Bach, Sebastian. 18 and Life on Skid Row. Dey Street: HarperCollins. Jun. 2015. 288p. ISBN 9780062265395. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062265418. MUSIC
Actually, Bach has been part of the metal music scene since he was 14, first joining Kid Wikkid and then flaunting his vocals and mass of blond hair with Skid Row, Madam X, The Last Hard Men, The Frogs, and Frameshift. He’s also cozied up with the likes of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Guns ’N Roses and gone both solo and Broadway. Not just sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, insists the publisher (though, hey, what’s a rock memoir without them?) but reputedly funny and insightful. 
With a 75,000-copy first printing; note that Bach has over 826,000 Facebook likes and over 358,000 Twitter followers, so there’s an audience.
Earle, Steve. I Can’t Remember If We Said Goodbye. Twelve. Jun. 2015. 304p. ISBN 9781455545056. $28; ebk. ISBN 9781455545018. lib. ebk. ISBN 9781455579754. CD/downloadable: Hachette Audio. MEMOIR
Earle isn’t just a talented musician, with his songs recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings and his No. 1 debut album, Guitar Town, launching what we now call New Country. As his publisher takes pains to point out, he’s already proved himself as a writer with two well-received books, the novel I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive and short story collection Doghouse Roses. So expect good narrative flow as Earle recalls heroes like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, explains how he finally beat drug addiction (the uncle who gifted him with his first guitar also gave him his first shot of dope), and details the Texas music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. With a 75,000-copy first printing and a seven- to ten-city tour.
Rotella, Pasquale & James Frey. Insomniac. St. Martin’s. Jun. 2015. 272p. ISBN 9781250064936. $25.99; ebk. ISBN 9781466876897. MEMOIR
What do you do when you’re a kid from Venice, CA, born to immigrant parents, who never made it through high school, joined a gang, and couldn’t sleep at night (note the title)? As the rave scene sweeps 1990s Los Angeles, you start throwing small, out-of-the-way parties that build into a multi-billion-dollar electronic music empire and one of America’s biggest music festivals, Electric Daisy Carnival. New York Times best-selling author Frey joins in the telling of Rotella’s life and times.
White, Maurice & Herb Powell. Keep Your Head to the Sky: My Life with Earth, Wind & Fire. Amistad: HarperCollins. Jun. 2015. 224p. ISBN 9780062329158. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062329172. MEMOIR
The numbers surely add up: the durable pop/R&B/soul/funk/disco group Earth Wind & Fire has won five American Music Awards, six Grammy Awards, and three NAACP Image Awards and has sold more than 90 million albums worldwide. White, its founder and for some time its key songwriter and record producer, and co-lead singer, was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of 
Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. After the many ups and downs detailed here, White retired from the group in 2006 but still retains executive control, so this memoir has the stamp of authority. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
Witt, Stephen. How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy. Viking. Jun. 2015. 304p. ISBN 9780525426615. $27.95. MUSIC
Hedge funder–turned–journalist Witt tells the sobering story of Dell Glover, a factory worker at a compact-disc manufacturing plant in North Carolina who leaked thousands of albums over a decade and nearly destroyed the industry. As Witt reveals, Glover was helped along not only by his band of distributors and the creation of mp3 but by the industry’s consolidation, which made pilfering the work of big acts so easy to do. A book about more than just music.