Mick Wall

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

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, 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 Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden and Guns N' Roses. 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. His latest book is the biography of Led Zeppelin, entitled When Giants Walked The Earth.

Wall is also the author of a daily blog on his official website www.mickwall.com, consisting of a compendium of domestic affairs and anecdotes from his past.

Wall currently lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and children.