LONELY BOY

Ask anyone who knows about music and they'll tell you: without Steve Jones, punk rock would not exist. The prototypical street urchin turned Sex Pistols guitarist was the sole inspiration and creator of the punk movement which began shaking the culture in late 1970s London and is just as strong today. A pervasive air of gloom and coal smoke hangs over Jones's memoir, SEX & THIEVERY, set in working class London of the 60s and 70s.

Legendary artist and trendsetter Malcolm McLaren took in the young Jones after noticing him hanging around the sex boutique McLaren owned with his then girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood, on Kings Road in Chelsea. By then, Jones was homeless, stealing anything to support himself and scratch his itch for theft. He would frequently pop in to McLaren's legendary shop. McLaren was so fascinated by Jones's rough background, wardrobe choices, attitude toward authority, and general aura that he created a cultural movement around it. And so, the Sex Pistols, and with them, punk rock, was born.

Included in the book will be never before told stories of sexual abuse Steve suffered at the hands of his step-father, stories of petty crime and acts of perversion he perpetrated as a young boy in London, the sadness of never knowing his real father (and then meeting him in a tale that bookends this narrative nicely), the early days as a Pistol, breaking into the music business, and how the hell a band with one album meant so much to so many people. No topic is off limits in this grimy, streetwise memoir.

Steve Jones weathered a troubled childhood, before being saved by music. In 1975, he became one of the founding members of the groundbreaking English punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Following the group's demise in 1978, Jones went on to form several other groups as well as host of a critically praised radio program.