Last year Mary and Helen interviewed the Rocket Summer and he let slip the date of his next albums release and then asked us not to use it. So we didn’t.
Earlier this year I was interviewing somebody who let slip he was illiterate. I didn’t use it either.
Interviewing rock stars is a complete waste of time. You know Neil Strauss’ Lady Gaga story in Stone? A waste of time, performance art, bullshit.
The rock star interview is the equivalent of the encore: an empty ritual pretending a0 intimacy and b) insight and providing nothing but the same old bone weary, tired out, empty and meaningless ritual. The days of Lester Bangs and Lou reed going at it tooth and nail are so far gone they ain’t even a memory. And, in case you missed the point of the MIA NYT interview, the point was if MIA wasn’t a fruit and nutcase nobody woulda given a shit about her fries and truffles (though they sound delicious) if she had kept her fruit and nutcase closed.
If a blog of my size was offered face time with, say, Brett Michaels, and I went for the jugular (and I am the bloke who called Bananarama over rated groupies TOO THEIR FACE), my PR guy who set it up as a favor would be in serious trouble, and my mp3, press releases, guest list would be better than Elvis and I NEED EM BECAUSE THIS COSTS A FORTUNE.
So we only want to interview bands we like for the most part.
And then it is a collection of the same stupid questions… influences, blah blah, childhood, music your life?, production, touring, and for the future.. next.
There are exceptions, I am proud of my Paul Finn interview here (though not my Patrick Stickles) because he offered amazing insights on how to manage a record label and I loved Mary Magpie’s interview with NeverShoutnever. But they are exceptions.
On the whole, it comes with the territory. We do it because, hey, we’re star struck as well, and because we wanna offer what we think, and it is nice to pretend you can play and beat the big boys at their own game (we can, by the way).
Me, I do em but, as Helen would put it, meh. Two hours to transcribe a 15 minute tape.
Still: I would love to interview James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Conor Oberst…