Smash Hits

No, look.

Oh, Smash Hits.

Man, they were the days.

It says on the front, "Come on in for Pete's..." Oh, I thought it, [laughs] I thought it said, "Come on in for Pete's private tour." [laughs]

Sexy Pecks takes us into his hotel room." And it's got you beckoning on the front.

Wow.

Now, I reme- I don't remember that particular shoot, but you know, Smash Hits then, in the '90s-

That's crazy

I think my now sister-in-law was probably, so I probably actually laughed and chatted.

I think I used to buy Smash Hits.

Back at

this,

Ah, the nostalgia of the 90s.

Remember Smash Hits Magazine? Yes, of course.

They used to have a

pull-out.

Yes, absolutely.

Every week, wasn't it? Smash Hits Magazine.

Every

week, was it? Let us know what your thoughts are.

A piece of advice that's stuck with you or that you live by?

When I was 22 years old, I became the editor of Smash Hits and everybody on that magazine was older than me apart from two other people.

So I kind of felt that I had to step up and impose my authority by leading, by making all the decisions.

That stereotypical kind of, you know, general leading from the front.

Anyway, so we need to do a little bit of pre-90s, Kylie.

What we might call the Neighbours, Stock Aitken and Waterman smash hits.

Yes.

Right.

Good.

I'm glad to hear it.

In the book, you associate this time slightly with Smash Hits, which is really lovely for me because I started at Smash Hits in 1988.

And it was the Kylie and then Jason and then Bross era, really, when I was there.

"Mark Ellen himself is frozen in time as a jolly, puppy-like figure in his late 20s, enthusiastic and full of pop-tastic energy.

We had dealings with each other in the 1980s when he was editor of Smash Hits, and I was the subject of a feature in the magazine.

Googling him now, I see he's become more of a benign bear [laughs] with white hair and beard, more Gandalf than Hobbit.

Rather like me, I suppose." Which I love that bit because, yes, you know, he still thinks of Mark, um-

He began his working life in Dundee writing romantic fiction at DC Thomson.

By his early 20s, he was editing smash hits.

He went on to transform FHM into the biggest selling monthly magazine in Britain, launched some of the country's best-known titles, and sit on the board of IPC when the business was sold to Time Warner for more than £1 billion.

Today, millions know Mike as the forensic interviewer on The Apprentice, but the greatest turning point in his career came not in a boardroom, but in a hospital bed.

I've phoned around all the people that I've-- all the journalists that I know, that I've got on with, has, uh, I've made contacts with, got a bunch of gig reviews and album reviews and so on.

Worked for all the music papers.

Went in for a job interview on Smash Hits on a Monday morning.

It's just a couple of weeks afterwards.

Yeah

... you know, glossy magazine, uh, a la, like Smash Hits or anything else of that era, or Face, I'm interested to know how you thought of your kind of target readership by that point.

What was Jamming ultimately about? Who were you speaking to?

Yeah, very good question to ask.