 Festival histories
🎤 Tour memoirs
📰 Music journalism collections
🔥 Limited editions

If something interesting is heading towards the bookshelf, you’ll find it here.

🏆 RIFF REPORT RECOMMENDS

Every so often we’ll discover a book that makes us immediately start pestering everyone else to read it.

Those books earn themselves a place in Riff Report Recommends.

These aren’t necessarily the biggest releases or books written by the most famous musicians.

They’re simply the ones we reckon rock and metal fans should have on their shelves.

The sort of books you finish and immediately say:

“RIGHT. WHO CAN I LEND THIS TO?”

Although let’s face it…

Never lend books.

You’ll never see the bloody things again. 😂

🛒 SUPPORT INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOPS

Whenever possible, we’ll encourage readers to support independent bookshops, independent publishers and artists selling books directly.

Because supporting independent music culture doesn’t stop when the amps are switched off.

Independent shops, writers, photographers, publishers, venues, bands and journalists all help keep this enormous noisy ecosystem alive.

And that’s something worth supporting.

✍️ AUTHORS, PUBLISHERS & PR — GET IN TOUCH

Got a rock or metal book coming out?

Written the definitive history of an underground scene?

Publishing a musician’s autobiography?

Created a photography book documenting years of gigs?

Or perhaps you’ve written something completely bonkers that you reckon Riff Report readers would love?

Give us a shout.

The Riff Report welcomes information about upcoming music-related books, review copies, author interviews, extracts and features.

We’re particularly interested in independent authors, photographers, publishers and stories that might otherwise disappear underneath the enormous pile of celebrity autobiographies released every Christmas.

Big or small — if the story rocks, we’re interested.

🎤 AUTHORS — COME HAVE A CHAT

We don’t just want to review books.

We want to speak to the people behind them.

Expect interviews with authors, musicians, photographers, journalists and historians about how their books came together.

Why did they write it?

What did they discover?

Which stories nearly didn’t make the final version?

And, crucially…

What’s the story they desperately hoped nobody would ask them about? 😈

Those are usually the good ones.

🤘 READ LOUD

The Riff Report might have been built around gigs, festivals, riffs and live music, but the stories behind rock ’n’ roll are every bit as important as the music itself.

Books preserve those stories.

They capture scenes before they’re forgotten.

They document venues before they disappear.

They record memories from musicians, photographers, promoters and fans.

And they remind us that behind every record, every band and every legendary gig are human beings with stories worth telling.

So grab a book.

Stick an album on.

Pour yourself something nice.

And disappear down another musical rabbit hole.

We’ll probably be down there somewhere too.

Welcome to The Riff Report Books.

📚🎸🔥🤘

Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud.

THE RIFF REPORT — LOUDER. WEIRDER. ALWAYS BACKSTAGE.