Every band chases a dream. This one can’t stop.

We all know the price of fame. Hitless Wonder measures the price of obscurity. Years after getting signed—and dropped—by Epic Records and watching their more famous peers call it quits, Joe Oestreich and his band, Watershed, keep climbing into the Econoline and touring mop bucket bars. But Joe can’t help but wonder: Are he and his bandmates—torn between the lure of the road and the call to finally settle down—admirable or pathetic? Successes or failures? And most importantly, in their quixotic struggle to live out a dream, do they risk losing the people they love?

“HITLESS WONDER is a thoroughly enjoyable rock and roll memoir—funny, honest, and full of inside dope. I’m sorry Watershed never made it big, but I’m glad Joe Oestreich wrote this wonderful book about a lifetime devoted to music and friendship, a book about a scrappy band that doesn’t know how to quit.”
—Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Little Children
 
For twenty-five years Joe Oestreich has toured the country in a beat up Econoline as the bass player and co-singer for Columbus Ohio's Watershed.

His writing has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Ninth Letter, Fourth Genre, and many other magazines. He's been awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, honored by The Atlantic Monthly, and shortlisted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, The Best American Essays 2008 and 2009, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses 2010. He teaches creative writing at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC, where he is nonfiction editor of Waccamaw.