GQ editor retraces his journey from dreadful drummer to David Bowie biographer
Dylan Jones relishes his role in cataloguing – and in part inventing – London’s ‘style culture’ of the 1980s, is proud of hiring some top writers to move GQ beyond a yuppie bible, and sees hope for journalism after years of decline
Flying start I was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire (in Britain). I was brought up all over because my Dad was in the air force – Malta, Cyprus, (what seemed like) every county in the UK, all over the place. Then I moved to London when I was 16.
From the age of about 12, 13, all I really wanted to do was go to art school. I was obsessive about going to art school. So I did. I went to Chelsea School of Art in 1977 and then Saint Martin’s in 1978.
New horizons There was a newspaper called the New Musical Express, which has just closed its final print issue, and, in the early 1970s, it was read by about a quarter of a million people every week. It had amazing journalists in it, people like Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent, and then Tony Parsons and Paul Morley. It was a window into many worlds using music. It informed lots of my opinions and got me excited about everything from film to theatre to politics.
I was a film extra. I shot down Roger Moore’s plane in Octopussy. I was in a very bad vampire movie with Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie called The Hunger
Finding the groove I was a drummer. A terrible drummer. I was in a band and we played a gig on a boat. My drum kit actually moved across the boat because it wasn’t fixed to the floor. It was awful.