A TIMES AND ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Beautifully written and brutally honest' LYDIA LUNCH 'A compassionate, relatable love story' MIKI BERENYI 'Lyrical, affectionate and often painfully raw' RUPERT THOMSON As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures, 'Budgie' became one of the era-defining drummers in the much-mythologised post-punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The beating heart of this painfully honest account of a life often sabotaged by substance abuse and alcoholism is his long-term position as drummer and co-writer with Siouxsie and The Banshees, alongside ex-wife, Siouxsie Sioux. But as their personal relationship fractured, the consequences for the band were inevitable. The Absence is both fabulously glamorous and a tawdry cautionary tale. For the first time the story of the most exalted and mysterious of bands has been told by one who survived inside the belly of the beast.