BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer
Nicholas Clemente EAST BRUNSWICK — It was called “the decade of decadence.”
Township resident Nicholas Clemente was once part of a 1980s rock band that sought to tap into the era where big-hair rock and roll bands ruled.
That band’s attempt at success — which Clemente, who is now 38, refers to as its “rise to the bottom” — unfolds in his newly released book “How Not to Make It in the Music Business.”
“As far back as I can remember, music has always played an important part in my life,” Clemente, who was originally from Union, wrote in the book’s introduction. “It was always there.”
“How Not to Make It in the Music Business” begins with a brief introduction to Clemente’s childhood and his connection to music, leading into his first band, The Way In, which as it turns out serves as the way in to the book’s main focus — the band Sinnocence, formed in 1988.
Described as a hair band more akin to Journey and fellow New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi than to harder acts at the time like Twisted Sister, Sinnocence got a taste of success with high-profile shows in New York City and surrounding areas, as well as “State of Grace,” their full-length debut in 1993. The album was released just in time for the band to break up.
“The theme [in popular rock music] changed to grunge and killed it,” Clemente said. “The whole wave went to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden … It kind of left everybody out in the cold.”
He began to write the book in 1997 when, for the first time in 13 years, he found himself without any band.
Clemente describes in the prologue how he first began to write the book with bitterness and anger, but changed gears as he recalled all the good times he had experienced in the music business.
“I finally ripped up the original chapters and started from the real beginning, when music was fun and every step brought me closer to success, but was never taken for granted,” he said.
After a time spent hunting for a publisher, receiving professional editing and even adding an extra chapter earlier this year, the book was self-published at Bookends in Ridgewood.
And on June 26, after more than a decade apart, Sinnocence got back together for a reunion show. Once-decadent rock stars were now husbands and parents. Singer Frank Duca asked to schedule the reunion around the birth of his first child, and others were late to the show because they had to pick up their children from soccer and baseball practices.
“I never thought 10, 12 years ago that that would be a part of us,” Clemente said.
The show, held at a club in North Jersey called The Cup, was a huge success and very meaningful for the band.
Although he still plays music, Clemente, who has two children of his own with wife, Kim, as well as two stepchildren, has turned his primary focus toward his entertainment company, Commodity Oddity Entertainment, which he formed with friend Kevin LaPore in 1998. The company can be found on the Internet at www.comoddent.com.
Recently, Clemente and a friend were asked by the family of former Kiss drummer Eric Carr to help complete songs left unfinished by the drummer prior to his death in 1991.
“It was an honor to finish something he had left behind,” he said.
Thus far, Clemente’s book has received positive responses from reviewers, some as far away as the Netherlands.
“There’s been a lot of response from the hair, glam people,” Clemente said. “That was my favorite time in music. It was so exciting.”
The book’s forward was written by Joe Lynn Turner, a hard rock singer from bands like Rainbow and Deep Purple. Turner describes the book as “a humorous and sometimes tragic” tale of Clemente’s experiences in the business.
“More a rock and roll diary than a handbook, [the book] poses many situations that a band can, and probably will, experience on the way to the top, or the bottom,” Turner writes.
The book can be ordered through Clemente’s Web site, Quig’s Musical Sideshow, at www.quigsmss.com.