How's THIS for a 'life story!'
I was born a poor kid in lodnon. 1st gen immigrant dad was a bin-man and my mum was a barmaid. I didnt finish high school. how am I writing a popular Substack and a book that people seem to love ?
Oh, well it’s becuase my story is genuinely fucking NUTS , you’ll see……
One of the things you do in rehab is tell the group your life story. ive been in 2 rehabs - 1 for famous posh people in 2000, one for street drunks 2013. Both sets of people when I finished mine sat I silence, open mouthed. yea, it’s really THAT insane. I mean, these are drugs addicts ffs. it takes aLOT to shock these guys !
Today - ‘
I Forgot I Was a 'Writer'.
I've been surrounded by complete insufferable dickheads claiming they wrote their own 'best selling' book for long enough to know I HATE these fuckwits. They didnt even READ their won bestselling books.
‘Influncers’ pay people to write their books and then berate those poor (genuinely talented but not famous) writers for sucking because they are’t “as good or funny as they are”. Its gross. Most of that world is. But that’s how it goes. I write every single word myself. I even turn Brian off unless its facts I need to check becuase I can SPOT AI writing a MILE off, can’t you?
For those of you who don’t know — I’ve just recently started writing again. I rediscovered, in fact, that I LOVE it.
I also love AI, dony get me wrong, it just doesnt write in my voice - I end up sounding like on of those lo budget YouTube videos or any monologue any female influencer who lives a mile away from me says to camera since my public sacking from our (50/50) company. I found out about through you guys telling me 😂
I spent fifteen years as a Hollywood movie composer and 15 years before that as a British film composer and producer- James Bond movies, I also produced for Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, Pet Shop Boys, Gwen Stefani, Pharrell, FKA Twigs. I did music on everything fro Zoolander and James Bond to Madagascar and The Fast & Furious) . I gave it all up for my ex, who dumped me and took the company I built with her 50/50.
That’s not strictly fair. I had every intention of GIVING it all to her, for my kids to enjoy & have as a legacy as they get older. I left the house, the company & 2million dollars in cash in the bank. Also 50K in my kid’s bank accounts because we agreed they’d be paid every time they’re in a video. I have all the proof. Recent events have changed my opinion. I learned alot last week that will make your toes curl - you can see it can’t you ? you know where ALL that went?
**CONITNUED AFTER THIS BREAK - pay if you enjoyed it, please. this one took me forever and it just keeps getting more bizarre. If you are shocked reading whats coming next, imagine whats it’s like for me LIVING it! perhaps explains why i’m so odd myself. Anyway…..
I will spill the complete T on my Patreon tommorw.
Not today.. Today is special.
Chapter 3 of y first ever book just dropped there today for The Keeper Tiers and Up - sorry I have to charge but see the previous paragraph. you also get the first printed oe signed if you sign to that today.
So, earlier this year, my mum and dad were visiting and said something that stuck with me: “You used to write when you were a kid and you loved it ” they were right — I’d just forgotten.
Level 2 Autism means when you find a new interest the others fall completely away for me it went computers, writing stories, cars which lead t the heart stopping GRACE JONES moment. They showed the commercial on big screens at the car show my dad I and I used to frequent every year.
I couldn’t get on with any of the usual platforms for writing though.They’re too messy, too performative, too… something. But I found Substack by chance & I just liked it. Not for promoting — just for writing.
The first thing I posted was a story from when I was thirteen — getting arrested on LSD with Andy Brewer. Then it rolled into a memory about George Clooney, my daughter, Hollywood, all of it. I didn’t even tell anyone I was writing again. I just… did.
Then I mentioned it in passing during a Patreon and the response was wild. People saying they love the writing, they’d never heard anything like it ** that it feels real, that it’s strange in a good way. That meant something to me. If you’re just finding this — that’s what this is. Me remembering what I forgot. \
** the audiobook is narrated by new me AND old me ….. IKR ! Wild - but people like it. Surprisingly me 1 and me 2 do NOT get on 😂
During the worst time of my life. Just after my X took my kids away as what seems like a punishment for having a successful and good time for the FIRST time in 10 years …. I drove out to the desert with the idea of writing a book about the last three years — about losing everything, about trying to get my son to speak again after he lost his voice at two. I’d spent years studying sound. Binaural beats, healing frequencies, all of it. I had early access to AI through Hans Zimmer and told it to collect every recorded human attempt at healing through sound, from everywhere, across all time. And I tried to use it to help my son.
Then the rest hit. Divorce. Lost my house. My kids. My company. My identity. My voice.
Two years in the wilderness. No map.
But I came back with this — a need to write. Not to be read. Just to say something true.
—
Later, after things started settling, I went to see Dr. Daniel Amen. He’s one of the world’s top brain specialists. Two days of testing. At the end, he looked at me and said:
“Don’t take this the wrong way… you have the same diagnosis as Elon Musk. You’re level 2. You require moderate support to live a standard life.”
I’d never been told that before. In the ‘70s in England, it wasn’t even a category.
Looking back, music was the only thing that saved me. I found it young. started teaching myself music at 13 becuase id seen a video Grace Jones made for Citroen cars and I NEEDED to live in the same world she lived in. By fifteen I had two record labels fighting over me. a very big one and a pretty small but cool AF one. I dropped out of school and tried to become a pop star. I failed. Miserably.
The record blew up in the clubs. One of the people in those clubs happened to be Ridley Scott’s son, Jake. He wasn’t that much older than me - I was like 20 he was in his early 30s. He was making his first film. it was set in the 1800s . He loved my stuff. He called me and said, “They made me use an orchestral score, but I want you to remix it into club music.” I said ok. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for - id never studied music, could read or write it and I was about to have an ORCHESTRA play some of it. Oh the bulletproof attitude of you.
So I started making what the British music press called one of the oddest scores ever for a movie that sucked. The movie was a disastaer they said. The music doesnt make sense with the time but it’s one of the boldest choices ever made.
There was one scene in particular called The Ball. The classical composer had written a time sensitive ball sequence which a massive cast of thousands danced to. I spent months lining up the dance music to fit this insane electronic aphex twin techno song. That scene upset alot of people but it caught the attention of a few of the RIGHT people…
A few months later, The movie director Baz Luhrmann called about a film he was making which audiences and the studio hated so much he thought it was going to go straight to DVD…..it was called Moulin Rouge.
That’s where I’ll leave it today. But it gets stranger from here.
As always, I love you,
Stephen Hilton
Xx