The Rejects

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What to expect

Imagine you've made it. You and your friends have hit the big time in music and you're going to be a star. But then, quite suddenly, it's over. Your best friends don't want you anymore, and you're on the outside. Perhaps they're tired of your bad habits, they think you're not good enough, or they sense you just don't want it as much as they do. Whatever the cause, you're a reject. So, what do you do next?

Featuring a player rejected by both Nirvana and Soundgarden who became a decorated special forces soldier, Britpoppers who spiralled into addiction before becoming novelists and missionaries, the terrifying story of Guns N' Roses' first drummer, super-rejecting band leaders, self-destroying rappers, troubled hard rock bassists and girl-band burnouts, The Rejects takes an intimate, thoughtful look at people who've been kicked out of bands, what they experienced and what came afterwards.

Coming from a writer with twenty years' music industry experience, The Rejects is a sympathetic study of some of music's most fascinating characters, and what happens when the dream comes crashing to an end. The result is a compelling alternative history of popular music.

Critics Review

  • Infectiously passionate, spiced with insider’s savvy and autobiographical asides, The Rejects threads a sequence of compulsively readable vignettes on popular music into a highly enjoyable study in one of life’s painful, universal experiences

    Rob Doyle

  • The Rejects is very entertaining and full of those “I never knew that . . .” snippets of trivia that make a pop-culture book really pop.

    Irish Independent

  • [A] lively compendium . . . Collinson’s book shows what a strange psychological experiment bands can be, harshly self-regulating when saleable craziness tips into “utter liability”

    The Times

  • Being in a band is all about trust, until it’s all about betrayal . . . The Rejects offers a new history of pop told from the perspective of the ones who got left behind, often on the very brink of the big time

    Guardian

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