Bio

Jeff Apter - Biography

I'm the author of more than 30 books. My work includes biographies of Neil Finn (Don't Dream It's Over), the Bee Gees (Tragedy: The Sad Ballad of the Gibb Brothers), Marc Hunter, ‘Shirley’ Strachan, Silverchair and Keith Urban. Playing To Win: The Definitive Biography of John Farnham was published in October 2016, followed by the Australian #1 bestseller High Voltage: The Life of Angus Young AC/DC's Last Man Standing in late August 2017, which was published in North America by Chicago Review Press. (Both are available as audiobooks.) My two most recent titles are The Book of Daniel and Malcolm Young: The Man Who Made AC/DC. I have also co-written and / or ghostwritten memoirs by the musicians Kasey Chambers (A Little Bird Told Me), Michael Browning (Dog Eat Dog) and AC/DC’s Mark Evans (Dirty Deeds), the boxer-turned-soldier Paul Warren (The Fighter), cricketer Michael 'Slats' Slater and soccer star Tim Cahill. I also helped with the memoirs Somebody That I Used to Know: Love, Loss and Jack Thompson by Bunkie King, which was the bestselling non-fiction title in Australia on the week of its release in early 2015, The Dust of Uruzgan, Fred Smith’s powerful study of Afghanistan, and Richard Clapton’s The Best Years of our Lives. And I was fortunate enough to work with photographer Philip Morris on his wonderful collection of images and reflections, It's a long way and collaborated with Merri Cyr on 25 Years of Grace: An Anniversary Tribute to Jeff Buckley's Classic Album, published in Australia in 2019 by Black Inc and elsewhere by Backbeat Books.
I have been writing for more than 25 years; having spent four years on staff at Australian Rolling Stone (see here for a Jon English obit and also a cover story reflecting on Jeff Buckley's album Grace), and have been a frequent contributor to The Bulletin, Vogue, GQ and the Sydney Morning Herald — here's a piece I wrote on the last Stevie Wright. I've also contributed to The Guardian. I was the creative consultant for the 2015 live show, A State of Grace: The Music of Tim and Jeff Buckley, which was nominated for a Helpmann award. You can see a collection of my writing at the Rock's Back Pages website, including interviews with Helen Reddy, Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith, Robbie Robertson and numerous others, many conducted while I lived in the USA in the late 1990s.