| AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED
IN RHYTHMS MAGAZINE
TALKING TO A STRANGER
Having recently conducted my umpteenth interview
(with David Sylvian see elsewhere in this magazine) I paused to
reflect upon what the actual process is that we are involved in
here. Music & movie interviews are ubiquitous in print, radio,
television & the internet; person after person, word after word.
They’re all over the place. But what is actually going on
here?
I hate to shatter your illusions but musicians
& actors don’t leap out of bed sponteously shouting “
I feel like having a chat to this or that journalist today, just
for the hell of it!” Aside from the meglomaniac few that is.
Interviews are virtually always for some commercial purpose, plugging
the movie, album, tour or whatever. Years ago Iggy Pop described
himself as a small business man with himself as the product &
sometimes it is just about product placement, keeping your face/product
in the public view. Often they become a walking/talking press release
for this or that moneymaking project that the performer is involved
in. At the top end they sit in a hotel suite for a day or 2 while
a succession of “journalists” sit in front of them &
ask questions for the alotted time before being replaced by another.
Or they’re dragged around to a series of TV & radio stations
that they’ll never get to watch or hear, to play out the 15
minute infommercial. Or the musician / actor sits in a room with
a list of names that they’ve never heard of, by a phone that
rings every half an hour when anonymous voice from the otherside
of the world asks them questions over & over for 20 minutes.
Strange way to make a living! By the way most of the early reviews
that you read for say the Rolling Stones’ latest album misfire
were based on being locked in a room with other journalists where
the album was played once all the way through & then everyone
went away & wrote their “ review”. And there is
an unspoken tacit agreement that in the course of the interview
the record/concert will get a plug & that the “conversation”
will focus on the most recent project with only an occassional meander,
so both sides become complicit in the pantomime.
The interview can be very potent, look what Bill
Grundy did for The Sex Pistols’ career, but by & large
interviews do stick to the proscribed agendas. The interview is
now a vital part of a marketting stategy campaign along with “meet
& greets” & in stores.
So it’s no surprise when you walk into the
newsagent & peruse the (other) music & monthly mags that
the same face or name will splash at you from the covers (they must
be plugging something), while so many boast the REAL interview,
the MOST CANDID/REVEALING or whatever. There are the tragic few
who are prepared to bare their soul, to use the interview as a forum
or public confessional, to make all sorts of private things public,
to be flagellating themselves while flogging themselves so to speak.
These are people who would sacrifice their children, almost literally,
for a magazine cover that lasts a month. Or go on a national television
interview programme where they are prepared to actually respond
to questions like “Your father died, how did that make you
feel? “ On a show that records 2 hours of material & edits
it down to 20 minutes, anyone could look good or halfway coherent
with that ratio.
And then there is good old bearbaiting, Courtney Love anyone?
So why do them? Well I am a politely curious person,
if I’ve enjoyed someone’s art, I want to see what the
creator behind the work is like, I can be a platonic groupie sometimes,
it’s great way to meet your heroes. A brief glimpse at genius.
But given all the constraints, it’s getting those glimpses
& giving them to the audience that’s the tricky part when
interviewing someone, striving for a moment or moments where both
interviewer & interviewee surrender to the process & allow
the phatic communication to occur. An interview at it’s best
can be a totally unnatural but totally concentrated conversation,
both parties fully engaged, a fleeting relationship & rapport
that yeilds valuable information & connections for the listener/reader.
And so it is as a reader that when perusing this
publication I gain so much information & insight from a game
being played where everyone wins. Even if it can be like playing
piano in a brothel.
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