What follows is the entire introduction to my non-fiction book From The Front Lines Of Rock.

“YOU LOVE it you slaaaaags!”

The Cult’s Ian Astbury slams his foot on the accelerator pedal.

I’m on the back seat of this car which Astbury is driving so enthusiastically around the Hollywood Hills at night.  Now, I’m sure he’s completely and utterly sober at this point, but the man’s fast and furious driving alone makes you think that this is a very foolish place for me to be.  It’s exciting, though.

Whoosh!  We turn another corner, narrowly missing a tree and hitting a wheelie bin, which goes flying.

Also in the vehicle are a record company press officer, an MTV producer and an unidentified man, right beside me, who is high on magic mushrooms and panicking, his eyes like saucers.  “Man,” he pants, grabbing my leg, “I can’t go to jail again!”

This is circa 1997. And even as I grip my seat, I think how deeply bizarre the situation feels. Only 10 years ago, I was a teenage rock fan, buying The Cult’s singles Lil Devil and Wild Flower on seven-inch vinyl. And here I am in Hollywood, quite possibly about to be killed by their frontman.
 
I never wanted to be a journalist, rock or otherwise. I mean, it was never a childhood dream. No, the childhood dream was telling stories for a living.  A great deal of my young life in Lowestoft, Suffolk consisted of writing fiction, drawing comic strips and reading Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy books. I didn’t get into rock music until I was well into my teens.

Europe’s classic single The Final Countdown was the one that hooked me in. Say what you will about that parping gem, but it sucked in a whole new generation of rock fans. It was a gateway drug to the hard stuff. After that, I graduated to Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet album, then to the works of Dio, followed by Metallica, right up to the churning madness of Slayer’s mighty 1986 masterpiece Reign In Blood, which initially just sounded like white noise. I quickly became obsessed with heavy metal, exploring the entirety of its broad church.

I was especially taken with the more extreme end of the spectrum: the subgenres known as thrash metal (primarily fixated on speed and crunchy guitars) and death metal (fixated on morbidity, with a charnel house sound to match, plus glottal, growly vocals.)

One day, in the pages of UK rock weekly Kerrang!, I saw an advert for a new vacancy in the freelancing writing department. Kerrang! had realised they needed a new specialist in thrash and death metal – someone who actually understood that stuff. Over the last couple of years, as those genres gained strength in the marketplace, the magazine’s reviewers had often treated the bands with contempt, much to the dismay of fans who didn’t want to see their favourites dismissed in a ‘comedy’ fashion by snooty journos. Not all of Kerrang!’s writers looked down on thrash – the likes of Xavier Russell and Paul Miller were proper fans – but it certainly happened on a regular basis at that time.

I was still in high school and so hadn’t yet reached the crossroads where I felt any pressure to find a job. Nevertheless, I wanted this one. So I sent a couple of writing samples, as requested, along with an arrogant letter. This letter told editor Geoff Barton that he did indeed need me on board, because none of the other writers knew anything about thrash and death metal.

Obviously, this approach could have backfired, but it didn’t. I was blown away to get a call from reviews editor Alison Joy a few days later, who said she was going to send me a couple of records to review.

“What...,” I stuttered, suddenly not quite so cocksure, “so these reviews will be in the magazine?”

“Yeah!” said the jovial northern typhoon. “We don’t hang around at Kerrang!, matey boy!”

Indeed they didn’t. Within days I was listening to my first two albums for review – a Peel Sessions mini-LP by Birmingham’s rising Bolt Thrower and an album by the super-obscure Mallet-Head, who were destined to split a few years later – and excitedly typing out my verdict. Yes, typing, on an electronic typewriter. I also sent these reviews through the post in physical form. Later, I would graduate to a more hi-tech method.

You know what that new method was?

Faxing. The stuff of dreams.
 
In 1989, I did my first interview for Kerrang! It was a phoner with Morbid Angel, a band I really loved at the time and retain a real fondness for. I’m pretty sure I kept singer/bassist David Vincent and guitarist Trey Azagthoth on that conference call for way longer than the average interview should last. I had no experience at this game, and so no real sense of how many quotes I needed to fulfil the word count. So I just asked everything. Luckily, Morbid Angel were very talkative, being passionate about their craft. They were great first interviewees.

That same year, I made my first journalistic trip abroad, to Copenhagen for Sepultura.  The Brazilian metallers were very much on the rise with their brilliant Beneath The Remains album and I was blown away to get to write about them. My inexperience showed through, though, when my tape recorder didn’t work for some reason – maybe I even forgot batteries – and I had to borrow one off the boys’ tour manager and fellow journo Borivoj Krgin, who went on to spearhead the rock news site Blabbermouth.

1990 saw my first US trip. It was a bumper affair, covering the bands Nocturnus, Carcass, Massacre and Morbid Angel, because Earache Records wanted to make sure they got the most out of their airfare costs (there were no paid-for hotels, so photographer David Willis and I were sleeping on band’s sofas). Hilariously, I was terrified on the first night in Tampa, Florida, having taken Willis’ joke about drive-by shootings seriously. There’s a home video of that first night, in a restaurant, where I look like a rabbit in a headlights, as if I’m expecting Uzi-toting raiders to burst in at any second. 

From that jaunt onwards, the interviews and trips multiplied. In 1993, I moved from Lowestoft to a flat in London’s Queen Park, only slightly unnerved when Alison Joy asked what had made me decide to move (uh... writing more stuff for Kerrang!?)

I was gaining experience, but still pretty green. Whenever I scored an interview that dragged me out of my extreme metal comfort zone, I would feel nervous, but do my best to step up to the challenge. 

I found myself writing cover stories on more mainstream acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Black Crowes. By the mid-90s I was hopping back and forth across the Atlantic every couple of weeks. The photographer and I would enjoy several drinks on the plane, followed by plenty more when we arrived. After a while, travelling around, staying in hotels and visiting nice restaurants and bars without paying for anything, life became slightly unreal – a big, enticing bubble of carefree fun.

The photographer and I would almost always be accompanied by a record company PR, whose credit card would receive a bashing throughout each trip. We didn’t have to work much out for ourselves – airport and hotel check-in desks would be handled by the PR, as we handed over our passports. I suppose I got a glimpse of what it must be like for a rock star, being pretty much permanently ensconced in that lifestyle, with all the fiddly real-life stuff conveniently taken care of.

I used to love interviewing people. The freedom of it! Sometimes, you found yourself sitting in front of a proper rock icon, with your brain screaming, You can ask them anything you want! Do it! I would always try and push the envelope just a little, by hitting them with a surprising question. Something which had never been asked before and might shake them out of the stupor sometimes induced by multiple interviews.

The selection process for this book has been based on two factors. I wanted the pieces in From The Front Lines Of Rock to concern bands most people would have heard of, but I also wanted to represent some of my favourite interviews. So the features gathered here fulfil one or both of those requirements. Maybe one day, if the demand is there, I’ll release a follow-up, perhaps gathering my interview work in the extreme metal department.  For now, in these pages, it’s the bigger-sellers, who often also have the biggest personalities.

This book has taken five years to assemble, on and off. I’ve written footnotes during each feature – sometimes in ‘real time’, as I re-read the piece for the first time in aeons – and then an afterword for each. It’s been interesting to look back and not only remind myself of things I said and did, but also consider how differently I might do things now. Some of this stuff makes me cringe, frankly, but I’ve also really enjoyed most of it.

As tempting as it sometimes was to edit these interviews, I’ve left them as they were upon publication, with the odd exception of some formatting. I couldn’t bring myself to leave titles surrounded by quotation marks. I’ve also removed the asterisks from the swearing, because we’re all adults here and we don’t need protecting.

Because an interview is only as good as its subject, I don’t think it’s immodest of me to say that there are some real crackers here. The Manic Street Preachers in Japan, back when Richey Edwards was in the band. A feisty two-part Pantera interview in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Jon Bon Jovi talking about drugs, the mafia and money in Los Angeles.  Getting arrested by armed guards at the Vatican with Cradle Of Filth. All particularly great fun.

I very much hope you enjoy From The Front Lines Of Rock, whether it’s loud nostalgia you crave, or are leafing back through history as a curious newcomer with a My Chemical Romance tattoo on your forehead. Maybe you’ve read my 2016 novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks and wonder what else I used to write. Whatever the reason: thanks!

Oh, and that ridiculous motor experience with Ian Astbury? Eventually, we came to an abrupt halt, having bumped into a wall – thankfully not too hard. The mushroom-paranoia guy claimed we’d hit the LA sheriff's house. I think this was implausible, to be honest, but would like to think it true. 

Yes, getting into a car with a ludicrous but loveable rock star was a really stupid thing to do. But then rock ‘n’ roll is so often stupid, and I’m glad I had a taste of that bewitching foolishness before moving on to slightly safer pastures in the worlds of prose, film and TV. The whole experience would also help me write a convincing journalist in the shape of Jack Sparks.

A quick word on how Kindle footnotes operate, in case you’ve never encountered them before: tap each number to be taken to the corresponding footnote at the end of the book, then tap the number again to be magically whizzed back to where you were in the text. 

Right, then. Let’s go. Crank your eyeballs up to 11...

Check out From The Front Lines Of Rock, you li'l devil. And please share your favourite Kerrang! memories down in comments right here!

Hello! Here's all my latest news:

NEW BOOK AVAILABLE NOW!
Over the last five years, I've been compiling an ebook collection of 30 of my favourite interview articles I wrote, back when I was a rock journalist. These are mainly from Kerrang!, between 1992 and 2002. I'm really happy with the finished product, titled From The Front Lines Of Rock.

Among the bands included are Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Garbage, Faith No More, Eminem, Manic Street Preachers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pantera, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day. Lots of big names.

I've added an afterword to each article, plus over 200 footnotes throughout the book. God, remind me not to compile a book involving footnotes again any time soon. I'm massively grateful to Phil Lunt, who stepped in to handle the final formatting.

Check it out at Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada and any other Kindle store worldwide. Using the Look Inside feature, you can actually read the introduction, plus the first two interviews! LUXURY.

JACK SPARKS HITS THE STAGE IN LONDON!
Here's a wonderful thing: my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is among the novels featured in the latest OFF Book club night, which takes place on Friday October 27 at Waterstones Piccadilly in London. 

One of the scenes from the book will be performed by an incredible acting troupe! Can't wait. And as if that wasn't thrilling enough, they're going to do the same with Sarah Lotz's literally chilling novel The White Road, and Giorgio de Maria's The Twenty Days Of Turin!

Sarah and I will be there on the night, and tickets are still available.  Grab 'em here! 

MCM LONDON APPEARANCES!
Happy to say I'm once again a guest at this month's MCM London mega-event!

​I'll be on panels, and doing signings, alongside fellow authors like Shaun Hutson, Joe Pasquale, RJ Barker, Edward Cox, Jamie Sawyer, Catriona Ward, Ben Aaronovitch and Una McCormack! See the full Author's Corner line-up here, then check out the rest of the site. Needless to say, as always at MCM, there's a hell of a lot going on.

VIRTUAL HORROR FESTIVAL!
Can't make MCM London? Check out Lounge Books' phantasmagorical Horror Lounge online event over Halloween. Actually, check it out even if you can make MCM London, you beautifully compulsive soul. Various authors will be writing and chatting and all kinds of stuff. See the Horror Lounge page here. 

News ends! You may now go about your day.