Before We Was We: The Making of Madness by Madness

The band's first official book.

North London. The 1970s. Amid a grim landscape of bomb sites, squats, public baths and rough pubs, a loose gang of misfits and outsiders started making music together - riding freight trains, spraying graffiti, stealing records, clothes and musical instruments. Escaping the fringes of criminality, they formed a band...

These lairy but charismatic chaps became Madness, one of the most successful pop groups ever, in the UK and beyond. In Before We Was We, their first official book, they tell us the story of how they became them. It's a journey full of luck, skill and charm, as they duck and dive by day and make the name in London's exploding music scene by night, zipping around the capital in their Morris Minor vans.

Their formative years, 1970-79, provided inspiration for many Madness classics, including 'Baggy Trousers', 'The Prince', 'Our House' and 'My Girl': songs that four decades later still soundtrack weddings and funerals and inspire mass singalongs in concert halls.

This is the riotous coming-of-age tale of seven unique individuals, whose collective graft, energy and talent took them from the sweaty depths of the Hope and Anchor basement to the Top of the Pops studio.

In their own words, they each look back on their past and how during those shared adventures, they formed a bond that's lasted forty years.

Before We Was We is irreverent, funny and full of character. Just like them.