Martin Deeson, Unloaded

Words by Mel Elliott

Photos by Charlotte Steeples (unless otherwise credited)

If you were in your twenties during the nineties you’ll remember hedonistic times: clubbing, raving and new indie bands appearing at a supersonic rate. Oasis V Blur, Jarvis V Jacko. Lager, lads and even ladettes. Ross’s leather trousers and Rachel’s feathered haircut. The Titanic was sinking, football was coming home, Fresh Prince was moving to Bel Air and Geri wore a dress that would only be seen on the likes of Tommy Robinson these days. But back then we were proud to be British - we were Cool Britannia! The world looked up to us, our girl bands and our alcohol-pops. There was one thing missing though - the internet* There was so much going on but nowhere to share it - there was no #gailportersbum or #chrisevansmarryingateenagerisnotok #FFS!

Photo by Neale Haynes

Women had Elle and Cosmopolitan magazine in which we could find out how to go from the office to the cocktail bar without arsing about getting changed and posh men had Esquire and GQ where they could read about expensive watches and skiing in Courchevel but poor men were reliant on their televisions followed by real life conversations with their mates over a can of Stella. If only there was a neat little package that could capture this ‘Cool Britannia’ feeling and share it with all the working class men in the UK.

Pre internet, magazines were big, no HUGE business, and when a young James Brown, then working at NME was asked to create a brand new magazine, he knew just what to do. So he gathered a small team together and Loaded was born, with the premise of capturing the spirit of the ‘90s. This magazine was not for the posh Esquire readers though, Loaded was for lager drinking, van driving, football shirt wearing geezers.

A part of that team of six was Martin Deeson, a fresh-faced 28 year old who’d had ambitions to be a priest before Champagne and god knows what took over. These days, Martin enjoys a much calmer lifestyle in Hastings and hosts a popular podcast MARTIN DEESON UNLOADED. I recently joined him at the home he shares with his wife, daughter and Fluffy the cat, to chat about this new podcast, all things lad culture, misogyny and the heady days of Loaded magazine.

I asked Martin why the podcast is titled ‘Unloaded’.

“Well, 1, people can come along and unload and 2, I was never into football or thought of myself as very ‘laddy’ so it’s not a very Loaded kind of thing. It’s based on the ‘90s because they’re the people I know. I like talking to people and getting into their headspace and after so many years I’ve actually developed the confidence to think I’m alright at it!”

Martin Deeson Unloaded is recorded and filmed from a studio in London Bridge. 

“It had to be in London unfortunately, It’s important to do it face-to-face. We don’t edit it at all. I want it to sound like you’re overhearing a conversation in a pub between two interesting people”.

“Fluffy! Darling!” he says as the cat purrs and prods at my leg.

Photo by Chris Floyd

So what kind of guests can we expect?

“I initially went for people who I had some kind of contact with: Irvine Welsh was the first and it’s the interview I’m most proud of. He’s interesting and its very intellectual. He talks about taking DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) intravenously. Then we had Kathy LLoyd who was doing her first interview in 20 years and could not be more different. She was Loaded’s house model but she has a communist background. Brandon Block, again very different: he was doing 29g of cocaine per day and almost died. He’s now become a drugs counsellor and therapist. Jenny Eclair who I have a big soft spot for, she’s a lovely person and is very critical about the ‘90s. Then last week it was Keith Allen, and the figures have gone nuts which is great. Some people hate Keith, some people love him and I can see why he’s a bit marmite but he’s done so many interesting things and, like me, he became a dad again at 53 so it’s nice to find that personal connection.”

Other guests include: Sadie Frost, Roland Rivron, our lovely Maria McErlane and Katie Puckrik, who is highly critical of lads mags in a BBC documentary entitled Loaded: Lads, Mags and Mayhem. Another future guest on Martin’s podcast is James Brown.

I’ve always been very into magazines myself (could you tell?) and I definitely wanted to talk about Loaded magazine. I had recently watched the aforementioned documentary which featured Martin and James Brown amongst many others. 

“James came across as being a bit angry and unhinged, is he?” I asked.

Martin laughed. “I have to be careful what I say here as he lives in Winchelsea and will likely read this. What did you say? Angry and unhinged, hmm I don’t think James would be too upset actually, that’s a pretty good description of him!”

Martin tells me that he and James had a very tumultuous relationship and hadn't spoken for many years until doing the podcast. 

“He’s interesting and complicated. He started Loaded and that gave me huge opportunities all over the world, meeting some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life.”

“He seems quite amazing as well, like he has some weird spark in his brain” I say, and not because I just discovered he lives not too far away.

“Most of the people who I’ve met who are really interesting and have achieved amazing things in terms of motivating groups of people to do stuff have been like that. I’ve interviewed Malcolm McClaren and Iggy Pop who are similar. James would say ‘we’re gonna do this!’ and everyone would be like ‘that’s impossible’ but he’d make it happen”. 

We both agreed that the world needs people like this.

Loaded launched in 1994 when I was an impressionable and naive 21 year old, embarking on a toxic relationship. 

Martin says, “It revolutionised men’s magazines for better or for worse. Better because before that, all we had was the likes of GQ. I’d been living in a squat in Hackney and I found them to be very exclusive, they’d be saying you had to go to the right clubs, and wear the right clothes and expensive watches. And for worse because magazines like FHM, Zoo and Maxim came along and they took the lowest common denominator because the easiest thing that sells magazines to men… quelle surpise… is having women with their tops off on the cover and I personally found that very uncomfortable.”

Loaded launched with actor Gary Oldman on the cover, smoking a cigarette. Other covers included: Rugby captain Will Carling, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, actor Dennis Hopper, Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown, comedian Frank Skinner and actor Leslie Nielsen, all of whom are fully clothed, looking cool and proud of their achievements. Martin’s last cover was Harry Hill riding a badger, and why the hell not.

Once Martin and James had left Loaded magazine, later covers included: Actress, Elizabeth Hurley, wearing black lace pants, legs splayed. Eastenders actress Daniella Westbrook wearing a see-through babydoll nightie and sucking on a Chuppa-Chupp lolly with the headline ‘suck on this’ and a nineteen year old pop star Britney Spears, laid on a bed, wearing very little, looking provocative and holding a cuddly toy because, well, she’s just a kid really. Even TV presenter Sara Cox, famed for being a bit of a ladette, had to wear a pink bikini and hold a giant ice cream if she wanted to promote her work. 

“If you wanted to be a successful woman in TV, whether that be Gail Porter or Zoe Ball or whoever, you had to play that game, I thought that was horrific” says Martin of those later covers.

I eventually felt like I deserved my toxic relationship because I didn't have large breasts.

To be fair to Loaded, their controversial covers came along after the likes of Nuts and Zoo started selling way more copies and porn was no longer limited to the top shelves of newsagents. I was in the corner shop once where there was a man with a little toddler girl, she could see these rows of magazines while her dad was buying some cigarettes and she was saying “oh look at her she’s GORGEOUS!”, obviously mimicking what she’d seen from her dad. Ew.

“It was capitalism, it’s that simple” says Martin. “Publishers went, you’re selling loads but we need to sell even more. How do we sell even more? And that’s when James and I left.”

“You can trace these innocent fun-loving beginnings of Loaded to the misogyny of Jordan B Peterson and the misogyny of Andrew Tate” said a pissed off Katie Puckrik in the documentary. 

Martin agrees, “Was Andrew Tate our fault? No fucking way. Can you trace a straight line from what we did at Loaded to Andrew Tate, unfortunately, yes, because in the same way you could trace a straight line from Playboy magazine in the ‘60s to Loaded. That used to keep me awake at night. When Loaded started in ‘94, the team included women such as Mary Ann Hobbs and we all just thought that those battles had been won. We were like ‘racism, sexism and homophobia are over - hurray, fantastic, so now you can be a little bit cheeky and make a joke’. Mistake.”

The nineties were such an interesting decade, we had moved on from the ‘70s and ‘80s where Benny Hill would chase women as they fled in their underwear and we called it comedy. Racist comedians such as Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson had been shunned in favour of the more self deprecating and intellectual humour of Frank Skinner and David Baddiel. Women could drink pints and get into footy but we watched as Chris Evans weighed all of his female guests live on TV… and we thought we were okay. Like Martin said, we thought those battles had been won. But just like the seventies were a far cry from the fifties, times change. We grow and learn with each decade that comes. Well we’re supposed to learn anyway, these days, over thirty years since Loaded launched, I’m not so sure.

I want to send a huge thank you to Martin for such a frank and captivating conversation. Martin Deeson Unloaded is a must listen for anyone interested in the ‘90s era or pop culture in general. Some of his guests have had such incredibly colourful lives that it’s surprising they’re here to tell the tale, and with the likes of Katie Puckrik and Jenny Eclair in the mix, I’m sure there’ll be some strong opinions too.

At the start of the ‘90s, Kylie had a hit with Step Back in Time, let’s not though hey. 

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Martin Deeson Unloaded can be found on all your podcast listening services and can be watched on YouTube. Just go to unloadedpodcast.com

It is sponsored by On Beer - an alcohol-free beer full of functional herbs that give you a buzz. Use the code ‘Martin15’ to get a lovely discount from on-beer.com

You can watch Loaded: Lads, Mags and Mayhem on BBC iPlayer.