num_pages: 324
description: "The Stranglers are the biggest-selling and longest-lasting band from the punk era. Yet, while their contemporaries such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash have had their comparatively short careers turned into biographies, the Stranglers' controversial career has remained undocumented. Until now.NO MERCY traces the band's career from their beginnings on the mid-70s' pub rock circuit, to the success of their breakthrough album Rattus Norvegicus in 1977, through the experimental Raven and Meninblack albums, to their early 80s' commercial high point with the beautiful hymn to heroin 'Golden Brown'. Exclusively, the book tells the true story of the departure of lead vocalist Hugh Cornwell in the summer of 1990 before detailing the band's recent career with new vocalist Paul Roberts, as well as revealing the true date of birth (and real name) of the band's drummer, Jet Black, the self-styled oldest man in British rock!David Buckley also looks in detail at some of the darker themes which have recurred throughout the band's career, at their alleged misogyny and their fixation with the colour black, and a macabre negativity which cast a shadow over the group in the early 1980s.Drawing on exclusive photographic material, extensive interviews with the band members themselves, and with those who have worked with them during their twenty-two year career, David Buckley's biography tells the complete and uncensored story of one of the most creative and controversial bands in rock history."
language: English
title: No Mercy: The Authorized and Uncensored Biography of "The Stranglers"
publisher: Hodder & Stoughton