Never Understood: The Story of The Jesus and Mary Chain, by William Reid and Jim Reid, is coming in August 2024 and has given world rights to White Rabbit publisher Lee Brackstone.

“For five years after they’d swapped sought-after apprenticeships for life on the dole, brothers William and Jim Reid sat up till the early hours in the front room of their parents’ East Kilbride council house, plotting their path to world domination over endless cups of tea, with the music turned down low so as not to wake their sleeping sister”, the publisher joked.

“They knew they couldn’t play in the same band because they’d argue too much, so they’d describe their dream ensembles to each other until finally, they realized that these two perfect bands were actually the same band, and the name of that band was The Jesus and Mary Chain.”

The Jesus and Mary Chain will also be on tour in Dublin at the 3Olympia Theatre on March 25th, and in Belfast at The Limelight 1 on March 26th. Tickets can be brought through Ticketmaster here!

Announcing : The Jesus and Mary Chain by William & Jim Reid.

The brothers tell the full story of one of Britain’s greatest guitar bands for the very first time.

Coming August 2024, available to pre-order now https://t.co/TrNpxQptdv @TheMaryChain pic.twitter.com/VoAaC5zjA3

— White Rabbit Books (@WhiteRabbitBks) March 1, 2024

The book tells the story of the band's brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders, and extreme shyness.

The Jesus And Mary Chain has been through a lot in the last forty-plus years. The brothers grew up on a council estate in East Kilbride, Scotland, and they started a band whose cheery power-pop melodies inspired multiple generations of music and formed in a haze of post-punk in the 1980s.

The group was known for playing infamous shows that transformed into violent gatherings. The band split up between 1999 and 2007 due to disagreements, but then got back together, and even released their seventh album in 2017, titled Damage and Joy. Now, they’re telling their story.

Brackstone also mentioned: “The working title for this book was ‘Never Understand’ – a great Mary Chain song everyone knows from 1984 – but as the writing process drew towards its conclusion, William suggested changing the title to ‘Never Understood’ – a great lesser-known Mary Chain track from 1998; that switch is a perfect representation of the way this book blurs the line between the present and the distant and recent past while illuminating hidden vistas of this band’s psychic hinterland. When I commissioned this book I was hopeful with the guiding hand of Ben Thompson we might end up with a classic. What we have ended up with exceeds even my wildest hopes and expectations: not merely a classic, but one of the greatest music memoirs I have ever published.”

Thompson is a critic, ghostwriter, and radio host.

“It’s got plenty of warts, we can assure you of that. In fact, it might be all warts”, says Reid.

Never Understood will be available on August 15th, 2024. It can be pre-ordered right now for ≈€30 on hardcover and ≈€18 in stores.

With other hits like 'Upside Down,' 'Just Like Honey,' and 'Some Candy Talking,' The Jesus and Mary Chain were key figures in the evolution of subgenres like shoegaze and noise pop. The UK band has had twelve entries in the top 40 and two top 10 singles in the UK Singles Chart throughout their career.

Listen to the single 'Jamcod' below!