Among the interviewees for this book are Simon Brenner, producer Rhett Davies, Phill Brown, James Marsh, musical collaborators George Page, Phil Ramocon, Martin Ditcham, Dominic Miller, Mark Feltham, Johnny Turnbull, Robbie McIntosh and others. Wardle gives an honest account of the musician’s all-out determination to innovate, which he often did to the exasperation of collaborators, bandmates, producers and managers. After retirement Hollis lived quietly with his wife Felicity Costello (“Flick”) and their two sons in Wimbledon, declining all interviews, releasing no more records. In the first in-depth biography of the Talk Talk leader, author and music industry insider Ben Wardle has interviewed scores of Mark Hollis’ friends, musicians, collaborators and record company executives.

We met in a pub of his choosing in Wimbledon and, as we talked over an afternoon pint, I found him awkward, often inarticulate and evasive. Outside of Britain they had more success, notably in Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands following the release of their second album in 1984. Sofia Coppola got him started on an attempt to compose music that would more or less fit the period depicted in "Marie-Antoinette", then she had a complete change of mind and decided instead to use modern pop music, and Hollis was out at this point, so it never went any further. Uneasy with his fame and fiercely private, the post-rock pioneer left behind a musical legacy of extraordinary beauty. The first complete, in-depth biography of the Talk Talk leader draws on scores of new and original interviews with Mark Hollis’s friends, musicians, collaborators and record company personnel to create this important and substantial biography.Hollis has stated about the song…“That was someone born before the turn of the century…and dying within one year of the First World War at a young age. A Life (1895 – 1915), which has been referred to as “the album’s epic centrepiece” refers to Roland Leighton (1895–1915), a British soldier and poet who was the fiancé of Vera Brittain at the time of his death in World War I.

When you combine this background with his appreciation of the late Mark Hollis and Talk Talk, he’s well-positioned to offer some unique insights into the pioneering art-pop outfit.They would record in near-total darkness, involve hundreds of hired musicians in unguided improvisation, and only use a fraction of their effort. Talk Talk may be the visionary sound of one extraordinary mind, but it came about through collective effort – the sounds didn’t come from Hollis, and Hollis couldn’t create it alone. His inspiration came not from ‘pop’ but 20th-century classical music and jazz from the late fifties and sixties (there is a distinct flavour of Miles Davis – ‘In A Silent Way’ here) and is one of the quietest and most intimate records ever made – creating an exceptional atmosphere in which the listener can submerge. In the absence of any direct communication from the man himself his admirers sought answers to these riddles and intrigues in his opaque, quasi-mystical lyrics or in interviews he’d given years before. Tracing Mark Hollis's life from earliest beginnings through his formative years, author Ben Wardle offers genuine insight into the creative forces which helped shape the sound and songs recorded by Talk Talk.