A fundraising campaign has been launched to help rock music journalist Mick Wall as he battles a series of health issues and is unable to work.
Wall is one of the U.K.’s best-known rock writers, authors and TV-and-radio program makers. He wrote for numerous music magazines, including Sounds and Kerrang!, and was editor-in-chief of Classic Rock magazine for five years, 1999-2004. He is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books, including definitive bestselling titles on LED ZEPPELIN (“When Giants Walked The Earth”),METALLICA (“Enter Night”),AC/DC (“Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be”),BLACK SABBATH (“Symptom Of The Universe”),THE DOORS (“Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre”) and Lou Reed (“The Life”).
The JustGiving campaign was started by fellow Classic Rock writer Jon Hotten, who says that Wall suffered a second heart attack on June 14, 2025, brought on by stress.
“Mick and his wife Linda are being evicted from their home by their landlord,” Hotten writes on the JustGiving page. “They must vacate the premises by 1 August, 2025. After being on the council list for six years, they have just yesterday been offered the chance of a property, for which they are incredibly grateful.
“Like many writers, Mick is a freelancer, living month to month,” Hotten explains. “He has no job security, no savings, no pension, and when he can’t work, no income. As I write this, he has £70 in his bank account. He was already facing serious health problems after a disastrous bowel operation in December.
“Linda is a Senior Nursing Assistant at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. She works on the Complex Medicine ward with patients receiving end-of-life care, undertaking four 12-hour shifts per week. Her salary after tax does not cover their rent. Linda is also the registered carer for her elderly parents, who require daily visits. And she now looks after Mick as he recovers.
“After Mick‘s first heart attack, Linda became ill and was unable to work for nine months,” Hotten adds. “They had to borrow to survive and after their debts began to compound, both Mick and Linda were declared bankrupt. They have worked exceedingly hard to discharge those bankruptcies and get back on their feet. As a result, they cannot obtain credit and can’t rent privately without an unrealistic sum of money to pay their first six months’ rent in advance, plus a deposit. The council require a month’s rent, plus a deposit. The final rent payment on their current home is due and they don’t have the money to pay it. They’re dependent on a landlord reference to be considered for any council accommodation.”
According to Hotten, any funds raised through the campaign will be used to help Mick and Linda “with the rent, and also with the costs of moving house, settling their outstanding bills and if possible, getting a little financial buffer in place while Mick recovers over the next three to six months. Despite his consultant advising him to retire, he is determined to return to the work he loves.”
Back in 2020, Wallpartnered with podcast network NoFilter Media to launch “Getcha Rocks Off”, a tell-all podcast that gives listeners a backstage pass into over four decades of rock and roll stories and debauchery that you won’t find in print.
Wall began his career in 1977, contributing to the music weekly, Sounds, where he wrote about punk, new wave, rockabilly, and eventually, hard rock and heavy metal.
In the 1980s, Wall became Kerrang! magazine’s star writer in a decade that would pass in a haze of hard drugs, hot women, and the people your mother warned you about.
Wall went on to become a founding editor at Classic Rock magazine in the 1990s, hosted Sky TV‘s “Monsters Of Rock”, and penned over twenty best-selling biographies on everyone from AC/DC and LED ZEPPELIN to the FOO FIGHTERS, U2 and Jimi Hendrix.
Hanging out with rock stars, trying to steal their chicks, or throwing up over their guitars after launching into the hospitality a little too enthusiastically, Wall spent much of the 1980s sprawled in limos and five-star hotels with the biggest rock bands in the world, including LED ZEPPELIN, GUNS N’ ROSES, METALLICA, BLACK SABBATH, MÖTLEY CRÜE, THIN LIZZY, DEEP PURPLE, Alice Cooper, VAN HALEN, MOTÖRHEAD and more.
A decade ago, Wall issued an open invitation to GUNS N’ ROSES singer Axl Rose to a sit-down to address the feud that had existed between them since the early 1990s, when Rose famously mentioned Wall in the song “Get In The Ring”.
In his book “Getcha Rocks Off”, Wall recounted how Rose turned on him after a series of interviews in Los Angeles, threatening to kill him if he published a biography of GUNS N’ ROSES. The two men have not spoken since then.
Mick Wall 2015 press photo courtesy of the Orion Publishing Group
