Richard West discusses his work with Threshold and his past spent writing pop songs for Simon Cowell in his autobiography, Maybe A Writer: My Life In Threshold, which is out via Kingmaker Publishing on December 8.
“I was inspired to start writing by my late father," explains the keyboardist. "In the last few years of his life I spent a lot of time looking after him, and he used to love telling me stories from his youth.
"One was of an 11-day trek he made across British Columbia through wild rapids and snow-covered mountains. He'd documented the whole adventure along with a selection of old photographs, so I took the opportunity of converting everything into a hardback book for him using an online printing company. He was so pleased with it and I wished he'd written more of his stories down. So that inspired me to start writing mine. One story led to another and before I knew it I was writing a whole book.”
West has spent nearly 30 years behind the keyboards with Threshold and co-writes most of the band's material with guitarist Karl Groom. His book charts the prog metallers' highs and lows, including their revolving personnel, right up to their latest album, Dividing Lines, which is out on November 18 via Nuclear Blast.
The 200-page hardback book also contains photos, including some exclusives, as well as recollections of writing pop music for record exec and X-Factor creator Simon Cowell, and his work with his wife Farrah in art-rock duo League Of Lights.
Maybe A Writer: My Life In Threshold is available to pre-order through Burning Shed.
