Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash

The only internationally successful, million-selling group to emerge from the late seventies London punk scene, the Clash set out to change the world with a potent mix of politics, iconic imagery, and blazing rock ‘n roll. It was an agenda mirrored in the Clashs music, which swiftly evolved from ferocious punk rock to incorporate reggae, ska, funk, jazz, soul, and hip-hop. Passion Is a Fashion draws on over 70 interviews with the key participants in the story—roadies, producers, friends, and fans—and conversations with the Clash: Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon. The first book to give real insight into what went on behind the scenes during the Clashs ten-year career, it charts the Clashs picaresque progress through the days of the early punk scene and their groundbreaking Rock Against Racism gigs, to the arduous touring, to their break out in America, and the making of the classic London Calling album, all the way to the bands eventual dissolution and the sudden, sad death of frontman Joe Strummer. Gritty, compelling, and above all authoritative, Passion Is a Fashion is the biography the Clash has long deserved.

The definitive biography of legendary punk band the Clash, and the first to draw on original interviews with the band

Pat Gilbert is a former editor of Mojo, the best-selling and internationally acclaimed music magazine. He has also contributed to Q magazine, the Guardian, the Times, and the Sunday Times.