Rock ’n’ roll believer spins tale of life and Springsteen, AC/DC and Kate Bush

Author and journalist Andrew Stafford found his own story easy to tell.

Journalist and author Andrew Stafford with his collection of vinyl at his home in St Lucia, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

On the first day of March last year, Andrew Stafford sat down at his favourite cafe in Brisbane’s inner south and began plotting a book outline. As an author and journalist, Stafford is constantly turning over words and sentences in his mind, searching for the perfect way to express himself — yet that day was remarkable because he was swept up in a tide of inspiration and optimism he hadn’t felt in more than a decade, since he held his first book in his hands.

Published in 2004, Pig City: From The Saints to Savage Garden is widely considered a cult classic of modern Australian history. The book explores the cultural significance of the popular music that emerged from the Queensland capital in the two decades following the 1970s, and how the art was influenced by the politics of the state under conservative premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who held office from 1968 to 1987.

But where Pig City was designed to celebrate the sounds that made Brisbane, his second book would celebrate the sounds that made his life.

Titled Something to Believe In, a name borrowed from a 1986 song by New York punk rockers the Ramones, it blends memoir and music history by weaving his story — including his lifelong love for rock ’n’ roll, his experiences working as a taxi driver for more than a decade, his relationship with mental illness and his mother’s decline into dementia — between examinations of favourite songs and albums by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Kate Bush and Jen Cloher. “I sketched out a chapter outline, and then it just poured out,” Stafford says.

“It was the easiest thing I’ve ever written; it was 14 years in the making, and two months in the writing. Between the first of March and the 14th of May — Mother’s Day 2018 — I had a pretty complete first draft.”

The author retains a specific recall of those dates because of a decision he had taken in the lead-up to that purple patch of productivity: he opened a crowd-funding page on Patreon, an American website that acts as a membership platform for creative people. By donating a set fee each month, fans and followers of artists, musicians, podcasters and writers — among others — can directly fund the work they admire.

For Stafford, that decision was not taken lightly. “I started a Patreon page almost out of desperation, really, to try to scare up some income in the summer months, which are a graveyard for freelancers — and also to give myself a sense of purpose,” he says.

The first piece he wrote on Patreon last year is also the first chapter of his new book. In I Am Just a Teenage Dreamer, Stafford begins by describing the couple of guitars he owns but rarely plays, as he has generally felt more comfortable writing about music than playing it.

“This book is about being a fan and, to be completely truthful, a wannabe,” he writes. “But everyone whose life was ever saved by rock ’n’ roll finds their own way in.

“This isn’t a story of sex and drugs, though. More often it’s about loneliness, escape, obsession and the odd triumph, balanced by occasional episodes of madness, which the music sometimes stoked, but mostly soothed.”

For Stafford, that first piece set the tone for what was to follow. The reputation for original, insightful prose he established with Pig City — which, in 2007, was developed into a one-day event headlined by the reunited line-up of punk band the Saints as part of the Queensland Music Festival — has attracted a strong base of financial supporters on Patreon.

Today, he has 249 patrons, allowing him the stability of a monthly income in addition to commissioned articles for the likes of Guardian Australia, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on subjects such as music, Australian football and the environment. Yet the author knew Something to Believe In would demand an element of personal honesty his debut had not.

“If you are a very private person, you might no more write a book like this than flap your arms and fly to the moon. But if, like me, you wear your heart on your sleeve, it’s easy — you just kind of excavate your life,” he says with a laugh. “This wasn’t like Pig City, which took 100 interviews and four years to piece together. This one was telling my own story. That was simple — that was the story I had to tell.”

Something to Believe In is out via UQP. Andrew McMillen has contributed to Stafford’s Patreon account. App readers can listen to Andrew Stafford’s Spotify playlist by accessing the web version of this story.