Michael Azerrad
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Michael Azerrad is an American author, journalist and musician. He grew up in the New York City area and received his BA degree from Columbia College in 1983. During his college years, he was both a roommate and a bandmate of keyboard virtuoso Marc Capelle (who later went on to become a member of American Music Club.)
After college, Azerrad played drums in various small bands while pursuing a career in music journalism. Besides writing features for Spin, Musician and Details, and a stint at MTV News from 1987 through 1992, Azerrad wrote several hundred pieces for Rolling Stone magazine from 1987 through 1993, and was eventually named contributing editor. In 1993 Doubleday Books published Azerrad's definitive, best-selling biography of the band Nirvana, entitled Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana[1], which appeared six months before bandleader Kurt Cobain died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Azerrad spent many months interviewing the band members and their friends, relatives and associates, and Cobain and the other members of the band shared a wide variety of archival materials with him, many of which are reproduced in the book.
His subsequent book, Our Band Could Be Your Life [2] was a collection of profiles of thirteen prominent indie rock bands of the 1980s and early 1990s, including Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Minutemen and The Replacements. In 2000 Q magazine named Come as You Are one of the 50 greatest rock books ever written, and in 2006 The Guardian rated Our Band Could Be Your Life as one of the 50 best music books ever written.
Since 2002 Azerrad has himself been a member of indie band the King of France, whose acclaimed self-titled debut album was released in 2004, and in 2005 became an original member of Reprise Records recording artists the LeeVees. He has written major features for The New Yorker, Mojo, Italian GQ and the New York Times, as well as cover stories for Spin and Revolver.
In 2006, Azerrad co-produced a documentary about Kurt Cobain, "Kurt Cobain About a Son". He is the editor of the upcoming autobiography of former Husker Du and Sugar leader Bob Mould.
During 2008/2009 Kingston, UK band Tubelord used Azerrad's name in their single "I Am Azerrad," which includes the line "I kill today, I'll kill you Azerrad," prompting Azerrad to write a humorous essay about the experience for Spin magazine.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Come as You Are. Doubleday. 1993. ISBN 0-385-47199-8.
- ^ Our Band Could Be Your Life. Little Brown. 2001. ISBN 0-316-78753-1.
- ^ Michael Azerrad, Lyrical Assassin, Spin, 2008-10-27. Accessed online 2009-04-28.
