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Now in Paperback...On Sale: December 29, 2009
	Escape from Bellevue A Memoir of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Recovery, and Redemption “Campion tells this tale of a very long trek on the wild side with hangdog humor and bleary charm.” ―*Publishers Weekly* “Campion is a talented raconteur, capable of turning every misbegotten moment … into addictively fascinating prose … Campion parties like a rock star, crashes and burns like one, then rises from the ashes to tell us about it.” −Booklist “I read the scaly thing all night! Chris writes like a demon with a rocket in his pocket... a cool read.” – Stephen Davis
In true rock-n-roll form, Chris Campion, lead singer of indie-rock band Knockout Drops, recalls his band’s tumultuous ride, his plummet into addictions, and his strange road back to sobriety in ESCAPE FROM BELLEVUE: A Memoir of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Recovery and Redemption (Gotham Books; On-sale December 29, 2009) The story originated as a one-man show that Campion performed to sold-out audiences in New York City. Now presenting these tales in a memoir of madness and redemption, Campion once again proves the creative genius of a diehard raconteur/front man. While Knockout Drops reached the height of their success, having toured with headliners such as Soul Asylum and Violent Femmes, Campion himself was beginning his downward spiral. In a Gonzo-esque journey that pin-balls through the streets of After-hours Manhattan, encountering a myriad of nomadic night crawlers and hilariously maladjusted misfits (characters he affectionately refers to as “vicious freaks”), Campion recounts his not-so-subtle descent into alcoholism and addiction, his low bottom search for God, and his strange road back to sobriety that landed him in Bellevue’s mental ward a total of three times. ESCAPE FROM BELLEVUE is filled with Campion’s rollicking and astonishing yarns running from the late ‘70s to early ‘00s. He masterfully shares stories from growing up in an Irish-Catholic household on Long Island, to a very interesting college experience at “Vanillanova,” and captures the squalor and rolling bacchanal that was the Knockout Drops’ world painting a vivid picture of the hopes and expectations, conflicts, dysfunctional relationships, and collective psychosis that happens when you share a dream with four other people in a band. Eventually able to come to grips with his addictions, Campion now recounts the highs and lows of life in the music industry alongside his personal tales of struggle and survival in this hysterically irreverent yet somehow touching coming of age tale.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Lead singer and frontman of popular indie NY rock band Knockout Drops, Chris Campion has been called “A diabolically charismatic storyteller...and lovable rogue...who sold out faster than Lou Reed” (92nd Street Y Downtown) and “one of the funniest men alive” (Irish Voice). In the same vein as Craig Ferguson, Russell Brand and Carrie Fisher, Campion takes the approach that “Humor de-fangs pain” in a darkly funny, raucous new growing up tale that will make you gasp and guffaw: *ESCAPE FROM BELLEVUE: A MEMOIR OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, RECOVERY AND REDEMPTION* (Penguin/Gotham Books; December 29, 2009). Barack Obama’s lit agency snapped up Campion after hearing an interview about his sold-out off-Broadway play of the same name, staged in 2005 and 2007. (Any parallels in these two men’s trajectories otherwise end there.) Campion is a singular New York character with a rogue’s wit and poet’s soul, the heart of a rock & roller and the liver of an Irishman. He discovers the hard way that “Detox is just a cuddly word for psych ward,” when his excessive lifestyle lands him 3 times in Bellevue Hospital to dry out—or 2-1/2 times, if you count his escape. “A never-ending Fellini flick” is how he describes the world’s most fabled and foreboding mental institution in a passage that recounts the bizarre, Steve McQueen-like escape he masterminds to get sprung (the first to do so since 1963). Expanding on the irreverent and unflinching play, the book is the full tale of this boy’s life, chronicling the outrageous escapades, unquenchable thirst and ultimate redemption of a goofy kid from a nice Irish-American family who grew up in 1970’s Long Island with a love of radio and sports and dreams of rock stardom. Life changes forever when a bonafide rock guitar god moves in next door and the Gonzo-esque journey then pin-balls through the streets and bars of Manhattan, encountering a myriad of rock & roll heroes, nomadic night crawlers and comically maladjusted misfits along the way on his descent down the rabbit hole. In chapter after chapter, Campion is found at the center of some wild & weird situations that send him heading for the falls. Some doozy stories include awakening locked out of a girlfriend’s apartment wearing only a pink thong, being hijacked by partying rodeo clowns, various doomed job stints that go spectacularly awry, and music business tales involving some renowned artists like Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple and Rainbow), Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes), Ian McCulloch (Echo & The Bunnymen), Dan Murphy & Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum), and other oddball brief encounters with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, a frightening Bette Davis, and one cringeworthy dilly about a shot at the big time auditioning for Madonna’s record label that goes down in flames.



The Drops are in the studio working on a new album
checkout a preview of the new song "Paging Hiawatha" on the Drops' MySpace page


Book Trailer video	"Escape from Your House" promo video