As previously reported, former BONFIRE bassist/co-founder Joerg Deisinger has written his memoirs with the aid of BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai. New excerpts from the book, entitled Fire And Fame, are now available at this location. Below is one of four excerpts currently online:

The Joys Of Hairspray...lots of it...

Life goes on, however, and we had no choice but to get back to work, with Angel pulling double duty on guitar now that Hans was a part of Bonfire history. We also had to worry about a new promo photo session with the new four man line-up with none other than English photographer Ross "Shut Up And Pose" Halfin, known best for his work with Iron Maiden.

The session took place in a studio near the famous Capitol Records tower in L.A., and began with Ross giving us a long once-over followed by a brief smile.

"Hey Joerg, do you know what the difference is between Bonfire and all those other German bands?" he asked me. "You guys have hair."

Ready to go in our brand spankin' new stage outfits, we got a call from our favourite hair and make-up stylist Lisa saying she had to cancel. Ross quickly found a replacement, who showed up in mini-skirt, high heels and the tools of her trade a short time later. I was in a great mood and looking forward to the session because I enjoyed posing in front of the camera, unlike Claus and Angel, who considered the whole procedure a necessary evil.

My good mood evaporated when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I have no idea what combination of gel, wax and whatever else our emergency stylist had put in my hair, but 15 minutes in her care and I looked like an exploded poodle. My hair was standing up as if I'd sprayed my head with Crazy Glue. Looking at the necessary test polaroids Angel almost died laughing at the look on my face, and Edgar decided that I had the same hairstyle as actor Christopher Lloyd playing the whacko doctor in Back To The Future.

I was pissed, but what made matters worse was that there was no water in the studio, meaning I couldn't wash the shit out of my hair. And because the bitch was so damn good at her job my attempts to undo her work ended in pain, a lot of hair in my hairbrush and no result. The pictures taken on this day were supposed to be exclusive for the English press and autograph cards. They were very important, and I had no desire to field questions from the fans like "Are you that stupid looking dork with the funny hair?"

Ross ended up cancelling the shoot and rescheduled for the following day. Shortly after the frustrated stylist left he came to me, shaking his head.

"I don't know what the problem was," he said. "Your hair looks, well, a little different I agree, but nonetheless she's a professional stylist. She did David Lee Roth, and believe me, he has no hair but looked great afterwards."

Four days before the beginning of the final recordings back in May, management had organized a two hour writing session with workaholic and hit songwriter Desmond Child. The result was 'The Price Of Loving You', featuring an infectious chorus and catchy melody that stood out amongst the other songs for the new album. Since then Desmond had been busy working with Alice Cooper on his new album, Trash, and we hadn't heard or seen him since then. In July, however, shortly after the split with Hans, Desmond called us at Amigo Studios out of the blue and asked us if we'd be interested in appearing on the soundtrack for Wes Craven's new film, Shocker, which was due to be out at the end of the year. He had a song ready to go and decided we would be perfect for the job. The soundtrack would also feature Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Dangerous Toys and Saraya. It didn't take us long to reach a decision.

Two days later we were in the kitchen of Record Plant Studios with Desmond listening to the demo version of the song 'Sword And Stone', recorded on tape in Kiss frontman Paul Stanley's living room. The song had been written by Desmond, Paul Stanley and Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick. Paul Dean, guitarist for Canadian rock act Loverboy, had already released the song as the lead-off track on his solo 1988 album, Hardcore, but Mr. Child wasn't satisfied with his version of it. So, he was up for working with us a producing a new and better version of the song. Each of us would be paid $1,500 as studio musicians, we were given the guarantee that the song would be featured during the end credits of the film, and to top it off the track it would be released as a single and a video would be filmed.

The recording of the basic tracks was done by Sir Arthur Payson, hammered out in only a few hours live off the floor; Angel and me in one room, Edgar in another. It was a hell of a lot of fun, and for the record Edgar racked up his 14th first take. Claus, on the other hand, didn't have a good time at all. It might have had something to do with the fact that Desmond was right beside him for the duration of the vocal recordings – and we're talking in-your-face right beside him – coaching Claus every step of the way. Desmond wanted absolute perfection and we weren't in a position to argue with him.

I remember watching them from the control room, Desmond waving his arms as he pushed and pushed and pushed Claus to get things the way he wanted them. By the time the song was in the can Claus was at his wits' end and probably would have killed someone if he hadn't been so drained. The result, however, was astounding, and Claus had never sounded so good as far as I was concerned. He had given everything he had and it paid off.

At the end of 1989 we shot a video for 'Sword And Stone' in Germany with a U.S. film crew headed up by Penelope Spheeris, who had risen to fame with her Decline Of Western Civilization documentaries and would go on to do Wayne's World with Mike Myers. The shoot took place at an 11th century monastery in Wurzburg, with the performance footage later integrated with scenes from Shocker. It was easily the best video clip Bonfire had ever done and, wouldn't you know it, it received considerable airplay on MTV in the U.S. Unfortunately, the movie wasn't the success everyone had expected it to be. Director Wes Craven had tried to cash in on his success with his Nightmare On Elm Street horror film icon Freddy Kruger by creating a mass murderer named Pinker, but Shocker failed to capture the imagination the way Freddy had. In the end, the Shocker soundtrack was more successful than the movie, largely due to Megadeth's cover of the Alice Cooper classic, 'No More Mr. Nice Guy'. Craven would go on to create his Scream trilogy, those films becoming international blockbusters.

I attended the premier of Shocker in Munich, sitting through the end credits to see if Bonfire was in fact featured as promised. I wasn't disappointed, and it was a great feeling hearing 'Sword And Stone' blasting through the theater at full volume. A couple rows in front of me sat four teenage girls, visibly excited about something. I didn't think anything of it, but as the credits of all musical artists involved in the film scrolled up one of the girls jumped out of her chair and screeched triumphantly at her friends:

"See? I told you it's Bon Jovi!"

The official release of the English version of Fire And Fame is slated for May 2008. A German language version will follow.