Mick Wall

Mick Wall (born 23 June 1958) is a British music journalist, radio and TV presenter and author.[1]

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 editor of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 from the third issue, and presented his own television and radio shows on Sky TV, 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 authored many biographies of musicians and bands including The Doors, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Guns N' Roses.[2] The latter mentioned him in their song "Get in the Ring" after Wall fell out with former friend, singer W. Axl Rose for "not doing as I was told." One of his most famous books is Paranoid: Black Days With Sabbath & Other Horror Stories (1999), 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 published a biography of Led Zeppelin, entitled When Giants Walked the Earth.[3]

Wall is also the author of a daily blog on his official website www.mickwall.com, consisting of a compendium of current music-related observations, anecdotes from his past, and controversial opinions. In 2014, he began to publish a series of Kindle-only titles, beginning with the release of his classic Paranoid title, which went to No. 1 on the Amazon Kindle chart. followed by his memoir of Pink Floyd, The Endless Journey, which went to No. 1, and a new updated 'author's cut' version of his best-selling 2007 W. Axl Rose biography, W.A.R. - which also went to No.1.

His next book to be published in 2015 will be his long-awaited follow-up to Paranoid, entitled Getcha Rocks Off: Sex & Excess, Bust Ups & Binges, Life & Death On The Rock & Roll Road.

His next blockbuster biography, however, is to be the first literary biography of the Foo Fighters, who Wall has said he regards as "the last of the great rock bands, a truly life-affirming story."

He publishers Orion also recently announced a new two-book deal for Wall to write literary biographies of Jimi Hendrix (2016) and Mötorhead (2017).

Wall currently lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and children.

Bibliography

The Endless Journey: 50 Years of Pink Floyd (Kindle-only), Amazon, 2014 Getcha Rocks Off: Sex & Excess, Bust Ups & Binges, Life & Death on the Rock & Roll Road, Orion Books 2015 (As Yet Untitled) Biography of the Foo Fighters, Orion books, 2015


References

  1. ↑ "Biography".
  2. ↑ "List of books by Mick Wall". amazon.co.uk.
  3. ↑ David Cheal, 'When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall', Telegraph.co.uk, 27 October 2008.