Legendary MTV-Era Director Tim Pope Reveals the Wild, Unfiltered Story Behind the Birth of the Modern Music Video

In I Shoot Rock Stars: The Wild Adventures of a Music Video Director (Diversion Books; 9/1/26; Paperback; $19.99; 9798895152140), legendary director Tim Pope delivers a riotous, behind-the-scenes memoir from the front lines of the MTV revolution—when music videos were chaotic, inventive, outrageous, and poised to reshape global pop culture forever.

Featuring a foreword by Robert Smith of The Cure and sixteen pages of color photographs, I Shoot Rock Stars plunges readers into the untamed creative frenzy of the 1980s and beyond, when Pope emerged as one of the defining visual architects of the MTV era. Before music videos became polished corporate productions, Pope was making surreal, daring, and wildly imaginative films for artists including David Bowie, Queen, The Cure, Wham!, Hall & Oates, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Bangles, Talk Talk, Neil Young, and many more.

From dressing Freddie Mercury as a giant prawn to launching members of The Cure off a cliff inside a wardrobe, Pope recounts the absurdity, ambition, ego clashes, and creative breakthroughs that defined an era when no idea seemed too reckless—or too brilliant—to attempt. As MTV exploded into a global phenomenon, Pope found himself at the center of a new artistic frontier where image and music fused into a cultural force unlike anything the entertainment industry had seen before.

Written with sharp wit, emotional honesty, and an irreverent sense of humor, I Shoot Rock Stars is more than a celebrity memoir. It is a firsthand cultural history of the moment pop music became visual, when excess and experimentation collided with unprecedented fame, artistic freedom, and commercial pressure. Alongside the outrageous stories are intimate portraits of artists at their most vulnerable, ambitious, and creatively fearless.

Packed with unforgettable anecdotes and unprecedented access to some of music’s most iconic figures, I Shoot Rock Stars captures the once-in-a-lifetime moment when music videos changed not just the industry—but the way the world consumed pop culture itself.

In an interview, Tim Pope can discuss:

• The Birth of MTV and the Music Video Revolution: How a chaotic experimental medium transformed pop culture forever.
• Working with Music Legends at Their Creative Peak: Behind-the-scenes stories from David Bowie, Queen, The Cure, Wham!, Neil Young, and more.
• The Wildest Shoots of the MTV Era: Giant prawns, maggots, exploding wardrobes, impossible deadlines, and creative madness.
• How Music Videos Changed Celebrity Forever: Why image became inseparable from music—and how that reshaped fame, branding, and artistic identity.
• The Cure and a Legendary Creative Partnership: Pope’s long-running collaboration with Robert Smith and the surreal visual world they built together.

Praise for I Shoot Rock Stars:

“TIM POPE IS A TRUE ORIGINAL, A GENUINE MAVERICK, AND I AM VERY LUCKY AND VERY HAPPY TO HAVE BEEN PART OF HIS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL, DARK AND DANGEROUS, AND SLIGHTLY PREPOSTEROUS ONGOING STORY . . . I AM VERY PROUD TO CALL HIM A FRIEND.”
—Robert Smith, The Cure

“Tim crashed the stage, camera on a fishing rod, chasing the shot he was seeing . . . and the next thing I knew, he was pressing it into my forehead . . . The book brought that moment vividly back.”
—Neil Young

“Tim Pope is completely unique in the landscape of film directors. His broad scope embraces music videos, feature films, television programmes and commercials. His remarkable talent never fails to dazzle.”
—Jools Holland

“Tim is a strange person.”
—Iggy Pop

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Pope is one of the most influential and distinctive music-video directors of the MTV era. Best known for his long-running creative partnership with The Cure, Pope also directed iconic videos for Queen, David Bowie, Wham!, Talk Talk, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Neil Young, Hall & Oates, and many others. His groundbreaking work helped define the visual grammar of pop music at the precise moment when image and sound fused into a new global art form. I Shoot Rock Stars is his candid, first-person account of that extraordinary era and his life inside it.

Order here: https://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Rock-Stars-Adventures-Director-ebook/dp/B0FRM3NKHR