As well as interviewing bands, I thought it would be pretty awesome to catch up with Shari from the UK'S best independant music magazine, Black Velvet. About to celebrate its 10 year anniversary, I got the chance to ask Shari a few questions about the magazine, her highlights, the history and whats yet to come from Black velvet.........

So tell everyone about Black Velvet and how it all started?

Black Velvet is an independent rock magazine (or fanzine if you prefer) based in the UK. It’s a printed zine that hits the streets every 3 months. It started back in 1994 when the fanzine I had been doing for a year for a band who were friends of mine had to be put to rest due to the band splitting up. I knew I loved writing about music, I went to a lot of concerts and loved talking about them afterwards, I loved listening to CDs, I loved taking photos at concerts, so it just made sense to start an all-round rock zine. It started very basically. The first 3 issues were photocopied at work using the work photocopier. I also only had a cheap word processor back then. I don’t think the computer generation had really took off at that point. So early issues are a bit dodgy to put it mildly!

What kind of bands can we expect to see in Black Velvet?

Any band I like basically. They don’t need to fit into any particular genre – the main thing is that I like them. We’ve featured everyone from Pitchshifter and My Ruin to Manic Street Preachers and Bon Jovi. Of course I like a lot of poppy punk music and emo. I really like catchy music. Anything that’s bouncy. My current favourites include Midtown, Lostprophets, Less Than Jake, Yellowcard, Goldfinger, Mest, Good Charlotte, Sugarcult and The All-American Rejects.

So its the 10th anniversary of the magazine, what made you start it in the first place?

Just a love of rock music and writing about it. Plus I always wanted to do something in the music industry. I figured this was what I was best at.

What has been your highlights since starting the magazine?

There have been a lot. Getting every issue back from the printers (even when they make printing errors!) is a highlight. Seeing what I’ve worked hard on for the past three months come together as an independent magazine. As far as the zine’s progression, it’s been amazing to have certain shops sell it and have a distribution company get it out there. And then of course featuring various bands. It was an honour to interview Tico Torres of Bon Jovi a few years ago because Bon Jovi were the band that got me into rock music in the mid 80s. It was an honour to interview Tyler Rann of Midtown about veganism and animal rights because it’s a subject I feel strongly about and so does he. And just last week I interviewed John Feldmann of Goldfinger about animal rights also. Also having Black Velvet’s first ever guest columnist, Marko 72 of Sugarcult, was super cool. He’s a star! And then getting various passes for various events – my first ever photopass for the Manics was exciting as it wasn’t just a regular Manics show, it was the Manic Millennium on New Year’s Eve, 1999 at the Millennium Stadium. So I got to see in not only the new year but the new millennium taking photos of the Manics in the photo pit in Cardiff. The Manics are one of my favourite bands so that was awesome.

Favourite person you have interviewed and why?

Probably Tyler Rann because it was my first real interview about animal rights. I’d been vegetarian for 13 years and hated animal cruelty and when I read that they were into animal rights I wanted to interview them. So the press officer at their record company got Tyler on the phone (it was actually the morning I’d returned from a flight from New Jersey… which is where they live – but they were in the UK for Deconstruction and I was so jetlagged) since he’s the vegan in the band – the others are vegetarians. And he is very intelligent and everything he said made perfect sense and he is so passionate about what he believes in. It helped spur me on to give up dairy products and other animal by-products and become vegan. I’ve been vegan now for 1 ½ years.

What kind of regular features can new readers expect to see in the magazine and how can they get involved?

Every issue has a bunch of band interviews. Black Velvet only tends to interview the bands we really love due to space restrictions. So you’ve got to be pretty good to get interviewed. Every issue has heaps of album, single, demo and fanzine reviews, as well as to a lesser extent book and DVD reviews. There’s Marko 72’s column, other little pieces on bands… One of our less serious features is ‘Back Page Babe’ which is where readers can nominate a rock musician who they think is a babe to grace the back page. We then put a colour pic of them on the back page. It’s a bit cheesy but it’s cool! Readers can also send in photos of themselves for The Star & I section, or top 5 album playlists for the playlist section. They can email nominations, photos of themselves with bandmembers (not too huge though!) or top 5 playlists to me at shari@blackvelvetmagazine.com

What do you hope the next 10 years of black velvet will hold?

Loads of fun and enjoyment and the discovery of great new music, and the continuation of some of the current top rock acts. Hopefully Black Velvet will improve more… I’d like it to become more of a magazine and to get it into more stores and have more people reading it. That would rock. I’d like Black Velvet to be recognised as a great source of music journalism and a good read for everyone into rock music.

Finally is there anything at all else you would like to add? Now’s your chance!

Everyone should buy a copy! The website is at www.blackvelvetmagazine.com – all the details are there with what’s in each issue and how to get one. Back issues are still available and we also have merchandise! Issue 40, our 10 year anniversary issue will be out in May and will include interviews with Sugarcult, Goldfinger, Mest, Allister, Yellowcard, Brand New, B*Movie Heroes and more. Make sure you get it! And visit www.peta2.com too!

Thanks to Shari for letting me talk to her about the 'zine. You can find out more about black velvet at: www.blackvelvetmagazine.com.