I am an author, ghost-writer, journalist and editor of 35 years standing. I started out as a music journalist, initially on Melody Maker, then later Time Out and Q, interviewing everyone from Joe Strummer to Liza Minnelli. I still write about music for the Guardian and Financial Times. In the late nineties, I moved into books and, after commissioning and editing life stories by Eddie Izzard, Blur and Billy Bragg, I started writing them myself. I collaborated with Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe on his ground-breaking New York Times bestseller, The Heroin Diaries, co-wrote Over the Moon with David Essex, and ghosted Sir Billy Connolly’s homage to his homeland, Made in Scotland. I’ve written official BBC histories of both Top of the Pops and Desert Island Discs, helped Judas Priest singer Rob Halford write his staggering tell-all memoir, Confess, worked with Sir Cliff Richard on his definitive life story, The Dreamer, and ghosted The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades’ revelatory autobiography, Making It. In total, my books have sold more than one million copies. If someone has a great story, I love helping them to tell it.

Photograph by Phil Nicholls: philnicholls.co.uk