35-year old Danny wants to be a rock star. Who hasn’t dreamed of it? But Danny has a secret. He already was a rock star a decade ago. His band topped the charts and released two albums. Since then he’s been living an ordinary life, training to be an accountant and getting engaged to be married to his sweetheart.
An email from a fan arrives – the first ever – and Danny starts thinking: Could he regroup the band? Is it finally the right moment? Could he and his estranged, middle-aged bandmates have one last stab at making it big before people start saying they're having a midlife crisis?
Danny has no idea what’s about to happen. Over the next two months his world will be rocked to its foundations.
Together with his best friend (and lead guitar player) Graham, he tracks down volatile vocalist Stripehead and drummer Theo. The newly regrouped Diamond Head Crater tours the pubs of Manchester, England, getting nowhere until one of their old songs is randomly used on a lager commercial. It rockets to the top of the charts based on download sales alone.
An appearance on children’s TV goes badly wrong when the lead singer beats-up the host, and suddenly the paparazzi can’t get enough of the band members. When their cannabis-farming former manager (and peer of the realm) wriggles out of the woodwork things go from bad to worse. Suddenly their world is filled with dodgy reality TV appearances as they find themselves exploring the fine line between fame and infamy.
Their former label-mate MC Frank-N-Stein appears from nowhere too, wanting to collaborate to boost his own career. As they explain, "Diamond Head Crater doesn't do rap," but that doesn't stop MC Frank-N-Stein putting out his own remix of their most popular song – and getting into the charts himself. Everything is out of control.
Can Diamond Head Crater hold it together to take a place in the rock’n’roll hall of fame? Will Danny avoid destroying his relationship with his fiancée Jane? Or will everything go spectacularly wrong, just like it did the first time around, back when their singer was thrown out of a hotel window by their lead guitar player – amongst countless other incidents?
With countless laugh-out-loud moments, The Rock & Roll Beers is the funniest story of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll since Spinal Tap, and the most poignant since The Commitments.