Future is launching a music magazine called Bang – named after the legendary Rolling Stone and Creem rock journalist Lester Bangs.
The monthly is hoping to attract a new generation of music lovers, who follow bands such as The White Stripes, The Strokes and The Darkness.
It will be co-edited by Crispin Parry and Danny Ford, who approached Future with the idea after the success of their independent music magazine Circuit.
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Parry said Bang would have the spirit of Circuit, which he described as having a “non-commercial bent”. “We are not reinventing the wheel but we’re certainly giving it a bit of passion,” he told Press Gazette. “A lot of things have been forgotten about music publishing – realising that music doesn’t live in a vacuum is one of them.”
Commenting on the influence of Lester Bangs, who died in 1982, Parry said: “His spirit is exactly what music journalism should be. We want to stay away from focus groups and come up with something appropriate.”
Bangs, described as a cross between a gutter poet and a romantic visionary, was well known in the Seventies for his work on titles such as Rolling Stone, Creem and The Village Voice.
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Asked about his tough interviewing technique, he replied: “I just started out to lead with the most insulting question I could think of, because it seemed to me that interviewing rock stars was just such a suck-up. It’s just a guy, just another person, so what?”
Future has yet to complete the magazine’s full editorial line-up. Ford, who has previously designed a number of record covers, will be involved in the art/design side, while Parry (a former Q contributor) will concentrate on editorial.
Independent on Sunday columnist and ex-Melody Maker journalist Simon Price is features editor and former Q freelance Maria Jeffries is picture editor. More high-profile appointments are expected in the next few weeks.
Aimed at 16-to-24-year-olds, the title will be produced by Future’s entertainment division, which also publishes Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Total Guitar, the official Playstation 2 Magazine and Total Film.
The launch will be backed by a major advertising campaign in the national press, as well as cross promotion in other Future titles. The first issue will have a print run of 150,000 copies with a cover price of £3.30. Future is looking to sell 50,000.
By Ruth Addicott
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