The first issue of the monthly Planet Rock magazine, a collaboration between Bauer brands Mojo and Planet Rock radio station, hit the stands last Friday (12 May).
Bauer said the magazine has been designed to reflect the radio station’s on-air programming and add context to music championed by the Planet Rock brand.
The 132-page glossy first issue features an embossed mirrored Motörhead cover celebrating the 40th anniversary of the band’s eponymous debut album. Inside, there are features on Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses and an interview with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
The first magazine was created using the combined prowess of three companies, Wyndeham Roche, Colour Five and Celloglas. Print finisher Celloglas has worked in the past on other Bauer titles, including Empire and Q.
Text pages were printed at Wyndeham Roche’s Cornwall site before being shipped to Celloglas’ Theale, Reading site where the Mirri board for the cover was fashioned. Mirri Board was laminated with silver laminate and shipped to Perivale, London-based Colour Five’s headquarters, who printed the cover using a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 UV press with white opaque option.
Celloglas sales director Steve Middleton said the instant drying nature of Colour Five’s UV press speeded up the process. The magazines were then returned to Cellogas’ Leicester site for embossing, using a B1 SBL foil-blocking machine for multi-level embossing, before being bound and returned to Bauer. The three will combine again for the second issue of the magazine.
Middleton said: “It took us a bit of a while to get it where the art director needed it to be, we sent him lots of different ideas, but I was the person putting it all together and it was finished on time.”
The magazine’s new editor-in-chief, Phil Alexander, said the publication would create “new promotional opportunities for artists, labels and advertisers alike”.
The move to launch a new classic rock magazine could be conceived as risky after the Team Rock group went into administration in the late part of last year. The Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog brands were purchased by Future Publishing.
