How to Be a Rock Star cover art

How to Be a Rock Star

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

How to Be a Rock Star

By: Shaun Ryder
Narrated by: Shaun Ryder
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

As lead singer of Happy Mondays and Black Grape, Shaun Ryder was the Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of his generation - one of the last real rock 'n' roll stars. A true rebel, who formed and led not one but two seminal bands, he's had number-one albums, headlined Glastonbury, toured the world numerous times, taken every drug under the sun, been through rehab - and come out the other side as a national treasure. He's been the subject of several films, written a Sunday Times best-selling autobiography, was runner-up on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and is a star of Celebrity Gogglebox.

Now, for the first time, he lifts the lid on the real inside story of how to be a rock star. With insights from three decades touring the world, which took him from Salford to San Francisco, from working men's clubs to headlining Wembley, Shaun gives readers a fly-on-the-wall look at the rock 'n' roll lifestyle - warts and all: how to be a rock star - and also how not to be a rock star. From numerous Top of the Pops appearances to being banned from live TV, from being a figurehead of the acid-house scene to hanging with the Rolling Stones and Johnny Depp, Shaun has seen it all. In this book he pulls the curtain back on the debauchery of the tour bus, ridiculous riders, run-ins with record companies, drug dealers and the mafia, and how he forged the most remarkable rock 'n' roll comeback of all time.

©2021 Shaun Ryder (P)2021 Atlantic Books Ltd & W. F. Howes Ltd
Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Funny Thought-Provoking Witty

Listeners also enjoyed...

Buzzin' cover art
A Likely Lad cover art
Creation Stories cover art
Oasis the Truth cover art
I Am Ozzy cover art
Grebo! cover art
Ready Steady Go cover art
Moon the Loon cover art
Tenement Kid cover art
Animal House cover art
Under the Big Black Sun cover art
MTV Ruled the World cover art
Becoming Johnny Vegas cover art
Touched by Magic: The Tommy Bolin Story cover art
Tomorrow's Here Today cover art
Verse, Chorus, Monster! cover art

Critic reviews

"There are enough stories about Happy Mondays to keep people talking about them forever. Bands live on through the myth really, myth and legend." (Steve Lamacq)

"If ever a book was meant to be read by its author, it's this one. Shaun Ryder's voice and delivery are perfect - so evocative. It's funny and irreverent as you'd expect but I loved hearing about how seriously the Mondays took the music, even if they didn't always take themselves seriously. Ryder says he's never cared about being cool which makes him the coolest bloke ever. Highly highly recommended." (Erin Kelly, Sunday Times best-selling author)

All stars
Most relevant
Shaun Ryder telling us how to be a rock star in the way only Shaun Ryder can.

Loved the Mondays back in the day and still do. They were working class kids like us, who's talent and originality took them places we'd only dreamed of. This book is full of anecdotes from Shaun's very long career, and the ups and downs of life in the music business - and Shaun's had his fair share of them. Interesting too was the affect his ADHD - only recently diagnosed - has had on his life. I could really relate this having been diagnosed with Autism long after my kids were. Neurodiversity and the way people's brains are wired fascinates me.

What's really good about this book is it's narrated by Shaun Ryder himself. There's literally nobody else who tell his story.

Loved every minute

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This man is a living legend. If you can appreciate that , give this a listen/read. Simple. He's an effortlessly funny man and he has his own style that really shouldn't work but totally does and made The Mondays the coolest band in the fkin world at one time. And this man kicked heroin and crack and barely mentions it here. legend. As a big time Mondays fan I love this, and am sure will listen to it more than once. Superb insight into Mondays life also, and it's fkin read by Shaun himself...legend!

Total F@kin LEGEND!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I really enjoyed all the stories.

I listened to it driving up and down the m6.

I list to a lot when driving.

I enjoyed this one the most so far.

listened to it all in a couple of drives and didn't get bored.

Twisted my Mellon man

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

sorted!!! Great book proper funny and honest working class hero stuff from shaun rider

excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

loved all his messy stories proper legend he is really funny and relatable nice 1 didnt twist my melon at all 🤣

loved it shaun is funny af

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews