The Stockport Music Story in Conversation with AJ Barratt

Rock photographer Tony Barratt couldn't be more Stopfordian. He was born next to the Town Hall in the legendary Town Hall Tavern where his parents were the licensees.

He grew up obsessed with music, reading the NME on the bus to school. After studying film and photography in London he gets his first break when music paper Melody Maker take him on and he served his rock apprenticeship photographing live gigs until he landed his dream job at the NME.

For ten years between the mid '80's and '90's, Tony, known professionally as A.J, travelled the world photographing the likes of Nirvana, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Leonard Cohen, Mark E Smith, Sonic Youth and Sinead O’Connor. Through his photographs, he always strived to bring out something new and interesting about his subject such as when he asked The Charlatans to stand in a lake or Leonard Cohen to dangle his toddler daughter upside down by her angles!

While still a photography student, Tony was involved in the early days of ZTT Records with fellow Stopfordian and NME journalist Paul Morley and would spend his weekends exploring the wild wastelands of London photographing industrial decay in an artistic way. Tony's photographs would invariably end up as record sleeves and he had the privilege of photographing Frankie Goes To Hollywood throughout their controversial career.

Tony's recently published photographic collective features stunning black and white images of a host of rock luminaries from Nirvana to Shane MacGowan, Radiohead to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Tony will be revealing the stories behind the images and  recounting the highlights of his eventful life though a lens.