"One of the evilest, most vicious, despicable characters ever. I couldn't put it down." (James Dean Bradfield, The Manic Street Preachers)
"Kill Your Friends gladly hammers the final and needed nail into the coffin of self-serving and undignified spin that was "Cool Britannia". It exposes a world that seethes alongside us and in which we all collude but whose nasty little machinery is rarely glimpsed. The novel is furiously, filthily funny, and, I imagine, tragically true." (Niall Griffiths)
"Anyone working in or trying to get into the music industry should read this book. Niven grotesquely portrays the short term disposability of this world with a great eye for detail and a stockpile of hilarious insults. Throw in some murder and major brand obsession and you have an indie American Psycho." (James Brown)
"The anti-hero of John Niven's Kill Your Friends is magnificently eloquent in an utterly sewer-minded way...A vicious, black-hearted howl of a book...A realistic portrait of the music industry, doing for it what The Player did for Hollywood. Having spent ten years in the business [Niven's] insider knowledge, coupled with the kind of headlong, febrile prose that would have Hunter S. Thomson happily emptying both barrels into the sky, results in a novel that is cripplingly funny in the way that only the very darkest comedy can be." (Chris Power The Times)
"A rollicking tale of record company excess...Hysterical...Niven worked in the UK music industry for 10 years and his insider knowledge pays off...This is truly an account of a lost era, a brilliant description of the last decadent blow-out." (Matt Thorne Independent on Sunday)
It's not dog-eat-dog around here...it's dog-gang-rapes-dog-then-tortures-him-for-five-days-before-burying-him-alive-and-taking-out-every-motherfucker-the-dog-has-ever-known. Meet Steven Stelfox. London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public - 'Yeah, those animals'. Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox, blithely criss-crosses the globe ('New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn') searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.
"Kill Your Friends" is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved - as long as you want it badly enough.
From the Back Cover
Its not dog-eat-dog around here...its dog-gang-rapes-dog-then-tortures-him-for-five-days-before-burying-him-alive-and-taking-out-every-motherfucker-the-dog-has-ever-known.
Meet Steven Stelfox.
London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where no one knows anything and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public Yeah, those animals.
Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe (New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn) searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.
But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.
Kill Your Friends is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved as long as you want it badly enough.
About the Author
John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He is the author of the novella Music from Big Pink and the novels Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, The Second Coming, Cold Hands, Straight White Male, The Sunshine Cruise Company and No Good Deed.
