Rock and Hard Places: Travels to Backstages, Frontlines and Assorted Sideshows 2nd Revised ed. Edition

Spending a night out in the former battlefields of Beirut wouldn’t strike many people as their idea of a good time. But then, neither would going to see a Def Leppard concert in a Moroccan cave. Yet Andrew Mueller has willingly done both and somehow managed to see the humorous side.

‘Rock And Hard Places’, his first book, recounts Mueller’s experiences in such far-flung places as Kabul and the Woodstock II festival. Throughout, he seems constantly amazed by people’s ability to survive any hardship, whether they’re caused by mines or mud. ‘Rock And Hard Places’ is half travel literature, half rock literature. In the spirit–and style–of American humorist P.J. O’Rourke, Andrew Mueller seeks out the world’s trouble spots (and Nashville) in order to provide a frank report to the non-political reader. His common-sense outlook and innocence influence his observations, so that he is constantly asking “Why?” when faced with the absurdities of the wider world. He is at his best (and funniest) when he is able to direct this curiosity towards the locals. When he’s not charming militant fundamentalists, Andrew Mueller spends his time as a freelance music journalist. This book also collects a number of his interviews with some of the biggest bands of the moment, including Radiohead, U2 and The Prodigy. He is a talented interviewer, with a casualness and a sense of ease that enables you to see these bands as the collections of individuals that they are.