From childhood traumas to adult squalor and critical success, it is a tale of bitterness, humour, excess, cruelty, and the vile affections that bind this exceptional pairing on their continued Orphean descent into the underworld. After their parents split up, the young Saoudi boys move with their mother to Northern Ireland, to Cookstown, a narrow-minded loyalist stronghold. It involves a spectacular amount of drug taking and a wanton disregard for anything approaching professionalism. He'd needlessly humiliated my little brother in front of everybody, and I just stood there dazed, wrapped in silence. SHORTLISTED FOR THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 'The story of a band that's always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace' Miranda Sawyer, Observer 'You begin to wonder why more biographies aren't tackled with such invention' Record Collector 'This book is a rarity' Mark Lanegan 'One of the finest music books in aeons' Kevin Barry From the mountains of Algeria to the squats of South London via sectarian Northern Ireland, Ten Thousand Apologies is the sordid and thrilling story of the country's most notorious cult band, Fat White Family.

The drugs taking is, as I've already hinted at, off the scale… heroin, cocaine, acid, meth, ketamine etc. Despite what is clearly a golden ticket out he manages to waste a big chance to break free of his working-class insecurities.Tyrone – where he was relentlessly bullied and racially abused – give more perspective on sectarianism than a hundred histories of The Troubles. Lias turns to art to save himself from the grimness (there is an excellent Schiele-esque self-portrait in the book); it leads him to London and the Slade art school. There are some ridiculous levels of drug consumption that are occasionally hard to believe and it does become quite dark but there is always a funny scene/anecdote not far away. It’s a bleakly comic fat white knuckle ride through a mad and clearly maddeningly turbulent stretch of time, with realism regularly injected by lias’s well-written interjections - epic for any fans of his life beyond the neutral zone series.

The Landlord had sent a festival stash down to the site with an old friend two weeks prior to its opening to the general public; his mate was building sets down there, so was given the parcel to avoid any run-in with security.

Spanning the mountainous terrain of Saoudi's paternal Algeria, the depravity of South London's squats and the glum of Sheffield's northern hum, this is a music book unrivalled in dysfunctionality and peerless in excess. Actually, Lias’s description of that festival – the grubby glamour, the sweaty tent – is so accurate that it could bring on a sympathetic nervous breakdown. It may not make for the best music but it certainly makes for a compelling story and repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The musician spoke in conversation with fellow musician, friend and collaborator Raf Rundell for NME‘s Friends Like These series, where they discussed their forthcoming projects.