‘I’m burping? At least I didn’t fart!’ Ten things I’ve learned about ageing rockers

From Gene Simmons discussing lowgrade meatballs to Shaun Ryder comparing himself to Uncle Fester, Kate Mossman has spent her life interviewing rock stars of a certain age. What has she learned?

Young musicians have so little to say. Give me a rocker in his later years any day. Ask him about his childhood, his relationship with his mum, his painful lifelong love affair with his lead guitarist. Many belong to a specific anthropological group: born after the war, they got their first guitars on hire purchase and went on to date the aristocracy. They became my specialist subject as a journalist: it was impossible to resist the combination of vulnerability, extreme oddness and sharp business nous I found in so many, while others were living in strangely compromised circumstances despite years of deathless hits. I was particularly drawn to those who had continued a career under the radar, or who had slipped under it but hadn’t quite noticed.

It was a strange subject to pursue, but always a labour of love – because on some level, I felt a strange identification with these “cosmic dads” of rock’n’roll. The obsession has culminated in a book, Men of a Certain Age. Here are 10 things I learned in the course of writing it.