With Kerrang! editor Paul Rees off to takeover at fellow EMAP title Q, the rock weekly has a new editor – it’s youngest ever – in 26 year old Ashley Bird. Bird has worked for the magazine since graduating from Bournemouth University – he was on the staff as a reviews editor and more recently freelanced for the magazine.
On announcing the appointment Dave Henderson, MD of Rock at EMAP Performance, told reporters: "Ashley is the absolute real thing in the world of Kerrang!. If he couldn't be writing and editing it you know he'd be buying it and down at the front at all the Kerrang! gigs."
Bird himself added: "Kerrang! has been integral to my life since I was 14 - as an obsessive reader, a writer and a section editor. There isn't a magazine in the world I would rather be a part of than this one. I'm absolutely chuffed to bits and honoured to be in this position and can't wait to get stuck in. In many ways I feel like I just married my childhood sweetheart.”
Dave Everley, the features editor of Kerrang!, is promoted to deputy editor.