Men of a Certain Age
03 April 2025Imprint: Nine Eight Books
Synopsis
'Fascinating, funny and tender' ADAM BUXTON
'My favourite writer and interviewer' JUDE ROGERS
'If Kate Mossman's name is on it, then I want to read it' PETE PAPHIDES
From Jeff Beck to Ray Davies, Jon Bon Jovi to Kevin Ayers, Kate Mossman has long fostered an interest in male musicians of a certain age.
Why is it that when I meet them, I feel something ignite inside me? What is this strange connection - to feel so excited, yet so at ease? And how is it that in the presence of a wrinkly rock star twice my age, I sometimes feel like I'm meeting . . . me?
Featuring nineteen long-form profiles lovingly constructed for The Word magazine and the New Statesman, Men of a Certain Age chronicles the lives of some of the biggest rock stars of our time, including Brian May, Gene Simmons, Terence Trent D'Arby, Johnny Rotten and Nick Cave.
The book is a meditation on the powerful archetype of the ageing rock star, but it is also a personal story - of music and obsession, and of the deep unconscious projections at play in our relationships with the famous people who most capture our hearts. As Kate travels 5,000 miles to try and find Glen Campbell, and to the depths of the Cornish countryside for a rendezvous with Roger Taylor, will she finally unravel the roots of her obsession with the elder statesmen of rock?
'My favourite writer and interviewer' JUDE ROGERS
'If Kate Mossman's name is on it, then I want to read it' PETE PAPHIDES
From Jeff Beck to Ray Davies, Jon Bon Jovi to Kevin Ayers, Kate Mossman has long fostered an interest in male musicians of a certain age.
Why is it that when I meet them, I feel something ignite inside me? What is this strange connection - to feel so excited, yet so at ease? And how is it that in the presence of a wrinkly rock star twice my age, I sometimes feel like I'm meeting . . . me?
Featuring nineteen long-form profiles lovingly constructed for The Word magazine and the New Statesman, Men of a Certain Age chronicles the lives of some of the biggest rock stars of our time, including Brian May, Gene Simmons, Terence Trent D'Arby, Johnny Rotten and Nick Cave.
The book is a meditation on the powerful archetype of the ageing rock star, but it is also a personal story - of music and obsession, and of the deep unconscious projections at play in our relationships with the famous people who most capture our hearts. As Kate travels 5,000 miles to try and find Glen Campbell, and to the depths of the Cornish countryside for a rendezvous with Roger Taylor, will she finally unravel the roots of her obsession with the elder statesmen of rock?
Details
03 April 2025352 pages
9781788705646Imprint: Nine Eight Books
Reviews
'Fascinating, funny and tender. I loved this book so much'Adam Buxton
'My favourite writer and interviewer, bar none. Whirligig, funny, incisive, often brutally honest - always surprising - but also tender and humane. She's a genius!'Jude Rogers
'Kate invariably notices something about her chosen subjects that 99 per cent of writers, who have been covering them for decades, miss entirely. This collection of her encounters with music's lifers abounds with such observations, proving once more that the thing we really want to do with rock stars is get close and have a damned good look at them'David Hepworth
'The greatest music writers compel you to understand the world as they are fated to understand it, along the way breathing new life to the records that shaped that world. If Kate Mossman's name is on it, then I want to read it. Simple as that'Pete Paphides