"A HUGELY ENTERTAINING READ. VERY EXCELLENT!" ROBERT SMITH
‘A true original, a genuine maverick’
ROBERT SMITH (The Cure)
‘A dirty little page-turner from England’s greatest music video director’
MATT JOHNSON (The The)
‘The absolute dog’s bollocks in the world of pop video. He is the OG, the Don, he literally wrote the book’
NORMAN COOK (aka Fatboy Slim)
‘Tim is a strange person’
IGGY POP
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The wildly entertaining memoir of the legendary music video director, whose work is synonymous with the glory years of MTV – and his long-standing relationships with such icons as David Bowie, Neil Young, Iggy Pop and The Cure.
The 1980s saw the birth of a new medium that took the world by storm: the pop video. And Tim Pope, a music fanboy-turned-video director, was at the forefront of this wild ride.
Shooting his first performance footage at an Emerson, Lake & Palmer concert after smuggling a camera inside his trousers, Tim got his break directing the video for Soft Cell’s follow-up to ‘Tainted Love’. Work snowballed, and he was soon jetting back and forth across the Atlantic to feed the newly launched engine of MTV, making videos for The Cure, Queen, Talk Talk, Wham!, Hall & Oates, Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Bangles, among others.
From dressing Freddie Mercury as a giant Mediterranean prawn to being dubbed a 'funny little arsehole' at his first meeting with teenage hero David Bowie; from hanging out with Neil Young on his family ranch to locking The Cure in a wardrobe and launching it off a cliff, Tim had a front-row seat to the era’s Spinal Tap-like excesses, egos and larger-than-life characters.
Capturing the improvisational spirit of a time when directors worked guerrilla-style, money flowed freely and no idea was too wacky, I Shoot Rock Stars offers a fly-on-the-wall glimpse of an extraordinary cast. Above all, it’s a hilarious and often moving story of a music-mad kid who ended up working with his heroes - chronicling both his own journey and an industry’s creative triumphs and follies in riotous style.