Mick Wall – författare

Rainbow in the dark: Historien om Ronnie James Dio är den officiella biografin om hårdrockens mest framgångsrike sångare genom tiderna: Ronnie James Dio, den lille mannen med den enorma rösten. Mannen bakom den världsberömda horngesten inledde faktiskt sin musikaliska karriär som trumpetare och doo wop-sångare på sextiotalet. Men snart kom han att inta större scener och med band som Rainbow, Black Sabbath och det egna bandet DIO blev framgångarna monumentala med närmare 50 miljoner album sålda.

Ronnie James Dio inledde själv arbetet med denna biografi och hade kommit en bra bit in när sjukdomen ryckte bort honom. De senare delarna är nedtecknade av Ronnies änka Wendy och den världsberömde musikbiografen Mick Wall. Boken är översatt av hårdrocksjournalisten Carl Linnaeus.

''Excellent ... paints an affectionate portrait of this unpretentious, humorous presenter who seems to have been loved by everyone who met him'' SUNDAY TIMES''A leisurely stroll through the life of an "irreplaceable man" - [a] thoughtful, well-paced portrait'' OBSERVERA tribute biography of the hugely popular DJ and broadcaster John PeelJohn Peel was born in Cheshire in 1939 and, after National Service, he eventually went into broadcasting while travelling in America, where his Liverpool accent convinced them he must know the Beatles, and he was even present when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot. In 1967 he returned to the UK and joined Radio One at its start. His late-night radio shows were cult listening for music fans of all ages, and many bands admit that without his support, they would never have made it.While Radio One changed, he remained a constant factor in its schedules, and in 1998 he was awarded the OBE for his services to broadcasting. It was in that year that he also began his multi-award-winning show Home Truths on Radio Four. Mick Wall tells the story of arguably the most influential man in the history of British rock music, speaking to those who knew him well to build up a complete portrait of this hugely popular figure.

''A flaming juggernaut of heavy-metal biog'' GUARDIAN''This is the definitive account of heavy metal''s biggest band of all'' CLASSIC ROCK ''Truly enlightening'' ROCK SOUND''ENTER NIGHT, Mick Wall''s biography of Metallica confirms this grizzled veteran to be as engaged and waspishly authoritative a chronicler of metal''s most hirsute behemoths as Barry Miles has been for the Beats'' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAYMick Wall moves on from Led Zeppelin to produce a definitive doorstop on Metallica.Alongside contemporaries Slayer, Megadeath and Anthrax, Metallica came to prominence in the eighties as one of the ''big four'' of thrash metal. Metallica were to thrash, though, what the Sex Pistols were to punk. Nearly thirty years on, their tale is one of alcohol, rule breaking and tragically early death. But allied to that are colossal sales figures for their records -- they are the fifth-highest selling recording artists of all time - and members with backgrounds that touch on jazz and classical music. Metallica, in fact, have garnered more critical acclaim than any heavy rock band since Led Zeppelin. Fresh from the critical and commercial success of WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH, Mick Wall takes a similar informed look at the band, a group he has known on and off since their formation in 1981.

''APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION has the best of Wall''s Kerrang! features, each bolstered by new, insightful post-scripts. You won''t read a funnier rock book****'' MOJO''Wall is firing on all cylinders'' CLASSIC ROCK''This hilarious tome is a collection of his finest moments... Wall had a great knack from getting under the skin of interviewees'' BIG ISSUEWhether it''s hanging around with Marillion''s Fish in Berlin, seeing Whitesnake fail to ignite 1985''s Rock in Rio, talking through old times with Jimmy Page in his Berkshire pile or following Ozzy Osbourne to Moscow, there isn''t a rock luminary that Wall hasn''t cross-examined or kept the flame burning with at some point over the last thirty years. Here, amongst several pieces, he catches Lars Ullrich just on the cusp of world domination; has dinner with Ritchie Blackmore on the eve of a Deep Purple comeback; and is up all night in LA with W. Axl Rose.APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION gathers together Wall''s journalism for Kerrang!, for whom he was the star writer in their eighties heyday. It also features brand-new introductions to all the pieces, written with maybe less hair but also the benefit of twenty years'' hindsight.

Mick Wall penetrates the closed world of Aussie rock legends AC/DC.AC/DC moved to Britain from Sydney in 1975, and soon set up a residency at London''s Marquee Club. Their short hair (including the odd mullet), loud rock and attitude chimed well with the lingering pub rock and soon-to-be punk crowd. They weren''t really a band for guitar solos, and singer Bon Scott was the original bike-riding, speed-snorting, fighting man. An ex-convict he lived life fast and short; he died in February 1980, just before BACK IN BLACK, their huge-selling album, took off and the second period of AC/DC (with Brian Johnson as lead vocalist) was ushered in. BACK IN BLACK has gone on to sell 45 million copies worldwide, and as the band have become a global phenomenon so their reclusiveness has increased. Mick Wall, the don of heavy metal writing, seeks to penetrate the wall around the Young brothers, and write the first authoritative, in-depth critical account of AC/DC.

Everyone from Sir Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page to Queens of the Stone Age now relishes the chance to share a stage with Dave Grohl and his legendary Foo Fighters. The question is: why? Musical depth? Not really. Major success? Well, yes. Despite no longer shifting albums in the same quantity as they did twenty years ago, this band can still fill stadiums the world over (when Dave''s not breaking his leg, of course).Long before Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, Dave Grohl was planning for a life after Nirvana. The unflinching bright sunlight to Cobain''s permanent midnight darkness, Grohl had come from a similar broken home to his erstwhile band leader, but came out of the experience differently - brimming with positivity and a shrewd grasp of opportunities in the music industry.Did Grohl merely take the sonic blueprint of Nirvana and embellish it with a more life-affirming pop sheen? Of course he did. Every band in America that sold over a million records in the post-grunge 90s did the same. The difference was that Grohl had real credibility. And he knew it.With exclusive testimony from true insiders (including Krist Novoselic, Grohl''s bass-playing partner in Nirvana, ex-girlfirends, record company executives, tour photographers and confidantes), this book is an exploration of the real story behind Grohl and the Foo Fighters - the only serious literary biography of the group and its leader, one of the most famous and critically bulletproof rock figures of the 21st century.

''An epic tale, told the way it should be'' RECORD COLLECTOR''The book he was born to write'' CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE''An entertaining read for long-standing fans and newcomers alike'' GUITARISTThe final word on the only name synonymous with heavy metal - Black Sabbath.Way back in the mists of time, in the days when rock giants walked the earth, the name Ozzy Osbourne was synonymous with the subversive and dark. Back then, Ozzy was the singer in Black Sabbath, and they meant business. A four-piece formed from the ashes of two locally well-known groups called The Rare Breed (Ozzy and bassist Geezer Butler) and Mythology (guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward), all four founding members of the original Black Sabbath grew up within half-a-mile of each other.This biography tells the story of how they made that dream come true - and how it then turned into a nightmare for all of them. How at the height of their fame, Sabbath discovered they had been so badly ripped off by their managers they did not even own their own songs. How they looked for salvation from Don Arden - an even more notorious gangster figure, who resurrected their career but still left them indebted to him, financially and personally. And how it finally came to a head when in 1979 they sacked Ozzy: ''For being too out of control - even for us,'' as Bill Ward put it.The next 15 years would see a war break out between the two camps: the post-Ozzy Sabbath and Ozzy himself, whose solo career overshadowed Sabbath to the point where, when he offered them the chance to reform around him again, it was entirely on his terms. Or rather, that of his wife and manager, daughter of Don Arden - Sharon Osbourne.

''Packed with war stories from a golden age of rock, and insights into the stars that made that music'' CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE''On reading Getcha Rocks Off you realise just how drastically things have changed in the rock industry but books like this perfectly evoke what they were like. Good times...'' RECORD COLLECTORHanging out with rock stars, trying to steal their chicks, or throwing up over their guitars after launching into the hospitality a little too enthusiastically, Mick Wall spent much of the 1980s sprawled in limos and five-star hotels with the biggest rock bands in the world, including Led Zeppelin, Guns N'' Roses, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Mötley Crüe, Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Van Halen, Motörhead and more. He was Kerrang! magazine''s star writer and the presenter of Monsters of Rock, his own weekly show on Sky TV, and the decade passed in a blur of hard drugs, hot women, and some of the heaviest people your mother definitely would not like. Depicting a world where vague concepts like ''the future'' are disdained in favour of nights that last a week and weeks that last forever, Getcha Rocks Off is a rock apocalypse Cider With Roadies, and a more frank and disturbing Apathy for the Devil. It is the kind of book you need to put on your leather jacket to read, open that bottle of Jack and reach for the Charlie. And let the good times roll...

''Explodes in to life from the opening paragraph'' RECORD COLLECTORThink you know the story of Jim Morrison and The Doors? This revelatory and explosive biography from critically acclaimed rock journalist Mick Wall will make you think again.''The pick of the best guitar tomes: Wall''s account pulls no punches, cataloguing each of the primal scenes - early performances, indecent exposure, Jim''s sexuality, decline and death'' GUITARISTIn 1971, Jim Morrison was found dead in a club toilet in Paris. He was 27 years old. Since then, The Doors have been the subject of a mystery fuelled by sensationalised rumours and empty conjecture.In this definitive account of Jim Morrison and The Doors, critically acclaimed rock writer Mick Wall unravels the myths surrounding the iconic band and its frontman, and captures the unique and unforgettable spirit of the sixties. A brilliantly penetrating and long-overdue biography, Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre questions the idolisation of Jim Morrison and considers the story of The Doors in all of its uncomfortable truth.

''This "sincere speed-written, blood-spattered tribute" strings together the raciest anecdotes...and does it rather well'' SUNDAY TIMES''Mick Wall has written in a rough and unsentimental style that suits his subject'' THE TIMESLou Reed died in 2013. This is the critically acclaimed biography of the songwriter, Velvet Underground member and musician.Rock ''n'' roll was Lou Reed''s life. From recording one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time with THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO (1967), to heavy drug abuse and performing in front of the Pope, Lou Reed''s story is one of great peaks and deep lows. Forever dedicated to his art, he became one of modern music''s most legendary and seismic figures. Although a controversial, outspoken and undoubtedly misunderstood musician, Lou Reed''s influence on popular culture cannot be overstated. He brought avant-garde to the mainstream with the Velvet Underground and his solo work was pronounced a revelation. Hit albums such as TRANSFORMER, SALLY CAN''T DANCE and BERLIN have cemented his name in the rock pantheon. A testament to his strength of character and true spirit, he was a creative and performer until the end, playing benefit gigs, featuring on new releases and, most poignantly, declaring that he was looking forward to ''being on stage performing, and writing more songs to connect with your hearts and spirits and the universe well into the future.'' A true icon of rock ''n'' roll - his legacy will live on in this book.

''Unflinching, forthright and full of wry humour as the man himself, and there''s little praise greater than that'' CLASSIC ROCK''Wall''s vision of Lemmy as a Rock''n''Roll stalwart who made no concessions is vivid to the last'' GUARDIANIn ''The Ace of Spades'', Motörhead''s most famous song, Lemmy, the born-to-lose, live-to-win frontman of the band sang, ''I don''t want to live forever''. Yet as he told his friend of 35 years, former PR and biographer Mick Wall, ''Actually, I want to go the day before forever. To avoid the rush...''. This is his strange but true story. Brutally frank, painfully funny, wincingly sad, and always beautifully told, LEMMY: THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY is the story of the only rock''n''roller never to sell his soul for silver and gold, while keeping the devil, as he put it, ''very close to my side''. From school days growing up in North Wales, to first finding fame in the mid-60s with the Rockin'' Vicars; from being Jimi Hendrix''s personal roadie (''I would score acid for him''), to leading Hawkwind to the top of the charts in 1972 with ''Silver Machine'' (''I was fired for taking the wrong drugs''); from forming Motörhead (''I wanted to call the band Bastard but my manager wouldn''t let me''), whose iconoclastic album NO SLEEP ''TIL HAMMERSMITH entered the UK charts at No. 1.Based on Mick''s original interviews with Lemmy conducted over numerous years, along with the insights of those who knew him best - former band mates, friends, managers, fellow artists and record business insiders - this is an unputdownable story of one of Britain''s greatest characters. As Lemmy once said of Wall, ''Mick Wall is one of the few rock writers in the world who can actually write and seems to know anything about rock music. I can and do talk to him for hours - poor bastard.'' With the hard part of his journey now over, Lemmy is set to become a legend. LEMMY: THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY explains exactly how that came to be.