Michael Hann Interview (Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal)
Michael Hann is a freelance writer and former music editor of The Guardian. He has just finished a new book, Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which will hit shelves in 2022.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I came to music journalism via a circuitous route. I wrote about music for the student newspaper at Leeds University, and the single job I most wanted to get in the long run was editing The Guardian’s Friday arts supplement. But after graduation I was too cowardly to do the thing most aspirant music writers do and hang around the offices of the weekly music papers hoping for work: I wanted to be sure of being able to pay my rent. So for four years I worked in the medical press (the trade press is such a good place to learn, because your readers always know more than you. It teaches you to be careful about pontificating). My first specialist subject was junior doctors’ working hours, of all things. Then I was chief sub-editor—I guess you would say copy editor/fact-checker in the States—on the political weekly The New Statesman for a year, which was a brilliant experience, because I was working with very, very clever people in a pressurised environment.
Following that, I was at the soccer magazine FourFourTwo, first as deputy, then as editor (and presented a soccer phone-in on the commercial station TalkSport. Taxi drivers used to recognise me by my voice). The thing that sticks out as a highlight was going to a Brazil training session in Stuttgart, before a game against Germany, in 1998. I was standing behind the goal, watching Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, and Rivaldo—at that point the three most famous players in the world—practise free kicks, and kicking the ball back to them when they missed, to waves and shouts of “Obrigada!” Afterwards, one of the senior writers from the national press—known in the trade as a No 1—came up to me and hissed: “Don’t ever do that again. You’re a journalist. Not a ballboy.” I would do it again. Every time.