ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER by Michael Ruffino (Anthony Boudain/Ecco; On-sale August 29)

ONE BAND. 250,000 MILES. METAL. 

From Anthony Bourdain and Ecco comes ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER: A Gentleman’s Progress Through Rock and Roll (Anthony Bourdain/Ecco On-sale August 29, 2017)

The riotous and unbridled confessions of a Michael Ruffino, a debauched veteran of the 80’s hair-metal nostalgia circuit. An incendiary memoir, now updated and expanded from the version published in 2004 as Gentlemanly Repose!

With Ruffino on bass, The Unband emerged from the suburbs of late ‘80’s New England and drank, drugged, crashed, and burned their way across the United States. On the brink of the new century and with the help of their dominatrix manager, a drug-dealing patron bent on revolution, and a willful record executive or two, the band got their big break, in a collapsing music industry where boy-band pop ruled and rock music had been declared dead. ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER is the epic chronicle of the Unband’s experience drinking, fighting, and playing loud music with ‘80s metal bands like Dio and Def Leppard, decades after their heyday. Into the volatile mix, the Unband brought illegal pyrotechnics, a giant red inflatable hand for making giant inflatable gestures, a roadie dubiously named Safety Bear, a high tolerance for liver damage, and an infectious love of rock & roll and everything it stands for. 

In this hilarious and candid account, which Anthony Bourdain recently called “the best Rock and Roll memoir of all time,” Ruffino takes readers along on a raucous tear across a surrealistic American landscape that includes mute Christian groupies, crack-smoking Girl Scouts, beer-drinking chimps, and thousands of head-bangers who cannot accept that hair metal died twenty years earlier--while offering uncensored portraits of Ronnie James Dio, Anthrax, Sebastian Bach, Lemmy, and others. From partying with OPEC executives in Lubbock, Texas to surviving--quite literally--off Def Leppard’s left-overs, ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER is a reader’s backstage pass to the other side of rock & roll: a Mad magazine world infused with an unbridled, absurdist spirit.

Equal parts This Is Spinal Tap and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER is gonzo rock storytelling at its finest—excessive, incendiary, intelligent, hilarious, and utterly original.