Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie announces Tenement Kid autobiography

Charismatic Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie has announced his brand new autobiography Tenement Kid.

Due to land on October 28th, Gillespie’s memoir will ultimately tell the story of how the singer rose from his working-class Glaswegian roots to lead one of the biggest bands of the '90s.

According to a press release, the book will chart the tale of Gillespie’s formative years – including his time as the drummer in The Jesus & Mary Chain.

Tenement Kid will also focus on his imperative meeting with the late Andrew Weatherall, who won praise for his production work on Primal Scream’s landmark 1991 album Screamadelica.

“The publisher Lee Brackstone has been hassling me for years to write a book," Gillespie said.

"I always rebuffed him with some excuse or the other. At the beginning of 2020 I wanted to challenge myself creatively and do something I had never done before. I didn’t want to write another rock record, I’d done plenty of those, so, I decided to write a memoir of my early life and worked on it all through the summer, autumn and winter of 2020 and here it is. It is titled Tenement Kid as I spent the first ten years of my life living in one. I am very proud of it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.”

Lee Brackstone, publisher at White Rabbit, expressed his own excitement for the memoir:

“I have been trying to persuade Bobby to write a book for a decade because I knew he would write something that is so much more than your usual rockstar memoir.

“Tenement Kid is many things: the story of Primal Scream and the early years of Jesus and Mary Chain, a paean to Glasgow in the ‘60s and ‘70s, long since disappeared, a work of social history and memoir that burns with political fervour and driven intensity.

“It is also of course a compelling account of punk, the acid house years and the Second Summer of Love," Brackstone added.

"After the year we have all experienced it is the tonic we all need: a joyful, celebratory and beautifully written book which will remind us of better times, just – as we hope – those better times might be returning.”

#TenementKid: the memoir from Bobby Gillespie, coming October 2021. His story, in his own words, up to the recording and release of Screamadelica.

Pre-orders - including signed special editions - from https://t.co/u2r8kWgAzO pic.twitter.com/jJUw6qSMeT

— Primal Scream (@ScreamOfficial) March 10, 2021