John Robb talks about a life in music, his best-selling The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth book, being the first person to interview Nirvana, inventing the word Britpop and adventures on the post-punk frontline.

John Robb is a many-faceted creature. Not just a well-known face from TV but also a best-selling author, musician, journalist, presenter and pundit, music website boss, publisher, festival boss, Eco-warrior and vegan behemoth and talking head singer from post-punk mainstays The Membranes. John Robb is all these things and more.

His recently released book The Art Of Darkness – The History Of Goth is a worldwide pop culture bestseller and his soon-to-be-launched ground-breaking new scheme – the Green Britain Academy, is set to train people in thousands of Eco jobs whilst Borders Blurred is a gaming and music agency with a twist.

He grew up in Blackpool before punk rock came along and saved his life and he formed The Membranes – the highly influential post-punk band whose current albums keep pushing forward with added choirs and textures and are critically acclaimed. He was one of the leading post-punk fanzine writers in the UK with Rox before he went on to write for the rock press with Sounds in the 80s and was the first person to interview Nirvana and coined the expression Britpop and was instrumental in kickstarting and documenting the Madchester scene with his writing. His music and culture website louderthanwar.com is currently the 5th most read music and culture site in the UK and at the front of diverse modern culture.

He is a constant on TV and radio commenting on music, culture and politics and one of the UK’s leading in-conversation hosts who has his own successful YouTube channel and his own books and a music festival in Manchester every year called Louder Than Words. He has written many best-seller books like Punk Rock – an Oral History and The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop and in 2021, a book about the leading Eco energy boss Dale Vince from Ecotricity called Manifesto. 2023 also sees the release of a new book with Alan McGee as well as his own autobiography and a collected works of journalism.

Doors 19:30
Start 20:00
Interval 20:45 – 21:05
Finish 21:50 Approx.