All Pens Blazing - A Heavy Metal Writers Handbook [Paperback]

Neil Daniels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2009

Ever wondered what it takes to be a heavy metal journalist? In this comprehensive collection, Neil Daniels has interviewed a staggering 65 of the world's most successful writers of heavy metal and hard rock. Many of these writers are successful biographers, editors and long-standing freelancers who have interviewed some of the genre's leading artists from KISS to Metallica and Black Sabbath to Slayer. They've travelled the world over, lived in tour buses, got drunk with their idols, attended some of the greatest gigs in history and are still alive to tell the tale. It's all here; the wild stories, the anecdotes.. .and the advice! All Pens Blazing offers a potted history of the genre as well as the publishing industry from the legendary Sounds and Melody Maker to metal bibles Kerrang! and Metal Hammer to modern day magazines like Terrorizer, Powerplay and Classic Rock. There's also a wealth of information on fanzines and webzines as well as long-gone magazines like Metal Forces, RIP and RAW. With a foreword by the Canadian metal historian Martin Popoff, this collection makes essential reading for the heavy metal fan. It is also a worthy historical document for the serious enthusiast and can be used as a handy reference tool for the aspiring metal writer. NEIL DANIELS has written about classic rock and heavy metal for a wide range of magazines and fanzines. He has penned books on Judas Priest, Robert Plant, Linkin Park and Bon Jovi and co-authored Dawn Of The Metal Gods: My Life In Judas Priest & Heavy Metal with Al Atkins. More information is obtainable at www.neildaniels.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Bright Pen (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0755211553
• ISBN-13: 978-0755211555
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,378,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not making metal journalism look good, November 13, 2009

By 

Greg Pratt - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All Pens Blazing - A Heavy Metal Writers Handbook (Paperback)

If the whole point here was to make metal journalism look credible, why is this book littered with typos, inane questions and pointless answers?
There are tons of insightful answers from the subjects interviewed, but reading a poorly written question followed by "I'm not sure" as an answer, repeatedly, is really boring.

Plus, the font is unbearably hard on the eyes.

Seriously, kudos to the author for trying, but doing a whole book of unedited e-mail interviews to try to make metal journalism look good just makes no sense.

Hey, I'm still glad he gave it a shot. Lots of fun/interesting stories here. It just could have been edited to get rid of the irrelevant/silly answers. We don't print those in magazines when we're trying to write a credible article, so they shouldn't be here either, as they take away from the reading experience in a huge way.

Perhaps a future edition can be edited and it'll be a kick-ass tome reminding the world (or, showing the world) that metal writing can be darn good writing.

Greg

3.0 out of 5 stars Missed opportunity, April 27, 2010

By 

Justin Gaines (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: All Pens Blazing - A Heavy Metal Writers Handbook (Paperback)

I was very excited when this book was announced. As an aspiring rock/metal writer (translation: amateur hack), I was hoping to learn about the rules and tricks of the trade from those who do this kind of writing for a living. Instead, All Pens Blazing is a collection of interviews Neil Daniels conducted (via email, apparently) with rock and metal writers where the same dozen questions are lobbed over and over. Who are your influences? What do you think about the internet? What do you think about Kerrang these days? It quickly becomes tedious. I wanted to know more about how to better cover the music I love, not what the office politics were like at Metal Hammer back in the day. There isn't even any narrative from Daniels that might tie these interviews together or provide some analysis or context.

I usually go through a book or two a week, but I've been slogging through this one since Christmas. I'm determined to finish it, but I just can't handle more than a few pages at a time. Some of the answers are interesting or at least amusing, but mostly it's a boring read.

And then there's the format. Unlike most print-on-demand/self-published books I've encountered, this one is small - not much bigger than a paperback novel. And the print is absolutely miniscule. I have decent eyesight, but the text in this book was almost too tiny to read. Hopefully Daniels will correct that with future printings.

I'll give Daniels credit for the idea as well as for putting this together, but ultimately All Pens Blazing was a disappointment and definitely not the resource I was hoping for.