For the first time, Andrew Ridgeley - one half of one of the most famous bands in the world - tells the inside story of Wham!, his life-long friendship with George Michael and the formation of a band that changed the shape of the music scene in the early eighties. AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW. 1974, Watford, and two teenagers, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou and Andrew John Ridgeley, meet for the first time. It isn't football or fashion or girls that bring them together (actually, girls: yes). Instead, they soon discover that they are both mad about music. Together they set out to follow an impossible dream, rooted in their shared love of records, the artists that made them and the sheer joy of pop. They didn't know it then but they were taking their first steps towards forming WHAM! - soon to become the biggest band in the world. Now, for the very first time, Andrew Ridgeley tells that story. How he took the new boy at school under his wing, to buy some credit from his dubious teachers, and discovered a soul mate; how, in what seemed like an amazingly short time, he and George found themselves riding an astonishing rollercoaster of success and celebrity that took them all over the world, playing to screaming fans, tens of thousands strong. Together, they made and broke iconic records, struggled to make the right relationships at times, but always stayed true to themselves, despite a superstardom that would have torn apart most bands let alone friendships. WHAM! were the soundtrack to a decade, to a party that for a time seemed as if it would never end. But, of course, it did. In front of tens of thousands of tearful fans at Wembley Stadium in 1986, when George and Andrew played their final concert. Their friendship, however, remained, until the day George Michael died. WHAM! could never have been, if it were not for that chemistry, that kinship, that spark. And no other book will ever take you back to those days, as this one will. Charting the years 1974 to 1986 with humour, love and integrity, this is a once in a lifetime book about a once in a lifetime duo. WHAM!.