Paul Trynka is a British rock journalist and author. He was the editor of the music magazine Mojo[1] from 1999 to 2003, and has also worked as editorial director of Q and editor of International Musician.[2] In 2004, he edited publisher Dorling Kindersley's compilation of the Mojo Special Limited Edition issues on the Beatles.[2] He has also written for The Independent[3] and Classic Rock magazine,[4] and contributed articles on music, fashion, design or travel for The Guardian, Elle and Blueprint, among other publications.[2] Before turning to journalism, he worked as a professional musician with the band Nyam Nyam, recording albums for the Beggars Banquet and Factory Benelux record labels.[2]
Trynka has written or co-written the books Electric Guitar (1993), Portrait of the Blues (1996) and Denim (2001).[2] In 2005, Trynka published Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed, a biography of Iggy Pop. A review in The Guardian describes the book as "piecing together the chaotic life story of this often unhinged performer in thorough and scrupulously non-judgmental detail".[5] In 2011, he published Starman: David Bowie, a biography of English musician David Bowie.[6] Writing in The New York Times, Dwight Garner described it as "a better-than-average rock biography, but just barely".[7]
Trynka wrote Sympathy for the Devil: The Birth of the Rolling Stones and the Death of Brian Jones, a 2014 biography of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones.[8] The book was published in the United States as Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones.[8] In his review for The New York Times, Larry Rohter said the book "challenges the standard version of events" by recognising Jones' importance on a par with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and added: "Though Mr. Trynka sometimes overstates Jones’s long-term cultural impact, his is revisionist history of the best kind – scrupulously researched and cogently argued – and should be unfailingly interesting to any Stones fan."[8]