When The Screaming Stops: The Dark History Of The Bay City Rollers

Book excerpt: What happened to the Bay City Rollers is one of the greatest scandals in music industry. When The Screaming Stops reveals the dark truth behind 'rollermania', the pioneering boy band fad which gripped the UK in the seventies, exposing the sinister undercurrents which underpinned the band's phenomenal success. Dazzled by sudden global fame and under the grip of their Svengali manager Tom Paton, the Bay City Rollers descended into a world of depravity, victimhood, crime and psychosis. Whilst promoting his young lads as clean-living teetotalers, Tom Paton subjected them to various forms of sexual abuse; band members became hooked on drugs and their fall was almost as rapid as their rise, leaving them penniless and emotionally destroyed. In 1979, Paton was finally convicted of gross indecency with teenage boys. That such exploitation could have happened to one of the world's most famous boy bands is a brutal reminder that conspiracies of silence about sexual exploitation were once the norm in the music and entertainment business. The Dark History Of The Bay City Rollers is a no-holds-barred expose of sex, drugs and financial mismanagement based on over 500 hours of interviews with many of the band's closest associates, including former members. When The Screaming Stops includes curated music. Whilst you read the book, hear the classic songs of the Bay City Rollers and surround yourself with the music that surrounded them.