Tony O’Neill, Author

Saturday 29th March 4:00 - 7:00pm. Book Launch: Forged Prescriptions, Parkside Lounge, 317 East Houston St, No cover charge

Blackburn-born author Tony O’Neill started as a keyboard player, moving to London aged 17 and playing with acts like Soft Cell's Marc Almond, Britpop-era band Kenickie, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Sneaker Pimps’ Kelli Ali.  After several years in Los Angeles and a near-fatal period of heroin addiction, he returned to London in 2001.  There, he met his wife Vanessa, and within a few years their daughter Nico was born.  Tony got clean once and for all in the run-up to Nico’s birth, and his experiences as a heroin addict in Los Angeles and London inspired his debut novel, Digging the Vein.  

After moving to New York, Tony was signed by Harper Perennial, who published the novels Down and Out on Murder Mile and Sick City (which is being adapted into a limited series by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis.)  His other books include Black Neon and Songs From The Shooting Gallery.  He co-authored a pair of New York Times bestselling memoirs: Hero of the Underground with Jason Peter and Neon Angel: Story of a Runaway with Cherie Currie (inspiring the movie The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.)  

His latest book is Forged Prescriptions, a short story collection that is out now via hip Hudson-based indie Far West Press and features original cover art by one-time bad boy of the Young British Artists, Jake Chapman. In recent years, he has found success as a screenwriter.  His latest, Teenage Wildlife, is set during LA’s hardcore punk heyday, with filming beginning later in the year.  The Guardian has called him “The man who has taken the term rock’n’roll poet to its furthest extremes,” Paris’ Le Monde claimed he was “the heir to the scuzzy throne once occupied by Bukowski, Burroughs, and Fante,” while an anonymous Amazon review wrote, “I’ve read better cereal packets.”  Which just goes to show... you can’t win ‘em all!