Steve Blacknell’s ‘Tales From The Bedroom Wall’ is a riotous rollercoaster through a life lived loud

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you took a pop-culture superfan, hurled him into the centre of 20th-century showbiz, and added a generous dose of chaos, charisma, and self-destruction — Steve Blacknell’s Tales From The Bedroom Wall: The Life & Times of a Serial Thrill Seeker might just be your answer.

Released July 9th via Old Treacle Press, this long-overdue memoir reads like Hunter S. Thompson gate-crashing Top of the Pops. From a teenage bedroom in Dartford plastered with pop pin-ups to crossing the Atlantic on Concorde with Phil Collins en route to Live Aid, Blacknell’s life is the stuff of fever dreams. Along the way, he dated Kate Bush, interviewed Lemmy mid-Jack Daniels, jousted verbally with Alice Cooper, and played ping pong with Bill Wyman. These are the kind of tales most people dream about, let alone survive.

"There's an old joke that goes 'Everybody has a book in them which explains the lump in my throat'. Indeed I do believe that so many of us who aren't necessarily household names that have lived life to 'the max!'.  With me it hasn't been deliberate - I've just tried to pack in as many adventures as possible in my allotted time.  At 72 i still have a few tricks up my sleeve - for as the Buddhists say ' You're only here three billion times so you'd better enjoy yourself'".  

A relentless thrill-seeker and born raconteur, Blacknell never quite stays in one lane — nor would you want him to. Whether fronting MTV USA’s London Calling (with 23 million viewers no less), serving as Peter Stringfellow’s PR, or founding London’s longest-running media club The Waffle, he remains a man wired for the spotlight, even if the wiring occasionally sparked and fizzled.

What gives Tales From The Bedroom Wall its unexpected emotional weight, though, is the long arc of romance and redemption — the 50-year love story with Maggie, the return to Hythe, the transformation into a media mentor. It’s a reminder that even the wildest journeys can find their way home.

Equal parts hilarious, harrowing and heartwarming, this is not just a book for music obsessives or retro TV fans — it's for anyone who's ever dared to live without a parachute. And in Steve Blacknell’s case, sometimes without trousers, too.

Find out more at http://www.steveblacknell.com/.