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.
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.
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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