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Rock's Backpages

Barney Hoskyns, Mark Pringle, Jasper Murison-Bowie

Tales from the world's largest archive of music journalism: entertaining interviews with luminaries such as Neil Tennant, Billy Bragg, Pamela Des Barres, Gary Kemp, Vashti Bunyan, Midge Ure, Nick Hornby and Robyn Hitchcock. Thoughtful and informative conversations about all aspects of popular music history, interspersed with clips from exclusive audio interviews that date back to the mid-'60s.

The RBP podcast is hosted by Barney Hoskyns and Mark Pringle and co-hosted & produced by Jasper Murison-Bowie. We're a proud part of Pantheon — the podcast network for music lovers.

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  • 231 episodes
  • Updated July 20
  • Explicit

Episodes231

Newest first
  • Dec 23, 2022 · 1 hr 23 min

    E143: Nick Hornby on Prince (& Dickens) + Boz Scaggs audio interview

    In this episode we welcome bestselling author and screenwriter Nick Hornby to RBP's Hammersmith HQ and ask him to talk about his new book Dickens & Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius. We start by asking Nick if his original plan was to become a music journalist, then proceed to his first awareness of Prince in 1979. A broad discussion of the Minneapolitan marvel – and the parallels with Charles Dickens's "no off-switch" prolificacy – takes in his first London show in 1981, his mastering of mul

  • Dec 12, 2022 · 1 hr 25 min

    E142: Paul Gorman on the rise and fall of the music press + Time Out's Tony Elliott

    In this episode we welcome writer, curator and consultant Paul Gorman and ask him about his new book Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press. In a loose and free-ranging conversation, our guest reflects on various eras and aspects of all that Rock's Backpages is about, from the launch of Melody Maker almost 100 years ago to the online ecosystem of Instagram and Tik Tok in the present day. Along the way we cover everything from Crawdaddy! to Smash Hits via marginalised women writers

  • Nov 28, 2022 · 1 hr 10 min

    E141: RJ Smith on Chuck Berry + Ice-T + Black L.A. + Wilko Johnson

    In this episode we invite esteemed author RJ Smith to tell us about his career, his adopted Los Angeles, and his new biography of Chuck Berry. We start in Detroit, where RJ was raised on a diet of AM radio, the Stooges and Creem magazine, then follow him to New York and his decade of writing for the Village Voice. He talks about the impact of Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau before explaining why he followed the Voice's executive editor Kit Rachlis to California and the L.A. Weekly. We hear ho

  • Nov 14, 2022 · 1 hr 10 min

    E140: Holly Gleason on Women in Country + Guy Clark + Taylor Swift

    In the new episode of the Rock's Backpages podcast, we welcome the splendid Holly Gleason, all the way from downtown Nashville, and invite her to tell us about her life as a country music writer and publicist. Holly explains how, as a teenage championship golfer, she first became enamoured of country in her native state of Ohio, later writing about it (as well as about rap and R&B) for the Miami Herald. Tying in the episode's main theme with Woman Walk the Line – the wonderful essay collection

  • Oct 31, 2022 · 1 hr 8 min

    E139: Billy James on Bob Dylan + Columbia Records + Laurel Canyon

    In this episode we welcome the legendary Billy James, all the way from the Bay Area, and tap him for his memories of working with Bob Dylan, the Doors and more. We start with Dylan and the interview the young Minnesotan gave to Billy in October 1961 in the latter's capacity as a Columbia Records publicist. Billy reminisces about his early interactions with the kid born Zimmerman; we hear a snatch of that 1961 audio, plus two clips from Eric Von Schmidt talking to Larry Jaffee about his friendshi

  • Oct 17, 2022 · 1 hr 8 min

    E138: Kid Congo Powers on the Cramps + the Gun Club + Brian Eno audio

    In this episode we welcome the delightful Kid Congo Powers, all the way from his home in Tucson, and ask him to talk about his former lives in the Gun Club, the Cramps and the Bad Seeds — as detailed in the riveting new memoir Some New Kind of Kick. The man born Brian Tristan looks back to his teen fanboy years from Frank Zappa to the New York Dolls, plus his memories of the L.A. glitter scene at Rodney's English Disco. He describes how it felt — as a gay Mexican American — to be a misfit among

  • Oct 3, 2022 · 58 min

    E137: Luke Haines & Peter Buck on R.E.M. + The Auteurs + Pharoah Sanders

    In this episode we welcome the dynamic transatlantic duo of Luke Haines & Peter Buck and invite them to discuss their splendidly-titled new album All the Kids are Super Bummed-Out. Luke and Peter reflect on their musical partnership, working methodology, and relationships with music journalists — sometimes fractious, occasionally fruitful. Peter recalls growing up as a New York Dolls fan in the Allman Brothers country of his native Georgia, then listens to 1992 audio of himself and bandmate Mike

  • Sep 19, 2022 · 56 min

    E136: Richard Goldstein on 60s pop writing + The Shangri-Las + Shadow Morton

    In this episode we welcome the great Richard Goldstein and invite him to relive his days as the Village Voice's "Pop Eye" columnist in the '60s — and his heady experiences in New York and California in that tumultuous decade. Richard takes us back to his Bronx youth and the early discovery of writers such as Joyce, Dostoyevsky and Voice co-founder Norman Mailer. He also recalls his subsequent exposure to Tom Wolfe and Susan Sontag — both of whom he knew — and explains their influence on his ver

  • Sep 2, 2022 · 1 hr 1 min

    E135: Chris Blackwell on Island from Millie to U2 + Bunny Wailer

    In this episode we welcome legendary Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and invite him to reminisce about key moments in his career at the helm of one of the UK's great independent labels. Chris describes his youth in Jamaica, his early exposure to Kingston's sound systems, and his move back to England in 1962. From Millie's 1964 smash 'My Boy Lollipop' to Island's expansion from ska and blue beat into rock and folk, the Harrow-educated mogul reflects on the vital importance of artists such

  • Aug 22, 2022 · 1 hr 22 min

    E134: Wayne Robins on Steely Dan + Donald Fagen + Denny Dias

    In this episode we invite former Creem editor and Newsday critic Wayne Robins to reminisce about his journalistic journey from the Berkeley Barb to NYU's graduate school of journalism — and to hold forth on his (and our) beloved Steely Dan. Wayne recalls the suburban East Coast childhood he had in common with the Dan's Donald Fagen — and the music that set them both free from it. Jumping forward to 1969, he describes the Rolling Stones show he saw in Oakland a month before Altamont. He also pain

  • Aug 8, 2022 · 1 hr 32 min

    E133: Jason King on Queen + Sylvester + Boy George + Beyoncé

    In this episode, we invite Jason King to tell us about his multi-faceted career, from his Canadian upbringing to his chairmanship of Brooklyn's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. Along the way, Jason talks about his writing on LGBTQ icons from Sylvester and Luther Vandross to Queen's Freddie Mercury, of whom he is writing a major biography. Jason recalls writing for Vibe and the Village Voice in the Noughties, listens to clips from Bill Brewster's 2002 audio interview with Boy George and

  • Jul 25, 2022 · 1 hr 29 min

    E132: Steven Daly on Orange Juice + Suede + Sugar Hill + Lizzo

    In this episode we welcome "gamekeeper-turned-poacher" Steven Daly, who Zooms in from his adopted Brooklyn to tell us about drumming in Orange Juice and his stellar writing career in America. Steven revisits his musical youth in '70s Glasgow and his first encounters with Edwyn Collins and Postcard's Alan Horne. He talks about the creative divergences within Orange Juice, his eventual move into writing for The Face and Edinburgh's Cut magazine, and the decision in the late '80s to base himself in