September 12, 2008, NEW YORK ?? Michael Pietsch, Publisher of Little, Brown and Company, announced today that rock legend Bob Mould, founder of the pioneering American punk band Hüsker Dü, will write his memoir for publication in autumn 2010. Michael Azerrad, author of the bestselling Our Band Could Be Your Life and Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana will collaborate with Mould to tell the full story of his blazing, era-defining life and career.
Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Bob Mould founded the trio Hüsker Dü in Minneapolis in 1979, powerfully reshaping America??s rock scene. Hüsker Dü LPs like Zen Arcade and New Day Rising won over critics and fans by welding melodicism, tenderness, and literary seriousness to punk??s rage, volume, and speed. Influenced by the Ramones, the Beatles, and classics like ??Eight Miles High,? their cover of which was a college radio hit, Hüsker Dü created new classics of rage and alienation like ??Celebrated Summer,? ??Makes No Sense At All,? and ??Hardly Getting Over It.? Determined to create music that mattered both artistically and politically, they released eight albums in seven years and toured relentlessly before drug addictions, a suicide, and artistic and personal differences led to the band??s implosion in 1988.
The memoir will, for the first time ever, delve deeply into Mould??s life as a musician and his experiences with Hüsker Dü, as a solo artist, and in his most commercially viable and successful work as leader of ??90s indie rock kingpins Sugar. He will also tell the story of his other lives, including his internal struggle with his sexuality, the coming-out process, and his subsequent embrace of, and service to, the LGBT community; his work as a creative consultant / director in the world of pro wrestling; his work as a record producer, including seminal projects by Soul Asylum and Magnapop; and his foray into electronic / dance music, including the popular BLOWOFF club events held nationwide.
Bob Mould said, ??For many years, people have asked if and when I would write my autobiography. I have always looked forward to this point in time, where I could tell my stories, to answer the many questions about the music and the lifestyle, and how they inform the creative process. I have not been alone on this ride: friends and foes, mentors and associates, peers, lovers, all traveling by my side. The ride so far has been incredible, and I hope to do my memory right in documenting the journey.?
??The gorgeous rage of Bob Mould??s music seemed like the best possible response to the Reagan ??80s for many music-loving young Americans,? says Michael Pietsch. ??To hear firsthand what it was like to make that music, and to build the indie rock world that eventually brought us REM, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Green Day, and much of modern rock, is something that music lovers have awaited for years.?
Bob Mould was represented in the negotiation by his lawyer, Josh Grier of Dreier LLP, and by literary agent Dave Dunton of the Harvey Klinger Agency. Michael Azerrad was represented by agent Lydia Wills of the Paradigm Agency.
Little, Brown and Company, founded in 1837, has long been committed to publishing fiction of the highest quality and nonfiction of lasting significance. It has published many serious books about popular music, including Peter Guralnick??s two-volume Elvis Presley biography, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, Michael Azerrad??s Our Band Could Be Your Life, Bob Spitz??s The Beatles, Joe Nick Patoski??s Willie Nelson, and memoirs by Marianne Faithfull and Phil Lesh, and it will publish a forthcoming memoir by Keith Richards. Little, Brown is a division of Hachette Book Group, a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest book publisher in the world.
