A Little Advice from Billy Mack (of Love Actually)

Since the sales of my last album have fallen off, I have decided to write my memoires. No ghostwriter hack will be telling my story; besides, my bastard publisher could not find me a cute scribe who wanted to hear my anecdotes, write everything down, and then shag me senseless at the end of each day. But before I settle into the difficulty of trying to recollect thirty years of pills, booze, hash, heroin, coke, and god knows what else, my ever faithful manager suggested I try blogging to get a feel for this writing thing. So gather 'round and listen to a few pieces of advice from your Uncle Billy. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? For instance, a little self-loathing is good in the morning. Something has to push you past the hospitality tray, over the passed out groupie, and toward the needle, and I found self-hatred usually got the job done. Never underestimate the value of a good roadie. These are the folk who can finish your guitar solos hiding behind a speaker tower when you are just too coked out to hit the right strings. Underwear and leather trousers never go together. Always have your manager buy your drugs because they know how much you need them and will pay for quality stuff. If the waif looks underage then assume she is; there are always more birds lacking self-respect in the queue outside the dressing room. Spend just enough time in the studio to get a track polished, but not so much that the song looses its rawness. Remember that if you make it through two or more decades in this business then some of your fan base might also be your illegitimate children. (I picked up that tidbit from my mates in Aerosmith.) Never call anything a comeback. I find the words “hiatus”, “vacation”, and “rehab” all have the same explanatory effect, yet do not exude that stench of failure that the a comeback record does. Let people bootleg everything, but only authorize the best and most heavily circulated recordings. This way your music stays out there and you can get a cut of the profits if something becomes popular enough. Don’t let cameras of any kind into dressing rooms, recording sessions, or rehearsals; photos and videos destroy the kind of long-term salacious and unattributed gossip that keeps one’s name in the press. Never marry anyone as famous as you want to be; too much ego management destroys bands, kills sex appeal, and just bores the public. And lastly, only take advice from rock stars when it is offered freely. All that shite they put in books is there to get someone to buy copy. My offering, however, will have no advice. Instead, I am going to fill it with juicy stories about some the best moments in my life that I cannot remember. Happily, court records, paternity tests, exposés, and the like furnish all the material one needs to fabricate a past that I wish I could have lived through instead of nearly dying from.