New Book Announcement: “The Boy is Gonna Rock!”

Friends, this is the one many of you have been waiting for me to write: a very detailed and personal 12-chapter memoir about the entire Vinnie Vincent Invasion saga.

Title page on my initial print-out copy for editing

I was originally going to release it in 2017, but then I heard about Vinnie’s impending appearance at the Atlanta Kiss Convention and decided to hold off. I didn’t want to muddy the waters in any way for Vinnie’s long-awaited return.

Here’s how I explain it in the last chapter of the book:

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A couple years back, I had posted a few memoirs of my early days with VVI on my blog. People seemed to freak over them, so I figured I should probably do an entire memoir on the VVI saga (which is what you’re now reading). So in early 2017, I started cranking up the hours and mowing through the manuscript. And then, just as I was getting close to completing a first draft, the highly improbable happened: it was announced that the V-Man himself would be coming out of hiding for an exclusive appearance at a Kiss Convention in Atlanta. Holy shit!

Honestly, I was as pleasantly stunned to hear about this as anyone else. However, I decided to rethink my initial release date for this book and, instead, wait until after Vinnie’s recently announced appearance. I didn’t want there to be any form of distraction relating to Vinnie’s return to the public. I thought it would be best for Vinnie to talk about what he wanted to talk about, and answer questions the way he wanted to, as opposed to having to potentially address assertions from my side of the elephant.

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So great to see Vinnie again! Here he is with Robert Fleischman
(from the debut VVI record)

We’re shooting for a May release of the new book, initially through PledgeMusic. We’ll have a lot of cool (and very rare!) VVI memorabilia, personal items, and additional BR merch available in special bundles throughout the campaign, which will kick off in March. Should be fun.

Editing and design are all under way right now. In the meantime, there will be regular sneak previews right here at the blog. I think you guys will dig it. My early beta-readers are reporting that, “Once you start reading it, you cannot stop!” This is what every writer loves to hear!

I’ll leave you with the book’s Preface as a preview this time:

Preface

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There are many behind-the-scenes details in the Vinnie Vincent Invasion saga that I wouldn’t normally discuss publicly.  I am of the mindset that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” or, more specifically here: “What happens on the road or in the studio, stays on the road or in the studio.”  I’ve never felt the need to break the seal of confidentiality that every band should hold sacrosanct.

However, in the case of the infamous VVI, most of our broad-scale issues of strife and dysfunction have already been widely discussed through the years by a legion of fans, insiders, outsiders, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, all band members. Many of these accounts are not only factually inaccurate but, in my opinion, unfairly biased toward one side of the fence or the other. Therefore, my justification for going deep with the detail in places that I otherwise wouldn’t, is to hopefully bring more clarity and a broader perspective to what was truly a situation of unimaginable complexity.

Obviously, these are my own reflections and observations and I don’t proclaim any monopoly on the truth here.  I do, however, seem to have an unusual ability to recall events from my past, with crisp detail, and link them to times and places with an almost photographic accuracy.  And while this might give credence to the “just the facts” aspect of much of what’s accounted for here, the deeper meaning and motives behind it all remains subjective.  This is why I’ve occasionally sited an old parable as a way of describing how each of us in the VVI camp could potentially have such different recollections.  It goes like this:

Five blind men are standing around various sides of an elephant. They are each asked to reach out and touch the elephant, then describe what they think the elephant “looks” like, based on what they feel. The guy near the trunk says, “An elephant is long and curvy, like a big snake.” The guy near a leg says, “No, an elephant is tall and thick like a tree.” The guy near the tusk says, “No, you’re both wrong: an elephant is smooth and sharp, like a spear,” and so forth.  Of course, they are all correct to some degree, based on their limited perceptions.

Likewise, I say, each of us involved with the Vinnie Vincent Invasion odyssey probably has a perception of the experience that is equally one-dimensional, based on where we were standing, so to speak. The whole truth of the matter probably lies somewhere in the summation of all of our perspectives.  Nonetheless, I feel like the VVI story is such a compelling one, that if it is to be told, it should be told in its relative entirety, and in as fair-minded a way as possible.  And that is my intention here.

Enjoy the ride –

BR

More Previews:

These original posts from this blog are all in the book… with slight revision and enhancement, as needed.

Chapter Two is based on this one:

“Go West, Young Man!” – Reflections on the Vinnie Vincent Invasion audition, 30 Years Later

Chapter Three is based on these:

Welcome To Hell: Recording Drums for the First Vinnie Vincent Invasion Album – Part 1

 

Welcome to More Hell: Recording Drums for the First Vinnie Vincent Invasion Album – Part 2

Thanks for reading…