VIA PRESS RELEASE | Queens, New York based Mike Henneberger is excited to announce the pre-order of his first book and music memoir Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: An Emo Kid’s Journey Through Falling In And Out Of Love In And With New York City. The book is due for an official release on June 9th and is now available for pre-order at rockbottombook.com.
Rock Bottom at the Renaissance is the debut memoir from Mike Henneberger, an Emmy-winning producer and music journalist with credits from Comedy Central, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, and Vice. Though the bulk of the book is set in a hotel room during a weekend of self-imposed isolation and self-destructive introspection, and navigates the dark tunnels of Henneberger’s booze and drug-addled mind, it’s much larger in scope—taking in much of his past. Henneberger tells us of his Texas childhood defined by divorce, sibling rivalry, and an instability that forced him to navigate the most important years of a young man’s life without any sort of compass.
He takes us through his minor successes—touring in bands, launching a magazine, and performing stand-up comedy—as he wonders if the sense of confidence instilled by those accomplishments is actually delusion. We get a glimpse into his time in the U.S. Army, which rather than increase his sense of purpose, only increased his chemical dependencies and triggered mental illness. And at the heart of the book, are Henneberger’s quests to find love, and, perhaps most importantly, his relationship with music and its power to get us through life’s toughest moments.
“You might not get that much hope from reading the book,” Henneberger admits. “But you get it from me still being here and putting it out. You have to look at it like an old Dangerous Summer or a Bayside album—it’s fucking dark, and it’s scary and it’s sad, but we were all able to make it through and make that album or book. I’ve been suicidal multiple times in my life, but I’m still here—and you can turn that into something to offer other people so they can deal with things they’re suffering with, just like the bands in this book helped me survive through this stuff.”
Some members of a few of those bands have even shared some early social media anticipation and appreciation for Rock Bottom at the Renaissance, including Jack O’Shea from Bayside, Steve Soboslai from Punchline, Ryan Zwiefelhofer from Acceptance, and Brett Detar from The Juliana Theory.
But some of the highest praise for Rock Bottom at the Renaissance has come from one of its earliest and biggest fans, AJ Perdomo of The Dangerous Summer. Perdomo shared “I think that’s what’s so great about the book, the vulnerability and the rawness, I always think that’s what creates good art, that’s what I look for in myself. When I write songs I say, are you being honest with yourself, are you being honest to the point where it hurts you or the people around you? You need to do that. You need to put yourself in a place of great vulnerability and honesty where it’s like, this is what’s going on, this is how I feel. I think, especially when I started reading the book, and when I started reading about [Henneberger’s] drug use and everything, I was like, alright, he’s not fucking around. He’s really telling his honest story and he’s trying to really create a piece of art that’s impactful.”
The Dangerous Summer is just one of many bands—including Jimmy Eat World, Bayside, The Smoking Popes, Alkaline Trio, The Wonder Years and more—whose songs soundtrack Rock Bottom At The Renaissance as their lyrics appear throughout the chapters, either because it was what Henneberger was listening to that weekend, or because they fit thematically with what he was going through.
Rock Bottom at the Renaissance is available for pre-order at rockbottombook.com and will be officially released on June 9th wherever books and eBooks are sold.
