How (not) to interview a band
8.28.2008
For nearly half of my life, I wrote for a variety of different newspapers. I've gotten to meet some cool people, have beers with some of my idols, get tons of free swag, have a cell phone full of musician's numbers, and get nearly any album I wanted well before it was released to the general public. There wasn't much money in the job -- though I was once forced to turn down freelance work that would pay about $1800 per article because I was in Americorps -- but there was plenty of perks to enjoy and ways to inflate my ego.
During that part of my life, I also made many asinine mistakes and said many embarrassing things. So, I hope I can provide some advice from the mistakes I made that may help someone else out there.
Perhaps my biggest flaw as a writer was having a fear of appearing unaware. Whenever I needed to actually sit down to write an article or a review, I'd always try to give off the impression that I knew exactly what I was talking about. I'd research the hell out of a band (often after the interview but before I wrote the article) and end up quoting a site like Pitchfork when I could've very well written something more unique (but maybe not as smarmy and elitist) by myself. When it came time to compare the band, I'd pick the most obscure bands or oddest comparisons I could think of because I thought it made me sound smarter. In essence, I was making pointless statements. If the reader didn't know the band, (s)he wouldn't know the obscurer comparisons I was making.
Musicians are just like the rest of us, lazy and lacking in foresight. They don't know what they're going to do next and they don't really care. If a new album just came out, don't ask what direction they will head in for the next album. When a break comes from their hectic lives of touring, these people probably want to sleep late, watch TV, smoke pot, and live off a shoestring budget. That doesn't make for an interesting story, though. So, they're not going to tell you that.
Once, when I interviewed The Get Up Kids, I asked Matthew Pryor about the status of Vagrant Records as an indie rock label. I said they were the biggest of the indie labels (at the time) and that really they were just a major label in disguise. I tried so hard to get him to give me input on the situation that the interview got derailed and he politely said he had to go and apologized for cutting the interview short. Pryor was nothing but nice to me and I was so intent on discussing the hotter topic of Vagrant Records (The Get Up Kids were in decline and close to breaking up) that I never asked much about his band and I struggled to write an article from the minimal material I did have.
One of the best interviews of my writing career had to be when I interviewed Jonah Matranga (Far, Onelinedrawing, New End Original, etc.) He was so awesome and willing to talk to me that we stayed on the phone for two hours. It was one of the first interviews I did for the Daily and I was so happy to hear him ask me to introduce myself to him at his concert. When I did so, he told me to call him next time he came to town and that we'd go out and grab a beer. I was so honored by it that I named my first cat after him (also, my wife wouldn't let me name the cat Special Agent Johnny Utah.)
The reason the interview went so well was because I had a genuine interest in Matranga and what he had to say. We talked like good friends and, as a result, he was willing to open up to me. He told me about his daughter and his divorce.
Over the next few years, I became a much busier writer with more responsibility. I had more to write and less time to do it. So, I whittled down anything I considered to be superfluous from an interview. Included in that list was the human element of conducting an interview. I started interviews during my busiest points politely and asked how the person was doing and how (s)he feeling (not surprisingly, a good number of interviewees were under the weather when they were on the road.) Then, I'd put my head down and plough forward through the interview, focusing only on the facts I predetermined to be important. It was cold, mechanical, and all involved parties disliked it.
This point has some common elements with the previous two but it needs to be reiterated and distinguished. During an interview with Travis Morrison of The Dismemberment Plan, I asked him three different times in three different ways what he would be doing after the band broke up and if he planned on continuing any music projects with the current band members. Plan just started their farewell tour and he didn't want to think about it. The first two times I asked him, he was polite. On the third and final time, he said something to the effect of, "Look man, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do. We're breaking up. I don't know what's going to happen after that."
Even though you're writing Features, there's no need for you to interject your personal opinion into everything. I once lived by the philosophy of, "If you're putting your material out there in the public, you better be ready to hear the worst." I should never have done that. I was a total dick to some people and there was no reason for me to do that. I thought it was my job but I lost focus of the fact that these are mostly poor people trying to make music a career and living out of a van most of the year. If anything, musicians are tired, homesick and kind of irritable. Tearing their music apart mercilessly forces them to be callous, and stop reading their reviews. Then, the next time they come to town or release an album, they probably won't be very receptive to the idea of talking to you.
Now, don't get me wrong, you should be honest; just don't rip into people for the sake of ripping into people.
Once you've made efficiency your primary focus, you might as well stop writing.
At one point, I started writing out my questions before an interview. At the time, it seemed smart since it would prevent me from forgetting anything I wanted to ask. In reality, though, it was counterproductive. When you write down questions, you inadvertently try to walk an interviewee down a path, which is not all that probable. As this plays out, you begin ignoring interesting things that the person says because it's outside of the path you've laid out or you're just waiting to ask the next question. You're no longer having a conversation with this person. There's a clear and unfortunate disconnect.
During two of the first interviews I did when I stepped back from this method, I found out that Strike Anywhere was detained in Japan and had their passports taken from them as they were put under house arrest, and that David Dondero's album title was pure truth: he was transient. By simply caring about what they had to say instead of scripting out everything in advance, I was able to get some interesting stories and have some good conversations.
I was never more excited than the day I got to interview Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil. He was my musical idol and he wrote his lyrics as if he knew me and was writing about my life.
As it turns out, I was interviewing him shortly before Jets to Brazil broke up, though I didn't know it at the time. I professed my love of his music to him and he was apathetic. I told him how I swore by Jawbreaker and he asked when he could finally act curmudgeonly towards Jawbreaker fans, since that band had broken up a long time ago and it was time for people to move on. I said I was happy that he had moved to the East Coast as I might get to see him play more often, even though I was actually living in Colorado at the time. When I did, he mentioned the heroin wasn't as good in New York.
It was gut wrenching and I couldn't guard myself against these responses quickly enough. Instead, I cut the conversation short and the article that I thought would be my opus turned into a very brief and soulless piece.
I had a lot of fun interviewing James Dewees of Reggie and the Full Effect. I found this quirky side project to be humorous and I thought my interview with him should be equally offbeat. So, I asked him if I'd be able to interview Klaus, a ficitional character from the fictional band The Common Denominators that Dewees created for a few of his songs, including the funny track "Dwarf Invasion."
He was so excited to do this that he broke into character and answered all of the questions in the fake Finnish accent that belonged to Klaus. When the interview was done, he thanked me and said nobody had ever asked him to do anything like that before. I was shocked and elated. I enjoyed doing the interview and writing the article and I think Dewees was happy to be a part of it.
It's common sense to think that you need to find a connection with your subject, but it's easy to lose track of that when writing becomes your job and not your enjoyment. If you stick by these guides, you'll be less likely to lose the joy of writing.
During that part of my life, I also made many asinine mistakes and said many embarrassing things. So, I hope I can provide some advice from the mistakes I made that may help someone else out there.
Don't pretend you know more than you know.
Perhaps my biggest flaw as a writer was having a fear of appearing unaware. Whenever I needed to actually sit down to write an article or a review, I'd always try to give off the impression that I knew exactly what I was talking about. I'd research the hell out of a band (often after the interview but before I wrote the article) and end up quoting a site like Pitchfork when I could've very well written something more unique (but maybe not as smarmy and elitist) by myself. When it came time to compare the band, I'd pick the most obscure bands or oddest comparisons I could think of because I thought it made me sound smarter. In essence, I was making pointless statements. If the reader didn't know the band, (s)he wouldn't know the obscurer comparisons I was making.
Don't ask about the future.
Musicians are just like the rest of us, lazy and lacking in foresight. They don't know what they're going to do next and they don't really care. If a new album just came out, don't ask what direction they will head in for the next album. When a break comes from their hectic lives of touring, these people probably want to sleep late, watch TV, smoke pot, and live off a shoestring budget. That doesn't make for an interesting story, though. So, they're not going to tell you that.
Don't try to break a big story.
Once, when I interviewed The Get Up Kids, I asked Matthew Pryor about the status of Vagrant Records as an indie rock label. I said they were the biggest of the indie labels (at the time) and that really they were just a major label in disguise. I tried so hard to get him to give me input on the situation that the interview got derailed and he politely said he had to go and apologized for cutting the interview short. Pryor was nothing but nice to me and I was so intent on discussing the hotter topic of Vagrant Records (The Get Up Kids were in decline and close to breaking up) that I never asked much about his band and I struggled to write an article from the minimal material I did have.
Don't harass your interviewee or treat him/her like (s)he is hiding something from you.
One of the best interviews of my writing career had to be when I interviewed Jonah Matranga (Far, Onelinedrawing, New End Original, etc.) He was so awesome and willing to talk to me that we stayed on the phone for two hours. It was one of the first interviews I did for the Daily and I was so happy to hear him ask me to introduce myself to him at his concert. When I did so, he told me to call him next time he came to town and that we'd go out and grab a beer. I was so honored by it that I named my first cat after him (also, my wife wouldn't let me name the cat Special Agent Johnny Utah.)
The reason the interview went so well was because I had a genuine interest in Matranga and what he had to say. We talked like good friends and, as a result, he was willing to open up to me. He told me about his daughter and his divorce.
Over the next few years, I became a much busier writer with more responsibility. I had more to write and less time to do it. So, I whittled down anything I considered to be superfluous from an interview. Included in that list was the human element of conducting an interview. I started interviews during my busiest points politely and asked how the person was doing and how (s)he feeling (not surprisingly, a good number of interviewees were under the weather when they were on the road.) Then, I'd put my head down and plough forward through the interview, focusing only on the facts I predetermined to be important. It was cold, mechanical, and all involved parties disliked it.
This point has some common elements with the previous two but it needs to be reiterated and distinguished. During an interview with Travis Morrison of The Dismemberment Plan, I asked him three different times in three different ways what he would be doing after the band broke up and if he planned on continuing any music projects with the current band members. Plan just started their farewell tour and he didn't want to think about it. The first two times I asked him, he was polite. On the third and final time, he said something to the effect of, "Look man, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do. We're breaking up. I don't know what's going to happen after that."
Don't be overly critical.
Even though you're writing Features, there's no need for you to interject your personal opinion into everything. I once lived by the philosophy of, "If you're putting your material out there in the public, you better be ready to hear the worst." I should never have done that. I was a total dick to some people and there was no reason for me to do that. I thought it was my job but I lost focus of the fact that these are mostly poor people trying to make music a career and living out of a van most of the year. If anything, musicians are tired, homesick and kind of irritable. Tearing their music apart mercilessly forces them to be callous, and stop reading their reviews. Then, the next time they come to town or release an album, they probably won't be very receptive to the idea of talking to you.
Now, don't get me wrong, you should be honest; just don't rip into people for the sake of ripping into people.
Don't read from a set list of questions.
Once you've made efficiency your primary focus, you might as well stop writing.
At one point, I started writing out my questions before an interview. At the time, it seemed smart since it would prevent me from forgetting anything I wanted to ask. In reality, though, it was counterproductive. When you write down questions, you inadvertently try to walk an interviewee down a path, which is not all that probable. As this plays out, you begin ignoring interesting things that the person says because it's outside of the path you've laid out or you're just waiting to ask the next question. You're no longer having a conversation with this person. There's a clear and unfortunate disconnect.
During two of the first interviews I did when I stepped back from this method, I found out that Strike Anywhere was detained in Japan and had their passports taken from them as they were put under house arrest, and that David Dondero's album title was pure truth: he was transient. By simply caring about what they had to say instead of scripting out everything in advance, I was able to get some interesting stories and have some good conversations.
Don't be a fanboy.
I was never more excited than the day I got to interview Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil. He was my musical idol and he wrote his lyrics as if he knew me and was writing about my life.
As it turns out, I was interviewing him shortly before Jets to Brazil broke up, though I didn't know it at the time. I professed my love of his music to him and he was apathetic. I told him how I swore by Jawbreaker and he asked when he could finally act curmudgeonly towards Jawbreaker fans, since that band had broken up a long time ago and it was time for people to move on. I said I was happy that he had moved to the East Coast as I might get to see him play more often, even though I was actually living in Colorado at the time. When I did, he mentioned the heroin wasn't as good in New York.
It was gut wrenching and I couldn't guard myself against these responses quickly enough. Instead, I cut the conversation short and the article that I thought would be my opus turned into a very brief and soulless piece.
Have fun and be original while engaging your subject.
I had a lot of fun interviewing James Dewees of Reggie and the Full Effect. I found this quirky side project to be humorous and I thought my interview with him should be equally offbeat. So, I asked him if I'd be able to interview Klaus, a ficitional character from the fictional band The Common Denominators that Dewees created for a few of his songs, including the funny track "Dwarf Invasion."
He was so excited to do this that he broke into character and answered all of the questions in the fake Finnish accent that belonged to Klaus. When the interview was done, he thanked me and said nobody had ever asked him to do anything like that before. I was shocked and elated. I enjoyed doing the interview and writing the article and I think Dewees was happy to be a part of it.
It's common sense to think that you need to find a connection with your subject, but it's easy to lose track of that when writing becomes your job and not your enjoyment. If you stick by these guides, you'll be less likely to lose the joy of writing.
posted by md @ 8:00 PM
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