To Ease My Troubled Mind

In 1977, seventeen-year-old Steven Hamper was a stonemason in the dockyards of Chatham, Kent, in England. His heart, however, beat in sync with the punk rock tremors of the era, seduced by its celebration of amateurism. So, in a gesture of revolutionary defiance, he smashed his hand with a hammer, vowing to never work again. In doing so, Steven Hamper metamorphosed into Billy Childish, a true renaissance man.

Childish has since remained steadfastly true to punk's DIY cred, becoming one of the most recognizable and authentic voices in whichever artistic endeavor he undertakes. He has released over 150 albums of raw rock and roll, punk, blues, and folk; and has written many volumes of searing poetry as well as several autobiographical novels. But what he is perhaps best known for in recent years is his painting, for which he is now critically, commercially, and internationally feted. He hasn't changed course in any of his disciplines, though. The world just caught up with the sheer volume of his brutally honest work.

To Ease My Troubled Mind is a mosaic portrait collated over a year of interviews with Childish, as well as with close family, ex-girlfriends, band members past and present, friends, foes, collaborators, even his therapist. It is an unflinching, yet frequently spiritual and funny portrait of an artist whose obstacle-strewn upbringing formed the backbone of his work: raised in a broken home and abused as a child, Childish was an undiagnosed dyslexic in remedial class at school who is nevertheless now Britain's most prolific and uncompromising creative force.