Wrangling with Abba, risking jail for the Stone Roses … the lawyer behind pop’s big spats

John Kennedy sparred with the Swedes over Mamma Mia! and took on the Rolling Stones for Richard Ashcroft – he tells us why he’s nonetheless arguing with Bob Geldof after 40 years

Music legal professionals are sometimes mandated to be much much less exciting than the artists they characterize, but John Kennedy might give most hotel-trashing stars a run for his or her money. Once I converse to him, he’s lately finished up “the worst argument ever” with Bob Geldof, with whom he has labored intently with for 4 many years on Band Assist. “Our arguments worsen every month. But that’s as a result of he’s so intense and nonetheless so passionate. He is unbelievably sensible.”

Forty years since he was employed, Kennedy still does 25 hours of authorized work a month for the Band Help Charitable Trust, all voluntary. His newly revealed memoir, Only for One Hour: Moments I Pinched Myself in the Music Business, takes its title from Geldof’s initial insistence that an hour of authorized advice was all it might take. It snowballed from there, by way of Stay Assist, a number of re-recordings of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (with a 40th anniversary version mooted for this yr), the Band Assist Charitable Trust and Reside 8.