If you’ve ever seen Simon Cowell tilt his gloating, rhomboid head in contempt at a hapless X Factor contestant and wondered where the proverbial body was buried, Kill Your Friends could well be for you. Adapted for the screen by John Niven from his 2008 novel of the same name, the coal-black comedy stars Hollywood golden boy and Skins alum Nicholas Hoult as Steven Stelfox, a major-label A&R in the dog days of Britpop trying desperately to sign the next big thing.

With a nose for excess of every stripe and a ruthless ambition that’s long since spilled over into the realms of the psychopathic, it’s not long before his thoughts turn to murder in clearing his path to the top: think Patrick Bateman, but with (marginally) better taste in music. In fact, Niven’s disgustingly OTT screenplay makes American Psycho seem like a masterpiece of elegant restraint, chock-full as it is of such Wildean bon mots as “Success is a gang bang... Failure is a lonely rapist hiding in the bushes.” But how far is too far, anyway? Like Cowell, Niven worked as an A&R in the late 90s, a now-mythical age of gilded excess for an industry that refused to see the digital armageddon that was lurking just around the corner. Here, he lifts the lid on how he was able to draw on his experience for the film.

You worked as an A&R in the music industry in the late 90s/early 00s, were you any good at the job? 

John Niven: No, terrible! 

But you stuck it out for ten years! 

John Niven: You could back then, because there was so much money in the industry. If you were a good bloke and people liked you, you could kind of bumble about for a long time without being rumbled. Not any more! 

So do you think the 90s music industry wasn’t quite as cutthroat as it’s made out to be in the film? 

John Niven: It was if you wanted to really advance. As with a lot of businesses, it’s about minimising your association with failure and maximising any success. But to do that requires quite a lot of politicking and backstabbing, which I was never great at! If you’re climbing the ladder at the more corporate end of the industry, you have to be able to play the game. But I didn’t really give a shit, partly because I knew I was a writer and that was what I always wanted to do.

One thing that the film (and book) is really good at is nailing this sense of terror that A&Rs feel about getting it wrong… 

John Niven: There’s a very revealing scene in the film where Steven’s boss says to him, ‘Do we want to sign this band?’ Steven turns (to the camera) and he’s like, ‘If I sign them and they go down like the Titanic, I’m finished. Then again, if I don’t sign them and someone else does and they’re huge, I’m doomed too.’ You really get the bind that he’s in, you get how difficult the job is and how you’re surrounded at every turn by people who want you to fail.  

Is that something you felt keenly when you were doing the job? 

John Niven: Oh god, yeah! Massively. A huge unwritten motive is that it’s not enough that you succeed, others have to fail – and fail big!

“I signed a couple of hits, and when you see the kind of money (that brings) it’s very Wolf of Wall Street, you’re very seduced by this atmosphere. But then when you hit your 30s, you think, ‘Is this really what I want to do with my life?’” – John Niven

Did you do a lot of research when writing the book? 

John Niven: I spent a lot of time at the British Newspaper Museum in Hendon going through copies of Music Week from every week in 1997, just picking out details to flesh out the book. I also referred to my own desk diaries from the time – every weekend there were things popping up like the NME Awards or Reading Festival or (music industry showcase) New York CMJ, and each one of them would have been a three-day apocalypse of coke, Es and booze. You can do that in your twenties, you know? You can do three nights out on the bounce and you’ll suffer for one day and then you’ll be fine. But as you get older that ratio is reversed – you have one big night out and you suffer for three days! The math stops working at a certain point.

I read that your goal in writing the novel was to ‘take a blowtorch’ to the industry, can I assume there was some ill feeling towards the music biz by the time you got out?  

John Niven: When I came into the industry I’d been a guitarist in an indie band. I worked for an indie label, and then suddenly found myself at a major label, where the culture is very success-driven. So one the one hand I was horrified, because I was like the vegetarian that suddenly had to work in the slaughterhouse. But on the other hand it was exhilarating because I was earning a lot of money, I signed a couple of hits, and when you see the kind of money (that brings) it’s very Wolf of Wall Street, you’re very seduced by this atmosphere. But then when you hit your 30s, you think, ‘Is this really what I want to do with my life?’ Not to get all Jerry Maguire about it or anything! So a lot of the book is, like you said, this kind of blowtorch-y howl of outrage.

The film and novel are set in 1997, a time when Britpop on its last legs and Napster was just around the corner. Looking back, was there any sense in that the jig was up? 

John Niven: We had no idea! We were very slow to see what was coming down the pipe to destroy us. Looking back now it’s very clear, you suddenly realise that ‘free’ is a pretty big incentive for a lot of people. But it was like the fall of Rome. A-list bands would all sell millions, whereas now it’s a result if you sell 100,000 records and they cost, what, £7? We thought the party would never end! We were selling CDs that cost 50p to manufacture at £14, so we sort of had it coming. 

There are a lot of bands mentioned in the book, usually in a less-than flattering-light. Did any of them have anything to say about that? 

John Niven: I saw Noel Gallagher at the Q Awards on Wednesday, his wife is a huge fan of the book. But Noel has very famously never read a book in his life. 

Well now he’s got no excuse, has he? 

John Niven: He was actually meant to come (to a screening) last night, but he didn’t. I’m sure he’ll see it on DVD... or maybe he won’t. Maybe he doesn’t give a shit! If I were as rich as Noel, I wouldn’t give a shit either.  

What about industry types? What sort of response did you get from them? 

John Niven: I heard a story about one guy who bought 30 copies of the novel and was signing it in his office, giving it to bands saying, ‘This was based on me!’ I’m like, ‘Have you read the fucking book? Do you want that to be you?’

Kill Your Friends is out in cinemas today