With considerable skill, Mueller skids around the globe from failed state to ravaged war zone to desolate no-man's-land, from Beirut to Basra via Belfast and Bihac, to try to unpick why we humans seem so prone to plucking war from the jaws of peace, why so much that can go wrong does go wrong, over and over again, and how and why some conflicts suddenly, quietly, inexplicably seem to find themselves solved. It's a surprisingly sunny book given the mire in which he finds himself. And it is a notably entertaining and eye-opening tour of the world's moral basements in the vein of Holidays in Hell or Emergency Sex.

Spending a night out in the former battlefields of Beirut wouldn't strike many people as their idea of a good time. But then, neither would going to see a Def Leppard concert in a Moroccan cave. Yet Andrew Mueller has willingly done both and somehow managed to see the humorous side. Rock And Hard Places, his first book, recounts his experiences in such far-flung places as Kabul and the Woodstock II festival. Throughout, he seems constantly amazed by people's ability to survive any hardship, whether they're caused by mines or mud. Rock And Hard Places is half travel literature, half rock literature. In the spirit--and style--of American humorist P.J. O'Rourke, Andrew Mueller seeks out the world's trouble spots (and Nashville) in order to provide a frank report to the non-political reader. His common-sense outlook and innocence influence his observations, so that he is constantly asking "Why?" when faced with the absurdities of the wider world. He is at his best (and funniest) when he is able to direct this curiosity towards the locals. When he's not charming militant fundamentalists, Andrew Mueller spends his time as a freelance music journalist. This book also collects a number of his interviews with some of the biggest bands of the moment, including Radiohead, U2 and The Prodigy. He is a talented interviewer, with a casualness and a sense of ease that enables you to see these bands as the collections of individuals that they are.

Andrew Mueller is Australian by birth, a Londoner by choice, a wanderer by nature, and a journalist by profession. Unable to decide between being a rock critic, travel writer, or foreign correspondent, he hit upon the novel, if time-consuming, solution of trying to be all three at once. In "Rock and Hard Places," published originally in the U.K. in 1999, now re-envisioned and updated and available for the first time in the United States, he travels to Lebanon with the Prodigy, comes to America with Radiohead, and goes all over the place with U2. He ventures to Bosnia Herzegovina with an aid convoy in the middle of the war, sees Def Leppard play in a cave in Morocco, and attempts to ask the Taliban not only what they think they're up to, but who they fancy for the World Cup. He flings himself head first down the Cresta Run, sits in Stalin's armchair, chases ambulances through Moscow, chases some kind of lost tribe in India, wakes up at least once in a park in Reykjavik, and strongly advises avoiding the seafood salad in Sapporo Airport. He's funny. Occasionally he makes a point.

What is a jaded rock journalist doing dodging landmines to talk to mercenaries and terrorists? And what kind of conversation can a man who prefers hunting for perfect three-minute pop songs and tubes of beer have with devotees of fasting and ferocity? Sarajevo. Jerusalem. Kabul. Belfast. Kosovo. Gaza. Basra. New York City. Every place where recent history advertises the stubbornness, intolerance, bloodlust, and cowardice that sully our collective record, there the intrepid Andrew Mueller goes. With considerable skill, Mueller skids around the globe from failed state to ravaged war zone to desolate no-man's-land to try to unpick why we humans seem so prone to plucking war from the jaws of peace. En route, he meets various influential panjandrums (Al Gore, Gerry Adams, Bono, Paddy Ashdown), any number of assorted warlords and revolutionaries, and a sprinkling of peacemakers and do-gooders. He also manages to get shot at a couple of times, locked up once, and taken on a guided tour by one of the world's most infamous terrorist organizations. It's like a Bond film with much, much less sex, and might appear for that and other reasons to be substantially a story of disappointment. Yet it's a surprisingly sunny book given the mire in which he finds himself. And it is a notably entertaining and eye-opening tour of the world's moral basements in the vein of P. J. O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell.