Q+A: Martin Popoff on Guns N' Roses at 40 and Writing 135 Books
Interview with an unfathomably prolific author!
I’ve interviewed a lot of prolific authors, but Martin Popoff is the undisputed heavyweight champion. I contacted him to talk about his new book Guns N’ Roses at 40 and found out there’s a whole lot more to discuss!
Tamara Palmer/Music Book Club: How long did it take to write Guns and Roses at 40 and what was your process like?
This book was about 40 career highlights, so it's a lot of just researching, coming up with what I think the 40 highlights will be, and laying them out in order. That's one of my funnest parts of it. The other fun part is using a song title for every one of the 40 things, and making it a little inside joke, and making the song title kind of meaningful.
I have to deal with word counts, like which ones are going to take two pages, which ones are going to take four pages? And that kind of surprises me as I go along. But I try to add it up: if I worked a nine or 10 hour day every day, most books I write would take me more than a month, and probably even closer to three weeks. But I'm writing something like this among doing all sorts of other things, so it takes place over the course of about four months.
What surprised you most about the band while you were researching the book?
What surprised me most is how often they would they would be out touring, and old members would just guest with them, or other superstars would just jump on stage and guest with them. They're just always out there playing. And you don't really hear about that all the time, but yeah, it's pretty crazy. And then also just looking at how much catalog there is outside of the actual branded Guns N’ Roses catalog. I even did an episode of our Contrarians YouTube show where I said the top 10 answers for how many Guns N’ Roses albums there are.
What is your favorite Guns N’ Roses work?
I think my favorite material is probably the Use Your Illusion albums, then Appetite, and then Chinese Democracy, which I also think is really cool. I thought that was really ambitious. It's a long album. Axl is a real creative. He's a real artist. He really is a perfectionist, and that's why we don't see too much out of him, right?
How many books have you written now, and what is your best productivity secret?
135 at this point. My best productivity secret is write when you are the most alert. And for me, that's from about seven in the morning ‘til noon. And after that, forget it. Also once you start a book, keep at it, because it's really hard to go away from it for a week or two and then come back and work out exactly how you were doing this whole thing in the first place. So once you start something, try to throw at least a couple or few hours at it every single day, I suppose. And you just have to be a fast writer. You have to make decisions fast. You can't agonize over everything.
Would you like to recommend some favorite music books from any era to our readers?
Thank you so much. I remember reading an amazing book on The Stranglers, another great book on The Jam, another great book on XTC. Nick Tosches is a great author, and he just writes amazing books, no matter what they are. I don't read too many rock books anymore. I loved Keith Richards’ autobiography. That was cool as well.
Previously in our Q+A series:
Katie Bain on Her Forthcoming Book Desert Dreams: The Music, Style, and Allure of Coachella
Colin Steven on Publishing Electronic Music and Counterculture Books at Velocity Press
Yoel Gaetán on Chronicling Punk in Puerto Rico with Forgotten Youth Records and Books
Jason Pettigrew on Writing a Book About Ministry's Third Album
Melissa Locker on Her Brand New Book About Oasis Fans
Ira Robbins on Publishing Peter Silverton’s ‘London Calling New York New York’ and What’s Coming from Trouser Press Books
Donna-Claire Chesman on How CRYBABY Came to Her in a Dream
Cary Baker on His First Book and How Busking Can Help Main Street USA
Gina Arnold on The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock and Working with Academic Publishers
Tom Beaujour on His New Lollapalooza Book and Producing Successful Oral Histories
John Morrison on Boyz II Men and Chronicling Philadelphia Music History
Mark Angelo Harrison on Telling the Spiral Tribe Sound System Story
Lyndsey Parker on Writing a 'Stranger Than Fiction' Memoir with Mercy Fontenot
Christina Ward on Running Feral House, a 36-Year-Old Indie Book Company
Ali Smith on Speedball Baby and Telling Stories Without Shame
Arusa Qureshi on Her Love Letter to Women in UK Hip-Hop
Lily Moayeri on Her Favorite Music Books and Writing from a Personal Place
Megan Volpert on Why Alanis Morissette Matters and Writing 15 Books in 18 Years
Mark Swartz on Biggie + Yoko Ono as a Crime-Fighting Duo and Other Fictional Ideas
Annie Zaleski on Cher, Stevie Nicks and Pushing Past Writing Fears
Nelson George on His Next Book and Making Mixtapes in Paper Form
Michaelangelo Matos on Writing and Editing Music Books
