Stabb Bell has a secret, and not even the roar of fifty thousand fans can drown it out.
After he abandons his hometown and his one true love, Stabb Bell chases the dream of rock stardom across England, convinced that the long slog of dive bars and hostile audiences will soon pay off.
And when Stabb does break through to join the world-famous 1970s rock band, She Kicks, he just knows that the stadium spotlights will finally burn away the pain of the love he left behind.
He was wrong.
Because behind the amplifiers and adoring crowds, something darker was waiting—something that would turn triumph into suspicion, loyalty into betrayal, and fame into something far more dangerous.
Set against the raw, analog pulse of the 1970s rock explosion, Rock Kills is a story of ambition, regret, revenge, and the price of becoming exactly what you wished for.
Stabb Bell has a secret, and not even the roar of fifty thousand fans can drown it out.
After he abandons his hometown and his one true love, Stabb Bell chases the dream of rock stardom across England, convinced that the long slog of dive bars and hostile audiences will soon pay off.
And when Stabb does break through to join the world-famous 1970s rock band, She Kicks, he just knows that the stadium spotlights will finally burn away the pain of the love he left behind.
He was wrong.
Because behind the amplifiers and adoring crowds, something darker was waiting—something that would turn triumph into suspicion, loyalty into betrayal, and fame into something far more dangerous.
Set against the raw, analog pulse of the 1970s rock explosion, Rock Kills is a story of ambition, regret, revenge, and the price of becoming exactly what you wished for.
This coffee shop is loud. The music intrusive. There’s no subdued
coffeehouse playlist coming through the loudspeakers. Not
here. Not like you find at Starbucks. The music at Starbucks isn’t
bad. Bland, maybe. But not offensive.
The music here though, it’s invasive. Trite. Nineteen-sixties bubble-
gum goop.
I keep telling René, the owner of this joint, “The sixties were four
decades ago, man. Can you at least play some of the good stuff?”
He always grins, points at the Tannoys, and says, “Oui, juste
comme ça.”
Don’t know why I bother, man. René doesn’t understand that only
certain things improve with age. I was going to say like fine wine, but
my life had always subsisted on tired metaphors. And I don’t want to
do the wearisome trope thing anymore. If that’s okay with you.
What were we saying? Oh, yeah. The sixties.
There’s a lot of old stuff that’s aged quite well. Chicago, for example,
they still sound great. CSN&Y, a lot of their stuff sounds fresh too.
And then there’s René’s music. What’s wrong with it? Let’s just say
his playlists make it hard to enjoy my cappuccino. Especially when he
decides to spin She Kicks on his turntable.
I know, I know. He does it as a tribute to me. Yeah. I get that. But I
don’t like it.
It’s hard to explain, man. Suffice to say, I don’t really want to hear
it. Not because it was garbage. Look, I know garbage music. And
She Kicks didn’t put out garbage. Not if you ask me. Our music was
solid, you know? Nothing brilliant. We weren’t geniuses, after all. But
competent? Yeah, man. The shoe fits.
Still, I always throw René a dirty look whenever he puts my stuff on
the Tannoys. It takes me back decades. Releasing waves of memories,
not many of them pleasant.
People don’t really care anyway.
Don’t believe me? Just look around. Go on. Turn around and
take in this coffee shop. People everywhere. Pecking away on
their laptops. Apple logos glowing smugly. You see any of them
complaining about the stuff that René curates? Then again, most
of them have their little headphones plugged in. They listening to
something else? It must be damn loud. You’d need loud to mask the
noise of this coffee shop.
Why come here, then? Easy. Because it’s loud.
Yeah, the noise is what makes this joint my every-day hangout.
I know. I complain about it. And then I tell you noise is why I’m
here.
Kind of like our families, right? Talk behind our parents’ backs
and then show up for dinner every Sunday. We’re an irrational breed.
Humans.
It’s true, though. I like noise. Hell, I am noise, man. If you, like
me, had spent years churning it out, you’d become noise too. Noise
is omnipotent. Did you know that? Noise shelters you. It protects
you. Noise is what makes you invincible. If you’re a musician, a rock
musician, you know there’s nothing better than noise. Rock musicians
learn fast. The good ones know how to work the noise. It’s an art, man.
Not easy to master.
The bad ones? They hide behind it. Turn the amps up. Let the noise
take over.
It’s hard to tell. Some record producers, promoters, they thought
they had it figured out. Stand offstage, in the wings. Watch the roadies
set up a band’s gear.
Big bloody amps. Marshall stacks. Hendrix had two, three maybe?
Some bands, they’d show up with ten. Each. And the suits wrote
them off. Thinking they sucked. Thinking the amps were a crutch,
and that volume hid ineptitude. But no, man. It’s a tricky thing.
Counterintuitive. Some bands couldn’t play a lick, and they’d hide
behind a hundred amplifiers. Other bands had a hundred amplifiers.
And, like pied pipers, they’d leave you mesmerized.
Noise. It’s black science, man.
I should know. I’m from the realm of noise. I told you already: I am
noise. Noise is what brings me here, to this café. It’s why I stay. Noise.
It succours me and shelters me. Yeah. This is my place. Here I harbour.
Visible and yet hidden. Camouflaged by noise.
Spoilers: Michael Di Lauro’s novel Rock Kills walks the path that many accounts of rock stars take but it does it with the perfect narrative voice that lets you enjoy the familiar ride.
That voice belongs to Steven Apollo Belmondo AKA Stabb Bell, former lead guitarist for the 1970’s rock band She Kicks.
The book tells his story from folk musician to rock star with the usual beats of humble beginnings, small starts, greedy music executives, musical group of misfits, damaged love lives, meteoritic rise to success, addiction, egos, bad tempers, betrayals, break ups, and so on. We've seen it before in every biopic ever but none are told by Stabb Bell.
Stabb’s narration is what makes the book. I would genuinely love to hear the audiobook version to see how the narrator would capture his voice. His elevates many of the usual beats of a star’s rise and fall to an interesting and actually compelling level.
Stabb’s sarcastic comments about his own story are self-deprecating, acknowledging the tropes while also mocking them. Instead of a faded celebrity full of ego and delusion, he looks back with honesty. He compares She Kicks to other famous groups like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and admits that his band was famous but “never fainting famous.” (Where fans fainted in delight during their concerts). It's less a story about being lonely at the top than it is about feeling kind of crappy in the middle.
There are times when Stabb’s burnt out narration becomes almost cluelessly adorable. For example, it takes Stabb an entire chapter to figure out an important secret about his past even though the person revealing it drops several obvious hints beforehand.
The Reader easily guesses the secret only a few lines into the beginning of the chapter and waits, with a forehead aching from the constant face palms, for the Midnight Train to Clue Town to finally catch up to the protagonist. Stabb is highly talented and a great storyteller but he's not the sharpest note on the musical scale.
Unfortunately there are also times when that naivete results in less humorous moments especially when Stabb finds out too late that he was being used as a front for others’ criminal activities. To his credit the middle aged man telling the story recognizes what an idiot the young budding star was to ignore it but he can't change the past. The only thing that he can do is talk about it.
Di Lauro's writing also gives Stabb interesting recall in describing the colorful characters that he encounters on his journey to and from stardom (not “fainting super stardom" of course). His former girlfriend Margot, the “one that got away” and who inspired his earliest hits appears and reappears in his life but she has her own agency.
While she appreciates him as a musician, Margot lets Stabb know about what she thinks of him as a person and lives her own life separate from him. In fact it's less like she is pining over him and more like he is pining over her.
The band members of She Kicks are an interesting eclectic bunch particularly Siobhan, the sharp tongued lead singer who leads the band like a cross between a larger than life prima donna and cold blooded CEO. Think of if Janis Joplin was ever crossbred with Deborah Dugan.
She also isn't afraid to maintain dominance in a largely masculine led industry including arguing with her obstreperous and verbose lead guitarist. Siobhan and Stab often engage in one on one snark battles to disguise their own anxieties and insecurities.
Another interesting member of the band is the ebullient bassist Tanya. She is usually something of a comic relief, blurting out off color jokes and asides at even the most inopportune moments. But her story ends up being one of the most heartbreaking.
Tanya joined She Kicks to pursue her passion for music and maintain a separate identity from her suffocating family only to find herself crushed by them anyway. Even after all of these years Stabb stills the vicarious anguish of his former colleague.
In his recall of his and his band mate’s experiences, Stabb reveals the great cost of pursuing artistic success: the performance highs, constant pressure, and the need to be an individual that is screaming to be heard, understood, loved, and accepted while being surrounded by a crowd.
Stabb Bell, and by extension Michael Di Lauro, turns what could be a hokey cliched melodrama into a thought provoking introspective engrossing novel about fame, love, identity, artistic pursuits, and maintaining one's own individual voice in the face of change, conformity, and control. It is truly a rocking good time.