Laing was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and attended King's College School in Wimbledon, where he joined his first band.

He began studies at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, but left in 1967 without graduating and moved to London.

He started writing music articles and his first book, The Sound of Our Time (1970), while working in clerical jobs.

He then took a degree in English and sociology at the University of Sussex, where he met fellow writer Phil Hardy.

Laing also worked with Val Wilmer on an unpublished history of coal mining communities.