About the author

Mick Wall (born 23 June 1958) is a British music journalist, author, and radio and TV presenter. He has been described as "the world's leading rock and metal writer".

Wall began his career contributing to the music weekly Sounds in 1977, where he wrote about punk and the new wave, and then rockabilly, funk, New Romantic pop and, eventually, hard rock and heavy metal. In 1979, he left music journalism to become the partner in his own PR firm, Heavy Publicity, aged 20, where he oversaw press campaigns for artists such as Black Sabbath, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Thin Lizzy, Ultravox, The Damned, Dire Straits and several others. In the early 1980s he also worked at Virgin Records as press officer for such artists as Gillan, The Human League, Simple Minds, Japan and others.

By 1983, Wall become one of the main journalists in the early days of Kerrang! magazine, where he was their star cover story writer for the next nine years. He subsequently became the founding editor of Classic Rock magazine in 1998, and presented his own television and radio shows on Sky TV (Monsters of Rock), Capital Radio, BBC GLR, BBC Radio 1, Planet Rock and others. He has also guested on several television programmes and documentaries on BBC TV, ITV, Sky One, Channel Four and MTV.

Wall has written many biographies of musicians and bands including Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Metallica and Guns N' Roses. The latter mentioned him in their song "Get in the Ring" after Wall fell out with his former friend, singer Axl Rose. In April 2016, Wall made an impassioned apology to Rose, acknowledging that the spirit of the book he had written on Axl Rose ten years earlier was "mean, disgruntled, unworthy. I’m sorry I wrote it." He concluded by saying, "I can’t wait to see what Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses do next. They are the last of the giants and I am a fan."

His book Paranoid: Black Days With Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (1999) is a semi-fictionalised account of his substance-abusing days in the 1980s working with some of the biggest rock stars in the world. In 2008, he wrote a biography of Led Zeppelin entitled When Giants Walked the Earth.

Wall is also the author of a blog on his official website, consisting of a compendium of domestic affairs and anecdotes from his past. He also co-hosts a podcast called "Dead Rock Stars" with fellow writer Joel McIver. In June 2018, The Guardian named "Dead Rock Stars" their podcast of the week.

Read sample
Read

Lou Reed

1942-2013

New York 1965. Lou Reed og John Cale dannede The Velvet Underground, og i 1967 udkom ‘Bananpladen’ som en del af kunstermiljøet omkring Andy Warhols Factory. Allerede i 1970 splittedes gruppen, Lou Reed fortsatte på egen hånd, og i 1972 udkom ’Transformer’, et af rockens vigtigste albums, produceret af David Bowie. Lou Reeds karriere derfra og til hans død d. 27. oktober 2013 har været voldsom og kontrastfyldt, som det liv, han levede, og hele tiden var Lou Reed trendsættende, altid eksperimenterende og en af rockhistoriens største sangskrivere. Som Brian Eno sagde: “Det første Velvet Underground-album solgte kun 10.000 eksemplarer, men alle dem, der købte det, startede et band.” Mick Wall har været fan af Lou Reed hele sit liv. Han er en af Storbritanniens kendteste rockskribenter og har skrevet en lang række bøger om rockens store, fx. Led Zeppelin, Metallica, AC/DC og Black Sabbath. "Mick Wall er en fantastisk fortæller. Hans biografi om Lou Reed er en kenders gribende og ærlige kærlighedserklæring til en enestående kunstner, der blev misforstået, dårligt behandlet og undervurderet gennem hele sin levetid. Og så er den oversat af den danske Reed-kender Jakob Levinsen." Lars Rix, Berlingske ”Mick Wall skriver råt og usentimentalt i en stil, der passer til hans emne, og han forgylder ikke Reeds mere ubehagelige sider.” Will Hodgkinson (Chief Rock Critic), The Times
25,56  EUR
Buy Epub (e-book)
Incl. streaming access
Edition1. elektroniske udg.
Printed pages259 Sider
Publish date15 Apr 2015
Published byKlim
Languagedan
ISBN epub9788771296075