About the Book Drawing 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 author provides behind-the-scenes insight into the bands ten-year career. Book Synopsis 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. About the Author Pat Gilbert is a former editor of Mojo , the bestselling and internationally acclaimed music magazine. He has also contributed to Q magazine, the Guardian , the Times , and the Sunday Times .