I Shoot Rock Stars: The Wild Adventures of a Music Video Director

The outrageous inside story of the music video revolution, told by the maverick director who brought David Bowie, Queen, The Cure, The Bangles, Wam!, Hall & Oates, and more to our screens

Tim Pope was there from the beginning, before music videos became slick corporate products, when anything felt possible. I Shoot Rock Stars is his music-obsessive-turned-guerrilla-filmmaker's wild ride inside the birth of the pop video--smuggled cameras, blown budgets, and no idea too strange to try. After breaking through with Soft Cell, Pope found himself at the center of a creative explosion, feeding the insatiable new machine called MTV, directing the artists and moments that defined a generation: dressing Freddie Mercury as a giant prawn; being called a "funny little arsehole" by David Bowie; hanging out with Neil Young on his ranch; and locking members of the Cure in a wardrobe and launching it off a cliff.

Written with wit and unfiltered honesty, I Shoot Rock Stars is a riotous memoir of a time when image became inseparable from music.

Author: Tim Pope
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 09/01/2026
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9798895152140