Legendary music publicist and football agent Eric ‘Monster Monster’ Hall dies, age 73

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Eric Hall, who worked with Queen, the Sex Pistols and T. Rex, before becoming a football agent, has passed away

Eric Hall
(Image credit: Allsport UK /Allsport)

Eric Hall, the EMI music publicist who famously arranged for the Sex Pistols to appear on the Today programme with Bill Grundy in 1976, has died.

Hall’s death was was announced by the radio station where he worked, Time 107.5FM.

Famous for his loud personality, his love of fine cigars and his catchphrase ‘Monster Monster‘, East Londoner Hall enjoyed a colourful life. Born in Bethnal Green in 1947, he left school at 15 and worked as an office boy alongside Reg Dwight, rather better known as Elton John, before taking on a plugger/publicist role at EMI Records, where he worked promoting his childhood friend Mark Feld (aka Marc Bolan), Cockney Rebel, Queen and the Sex Pistols.

It was Hall who suggested the Sex Pistols stand in for Queen on Bill Grundy’s ITV show Today on December 1, 1976, after Queen cancelled their scheduled appearance, as Freddie Mercury required an urgent dentist’s appointment for a toothache. Broadcast live on teatime television, the ensuing confrontation between the veteran TV presenter and the potty-mouthed punks, made the Pistols infamous overnight.

“I got a phone call from the producer of the Today show asking whether I had anyone for him because they needed to fill their ‘pop slot’,” Hall recalled in an interview in the Telegraph earlier this year. “I said, ‘I’ve got one which you won’t want, the Sex Pistols’. I didn’t push it, I asked him if he was sure, but he was adamant he wanted them. I phoned up their manager, Malcolm McLaren, and he said I had to put on a limousine and champagne and beer to get them to the studio, which I did, so I suppose I was partly responsible for them going on and drinking so much. I’ll take the glory, if you want.”

Hall promoted Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody single, and always maintained that Freddie Mercury wrote Queen’s 1974 hit Killer Queen about him.

After his highly-entertaining stint in music, which saw him make appearances on Top Of The Pops dressed as a) a frog and b) a womble, Hall moved into football in the 1980s after meeting Tottenham Hotspur captain Steve Perryman in a nightclub, and went on to represent footballers such as Robbie Savage, Dennis Wise, John Fashanu and Tim Sherwood. He later became a radio host.

Cockney Rebel frontman Steve Harley was one of the first people to pay tribute to Hall.

Paul Brannigan
Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.