All posts tagged stone

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Discovery Channel: triple j’s power over Australian music’, December 2011

    A feature story published in the January 2012 issue of Rolling Stone Australia, under the ‘National Affairs’ banner.

    Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    National Affairs: The Discovery Channel
    Is triple j’s power over Australian music being used for good, or evil?

    by Andrew McMillen. Illustration by Andrea Innocent

    In many ways, triple j studios – located on the third level of the cavernous ABC building on Harris Street, in inner Sydney – also functions as the central nervous system of the Australian music industry. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of listeners across the country are tuned in. Label owners, promoters, publicists and musicians follow the station with relentless fascination, as its playlist and musical preferences can literally make, delay, or break careers in the notoriously fickle music business.

    For decades, since the national broadcaster’s inception in August 1980, triple j has continued to grow: in terms of staff numbers, audience popularity and, as a direct result, cultural influence. With great power comes great responsibility. As triple j continues to slowly evolve into a gangly octopus whose arms now extend far beyond its initial radio habitat into print media, significant online networking, year-round event promotion, and – with the October launch of a standalone Unearthed station – digital radio, it’s worth taking a magnifying glass to the station’s many activities to examine whether their great power is being used for good or evil.

    Two senses are immediately pricked entering triple j studios: the eyes are met with bloody red walls contrasting against innocuous whites, and the ears latch onto the sounds of triple j being piped through the station’s corridors, while Zan Rowe broadcasts her morning show live to air just a few metres away. Station manager Chris Scaddan strolls past their huge music library to his corner office. His coffee table is stacked with months’ worth of printed music media: street press, monthlies, international imports. A recent issue of triple j magazine sits conspicuously atop the pile.

    He turns down the live broadcast to a quiet gurgle as he considers a question: how would he describe triple j to someone who’d never heard it before?

    “It’s uniquely Australian,” Scaddan says. “We’re about new music; mainly, new Australian music. We’re targeted at 18-24 year-olds, so we’re here for young Australians. We play diverse styles of music; we’re independent and non-commercial, which is important. At this point, we’re a brand that reaches across quite a few different platforms. We’re our audience as much as anything, as well. We’re really in touch with our listeners, and we hope that what we’re doing is reflecting and inspiring what they want, and what they want to listen to, and what they want to know about.”

    Eight minutes into the interview, in response to a question about whether triple j’s support is crucial to the success of Australian bands on a national scale, he cites a recently discovered statistic that he’s clearly very proud of: in October 2011, the station posted audience figures of 1.5 million in the five capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide).

    “At the moment, we’ve got as many people listening as we ever have. But are we crucial to a band’s success? I don’t think so,” Scaddan says. “Certainly we’re a national broadcaster, and we’ve got a really strong audience. I wouldn’t say it’s crucial to whether you make it or don’t. There are so many different ways that you can find a career or an audience through the Australian music industry. There’s so many examples of bands who may not have been played by triple j who are doing just fine.”

    “Just fine” is a relative term, of course. For every Art Vs Science, Boy & Bear or Washington playing to thousands-strong crowds on the national stage, there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of acts across Australia who enjoy strong support within their hometowns or capital cities, but struggle to make the jump to national notoriety without the nod from triple j. Does Scaddan find that bands get pissed off when they get told, ‘thanks, but no thanks’ in response to their latest release?

    “That does happen,” he replies. “That’s the nature of the business we’re all in. Just like artists who are pitching for articles in Rolling Stone and don’t get a mention get pissed off, and can’t understand it sometimes. It is really, really difficult. We’re always looking to try and find a really good balance of genres, of locations – nationwide, so we’re not just picking bands from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all the time.”

    “It’s difficult, and sometimes bands who want to get triple j airplay might not crack it on the playlist. That doesn’t mean they’re still not getting played in other ways on the station. They tune in and they’re not getting played as often as Gotye, or Florence + The Machine, and they think they should be. You just hope they can understand that there’s a limit to how much music can fit on the station and make it work.”

    Such programming decisions lie not with Scaddan, nor with music director Richard Kingsmill, but with the entire triple j staff. When Kingsmill is questioned – in jest – about whether he’s the most powerful man in Australian music, he practically explodes in exasperation from a couch positioned nearby the station’s carefully stacked CD collection.

    “It is not anywhere near the truth. It is just such a misconception to think this place isn’t a team of people,” Kingsmill says. “I have said this time and time again, and if people still think that I sit there and basically call all the shots, they are wrong. I can’t say it enough. This station is built on teamwork. It always has been. If you’ve got a bad framework, or teamwork vibe happening in this place, it shows on the other end of the radio. When we all work together, we get the results. It’s as simple as that.”

    ++

    What happens when your band wins the musical equivalent of the lottery, the triple j Unearthed slot to open the main stage of Splendour In The Grass? In 2011, the competition was won by Brisbane indie pop band Millions. Twenty-two-year-old drummer James Wright is being a little humble by equating the contest to a lottery: those rely on luck alone, not songwriting talent.

    Still, it’s curious to hear Wright honestly state Millions’ intentions upon forming in December 2010. “The entire objective of the band was using triple j to get where we want to go,” he says. A four-piece comprised of members from three Brisbane bands you’ve never heard of, Millions realised during their initial rehearsals that their sound might appeal to the national broadcaster.

    “There was the fleeting chance that, if we maybe more deliberately went towards the triple j sort of sound, in terms of being more accessible than our previous bands, then we might have a shot at actually doing some good, and getting played,” Wright says. “We didn’t exactly have high aspirations for it, but we were really happy with the two songs we’d written [at the time].”

    He says that Millions are “the exact opposite” of their previous bands, in that their path was “extremely thought through, to the point of calculating exactly how many shows it would take us to get where we wanted to go, and to who we should play these shows with and why we should do them and where we should play them.” The Splendour 2011 slot was unexpected for the band, and “pretty much blew everyone’s mind” according to Wright, but not unsurprising given their ambitions.

    Stephen Green is well acquainted with this kind of mindset among artists. Since beginning as a radio “plugger” – a guy who pitches new music to stations across the country – he now runs his own publicity consulting business, SGC Media.

    “The problem of triple j being so dominant is that it artistically skews what some bands are coming out with,” he says. “If you’ve got the opportunity to do the song that’s in your head that’s not very ‘triple j’, or you tweak it somewhat and make it sound like bands that are getting airplay… I think a lot of bands are going down [the second] path a little more.”

    “The tracks that I think work least are the ones that the band have gone, ‘right, we’ve got to get on triple j’, and they’ve tried to write a ‘triple j song’,” Green adds. “If it just happened like that, then – great. But I think too many bands push down that path. Being generic so that you sound like every other band is not usually the way to stand out and have a particularly successful career.”

    When Green works on publicity with Australian artists, he never plans a campaign assuming that the act will get triple j airplay. “If you do that, you’re setting yourself up for a big disappointment,” he says. “I don’t think you can make assumptions that anybody’s going to play anything.” So what happens when triple j rejects the song or record you’re pitching them? “Well, you kick the wall, the client gets shitty and says, ‘you didn’t rep it properly’. You break up, and that’s the end of that!” he laughs, clearly joking.

    Like Green, Megan Reeder Hope places a high value on including triple j in her marketing plans. As general manager at Secret Service Public Relations, Reeder Hope works regularly with the Brisbane-based record label Dew Process, whose roster includes Mumford & Sons, The Grates and Seeker Lover Keeper. “triple j is essential,” she says. “It’s probably the crux of my plans of how we work at Dew Process.”

    “That’s not to say that we don’t value the rest of the media: community radio is really important, as is commercial radio when you get to a certain point,” Reeder Hope says. “But I think triple j is that centrepiece that needs to be in place to be able to do all of the other ones, as well. From our perspective, triple j has a high level of integrity. They really do things in a way that’s uncompromising of their own editorial policy, while still always putting the music first. It really is all about the music for them. They support artists, and they support them throughout their careers.”

    Back at the station’s Sydney studios, music director Richard Kingsmill is clearly proud of the station’s success, and unapologetic to its critics. “If anyone’s got any complaints and arguments against us, or thinks that we’re in some ways trying to monopolise the Australian industry….” He pauses. “You get damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If we sat back and went, ‘Well, we shouldn’t monopolise the Australian music industry, we should sit in this corner and do our little job and not try to do anything,’ we’d get criticised for being negligent and not proactive. If you’re proactive, then you tread on toes a little bit, I guess, but we’re not meaning to tread on toes.”

    “It’s not supposed to be 100 per cent,” Kingsmill continues. “No one can be 100 per cent, and no one should expect triple j to be 100%. We do what we do to the best of our abilities, and we try as hard as we possibly can, with the best of intentions. But at the end of the day, we’re all humans. So we’ll take chances and we’ll take risks, and sure, we’ll piss people off, but we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think there was a section of the community out there who was actually enjoying it.”

    Further reading and discussion:

  • Rolling Stone album review: Eddy Current Suppression Ring – ‘So Many Things’, December 2011

    A short album review, published in the December 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.

    Eddy Current Suppression Ring 
    So Many Things (Fuse)

    Garage rockers collect odds and sods in one place

    A collection of this Melbourne band’s out-of-print singles and other rarities, So Many Things is a fine starting point for those who haven’t yet been charmed by Eddy Current’s addictive garage punk rock. Most of the 22 tracks here are so rare they’ll be new to most ears: gritty slow-burner “Demon’s Demands” might be the best ECSR track you’ve never heard; the title track is a hilarious rant about a failed relationship, while “Hey Mum” is a touching tribute to the singer’s mother set against characteristically trebley guitar tones. When they’re on, ECSR are among the best rock bands in Australia.

    Andrew McMillen

    Key tracks: “Demon’s Demands” [embedded below], “Precious Rose”, “You Let Me Be Honest With You”

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Truth About Jebediah’, May 2011

    My first artist feature for Rolling Stone, which appeared in the May 2011 issue.

    You can click the scanned images below for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    The Truth About Jebediah

    After a decade and a half together, the Perth foursome have discovered a new type of success.
    By Andrew McMillen / Photograph by Carine Thevenau

    It wasn’t meant to be like this. Our interview was scheduled to take place hours ago in less risky confines, yet here we are in Jebediah’s hotel room; well-fed, and on our collective ways to well-drunk. Sitting on the couch are bassist Vanessa Thornton and singer/guitarist Kevin Mitchell, who places a near-full bottle of red wine on the coffee table and unceremoniously removes his shoes. At the table, drummer Brett Mitchell nurses a bourbon and cola. Across from him, lead guitarist Chris Daymond is chopping a nugget of weed into an egg cup. He rolls a joint, and he and Brett step out onto the balcony to smoke it. All the while, the band’s record company representative sits silently within earshot, wondering just how honest the band will be, now that they’re all stoned, or drunk, or both.

    Most of their day was spent filming a video for their single “She’s Like A Comet” at a workshop in Sydney’s inner city. To say that the thrill of watching the band run through countless takes to a backing track had lost its lustre would be an understatement. Earlier, over dinner at an organic restaurant in Newtown, Kevin sneaks in a seemingly innocuous question. “Was the video thing boring?” It’s a shit-test. He’s checking whether they’re here to star in a fluff piece, or whether something deeper is being sought.

    “Yeah, it got a bit old after a few hours.”

    He and his bandmates laugh, agree, and seem relieved by the response. From that point on, honesty flowed as freely as the booze. Hours later, in the hotel room, we begin the interview with a blunt question: why do they play music? Immediately, Thornton retorts: “Why not?”

    It’s a fair, if expected, riposte. These four Perth friends have been playing music together since 1994. It’s been a successful vocation. Their seventh gig won them the 1995 Australian National Campus Band Competition; their thirteenth won the national final in Lismore, N.S.W. Their first single, “Jerks Of Attention”, was a monster: backed by Triple J, the fast-paced tale of youthful excess was hastily embraced by a generation. The band signed to Sony imprint Murmur, whose roster included Silverchair and Something For Kate. To celebrate, they hosted a four-day bender at their house, while friends filmed their first music video. Fitting, for a song whose chorus describes the feeling of knowing it all while “wasted”.

    Jebediah arrived at a time when the national fascination with alternative rock was peaking. The band’s debut album, Slightly Odway, was released in September 1997, and went on to achieve double-platinum sales (140,000-plus). Thornton recalls Murmur founder John O’Donnell admitting that he’d “really love for this record to go gold”.

    “And we were like, ‘good luck to you!’” laughs Thornton.

    “It was all just shits and giggles. We honestly thought he was absolutely dreaming,’” says Kevin Mitchell.

    ++

    A lot has changed since those heady days. The band’s subsequent releases failed to achieve Odway-like success. The band-label relationship became strained after the release of their self-titled third album in 2002, a subject that arises when I ask them to pinpoint the moments where the band came closest to breaking up.

    Kevin Mitchell chooses his words carefully. “There have been a couple of times where maybe my level of enjoyment has been at a low point, where perhaps I’ve questioned it. Everybody goes through periods where they question whether what they’re doing is what they’re supposed to be doing. I think that’s healthy.”

    “But that’s as far as it gets,” Thornton adds.

    “Is it possible to do anything for 15 years, and enjoy it the whole time?” Brett Mitchell asks. “If you’re a vet, you’re going to have to shove your hand up an animal’s bum every once in a while. But that’s not why you got into veterinary school – it’s just part of the deal.”

    It seems fitting to ask: what were some of the hand-up-arse moments of the band’s career?

    “My time was after the third record, where things turned to shit,” Thornton says. “I probably made it bigger than I should’ve. But my heart was invested in it, and that’s just the way it turned out. And it was my own reality that I’d created, and that got totally shattered. It fucking broke me.”

    What happened?

    “Just label shit. Pressures. Everything was second-guessed. Our manager at the time couldn’t be fucked fighting the label for anything that we wanted, and he’d made the decision that we were just going to go with whatever the label reckoned. Near the end, it was fucking soul-destroying for me.”

    “It just felt like the technicalities overshadowed everything else,” offers Brett.

    “All the things that I enjoyed about playing music were no longer relevant,” Thornton adds.“That’s when I thought, ‘Fuck, is this what I’m going to do for the rest of my life, play this fucking game?’”

    That game was the business side of music, the bottom-line crunch that elevates the idea of records that sell far above the idea of records that sounds good. “Yeah – singles, videos, radio, tracklisting,” Thornton continues. “Like I said, I probably took it more to heart than I should’ve, and made too much of it in my own mind, but at the same time, it wasn’t about us four anymore. It was about what everyone thought was going to sell a record, which, to me, was not what we were even about. That was what the label did.”

    It was at this point that the band severed ties – the 2003 compilation Gleesides & Sparities was their final release on Murmur – and released their fourth album, 2004’s Braxton Hicks, on their own label, Redline Records. Thornton is in two minds about the wisdom of that decision.

    “But if it’d gone down the path that you’re talking about…” Brett begins, before his brother finishes his sentence.

    “We wouldn’t be here now.”

    “Putting it out on our label was an antidote,” Brett says.

    “It saved everything for me,” says Thornton.

    As it turns out, Braxton Hicks was Kevin’s hand-up-arse moment, and after the release, the band decided to take a break from writing, recording and performing together. “We always had the intention of getting back together, but if ever there was a time we were going to question it, it was then,” says Kevin. “Because that six months did turn into three years.”

    ++

    In the intervening years, Kevin concentrated on his stylistic reinvention as acoustic singer-songwriter Bob Evans, a persona significantly removed from fronting a band like Jebediah. Though they still got together to play a handful of shows per year, the four were living separate lives. With the exception of Kevin, they’re still based in Perth, for the most part: Chris Daymond works at a record store, Brett Mitchell is a manager at a logistics company, and Thornton has just spent four years completing a Bachelor of Science, while still playing bass on the side for Felicity Groom & The Black Black Smoke.

    Owing to his success with Bob Evans, Melbourne-based Kevin is the only one able to earn a living from music – “I’ve never had a full-time job in my life,” he reports – but that doesn’t mean team Jebediah aren’t in a good position. There is still enormous goodwill for the band, and having lived through the music business’s attempts to judge their career purely in financial terms, these four old friends have a more balanced understanding of “success” these days.

    “My idea of success when the band first started was supporting You Am I or Tumbleweed or Magic Dirt at The Planet Nightclub in Perth,” says Kevin. “If we could support one of favourite bands at one of our favourite venues, that was like, ultimate success. But it changes: now, for me, success is all about longevity. The fact that we’re about to put out our fifth record is a huge source of pride for me. To be able to do it for this long, and still believe in what we’re doing – that to me, is success.”

    The desire to make the most of this release is as keen as ever, and some of their intentions with new album Koscuiszko are refreshingly reminiscent of a band just at its beginning. “If I can quit my day job, that’ll mark a success,” replies Brett.

    “If we’re still together, that’d be good,” offers Daymond.

    “Geez, you’re easy to please!” laughs Thornton, as her bandmate runs around the room high-fiving everyone.

    The band recently signed to Brisbane-based indie label Dew Process for Koscuiszko. The label is behind the likes of Sarah Blasko, the Grates and the Living End, and by modern standards it’s a stand-out success in marketing local music. A fact that is apparently lost on Thornton.

    “You know what? I don’t care anymore,” says the bass player. “I feel so relaxed about everything. I just want to play songs that I love. I don’t care about the other shit.”

    With one eye on the Dew Process rep sitting out on the balcony, Kevin – the most media-experienced of the group, by far – hastily lightens the mood by changing topics. “I think it’s important to note that the way we made this record has been so incredibly different to any other record that we’ve made. For most of it we had no manager, no label – nothing. The first three records were all with Sony, the biggest record label there is. For the fourth record, we were doing it on our own label, but we were still very much part of a process. With this record, absolutely all of that stuff had been completely stripped away.”

    “For nearly two years, only five people had heard these songs,” says Thornton, in reference to the band and Dave Parkin, who has worked with Perth groups Sugar Army, Snowman and Karnivool.

    “We were only making a record because the four of us wanted to make a record,” Kevin adds. “There wasn’t a single other person involved in the process. We’ve never made a record in those circumstances before. We did it over a long period of time; normally, we go into the studio for a month, bash out the songs, and bang out a record. This one’s easily the most fun I’ve had making a Jebs record since the very first one, and I also think it’s the most playful we’ve been in the studio. It’s the closest thing to the first album, where we made a record without considering anyone except ourselves.”

    “We weren’t making a ‘product’,” says Brett.

    ++

    Two days later we meet in Brisbane, ahead of a sold-out gig at The Zoo. Last night, Jebediah played to a capacity Annandale Hotel. Over pizza and milkshakes in the Brunswick Street Mall, Kevin reflects on some of the things that came out last time we met. “There were a couple of moments where things were said, where I was like, “ooh”,’ says Kevin. “Not from me, though. As long as it’s clear who said what,” he adds, throwing a glance at Thornton.

    “It was probably a surefire way to be excused from doing interviews in the future. Print it all. Whatever,” she shrugs with a smile.

    A few prickly moments aside, it’s clear the vibe in the Jebediah camp these days is a positive one, and that atmosphere is reflected in the lyrical themes on Kosciuszko. “A lot of the lyrics are pretty positive, because it was an exciting stage,” explains Kevin, who is the band’s sole lyricist. “Getting new songs together, and making a new record. Even the angrier lyrics are still about changing for the better. There’s not a lot of self-indulgent negativity going on. There’s no angst.”

    No angst? “Well, less angst,” he replies. “And so there bloody should be; I’m fuckin’ 33 years old. There’s nothing worse than a married 33 year-old who lives in the suburbs.”

    “What have you got to be angsty about?” his brother asks.

    “Everybody’s got something to be angsty about,” Kevin quips, recalling a conversation between the songwriters in his other group, Basement Birds – Josh Pyke, Kav Temperley, and Steve Parkin. “We were talking about how, when you first start writing songs as a teenager, you’re writing about break-ups. You’re full of angst, and writing all these negative things. You get older, you find love; you get married, you get settled in a nice house – basically, you’ve got less and less to be angry about. So in order to write angsty lyrics, you start writing political songs. Because the world is always going to have problems!”

    There’s a line in the album’s first track, “Lost My Nerve”, about being “fuckin’ sick of listening to some rich kids playing on their guitars”, which would seem to suggest there are still a few things Kevin can be pissed off about.

    “If there’s a young dude that lives at home with his parents, and has all the best gear bought for him; if he’s trying to rock out on stage, I can’t get anything from that,” he says. “It’s not about anyone in particular. I’m still attracted to a lot of romantic ideals about rock & roll.”

    Thornton helps him out: “Rock and roll’s gotta come from your guts, not from your parents’ hip pocket.”

    Before they head off to soundcheck, I ask the band what Australia should know about Jebediah now. “They already know too much, and that’s what I’m concerned about,” says Kevin. “I’m sure that there’s some people out who would be happy if they never heard the word ‘Jebediah’ ever again.”

    “Gee, they must have enjoyed their last few years then, mustn’t they?” replies Thornton.

    “Yeah. And I’m going to enjoying thinking about those people when the record comes out, and our songs are on the radio. The people that don’t like your music, in some ways it can be more fun, that antagonising aspect of it.”

    “It’s an emotional response. Indifference is way more insulting,” says Brett.

    “Absolutely,” Kevin agrees. “Indifference is the ultimate insult for anything creative. If people aren’t going to love it, the next best thing is for them to hate it. The whole idea of art is to move. And if you don’t move someone, you’re not doing your job.”

    ++

    For more Jebediah, visit their website. The music video for ‘She’s Like A Comet‘ is embedded below.

  • Rolling Stone ’11 artists to watch in 2011′ profiles: Guineafowl, Miracle, Nova Scotia, May 2011

    In their May 2011 issue, Rolling Stone named 11 ‘artists to watch’ in 2011: Kimbra, Kids At Risk, Gold Fields, Tim & Jean, Zowie, Bleeding Knees Club, Metals, Royal Headache, Guineafowl, Miracle, and Nova Scotia.

    I wrote short profiles of the latter three artists. Scanned images and text below.

    ++

    Guineafowl

    Solo artist gets collaborative with the release of debut EP

    Who: What began as a solo project in bandleader Sam Yeldham’s bedroom has since blossomed into a full-fledged indie pop band. Guineafowl released their first EP, Hello Anxiety, and Yeldham sees the concept progressing in a way that “strengthens that duality” between the band and the solo act. There’s always the possibility that a Guineafowl show could be Yeldham solo, or it could be with all six members. “It’s a matter of trying to marry the band with what I can do on my own,” he says.

    Back Story: Hello Anxiety was recorded with pop whiz Scott Horscroft (Silverchair, The Presets) over two days. Owing to the mixture of full-band and solo recordings, Yeldham, 24, says the live shows are “quite different beasts”.

    What’s Next: Yeldham plans to be a career artist. “I try to make it my day job. I work in a bar on the weekend, and spend my days recording and writing. Treating it like an occupation doesn’t zap the spontaneity out of it.

    ++

    Miracle

    Ghana-born rapper’s mixtapes land him Sony deal, plus unexpected exposure

    Who: Miracle – born Blessed Samuel Joe-Anbah – is a Sydney-based MC and producer who signed a record deal with Sony Music after finishing high school last year. The Ghana-born 18 year-old also has a production deal with Sony publishing imprint Nufirm. His ‘s mixtape releases drew Sony’s ire at first, but now they’re all for it. “They see it as a good way for me to gain fans without their help,” he says.

    Back Story: Despite lacking a musical background, Miracle heard 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Trying in 2003 and decided to try his hand at rapping, although he wasn’t looking for a deal. “I thought that I might wait a couple of years and let my name bubble around, and create bigger hype for my first record. I didn’t think it’d happen this fast.”

    What’s Next? Miracle is currently working on his debut LP, and is touring this month on Supafest alongside headliners Snoop Dogg, Nelly and Timbaland.

    ++

    Nova Scotia

    Indie rockers weigh up their options after success of debut LP

    Who: Brisbane-based indie quintet Nova Scotia’s self-titled debut album was released in February. “We’d like to make a career out of it,” says singer/guitarist Scott Brique, “but Australia’s such a big country, and we’re all working. It’s a bit hard to throw away what’s potentially a lot of money in pursuit of a funny little thing. But we all love it.”

    Back Story: When Brique’s last band, Toadracer, folded while recording an album, he put the call out so that he could finish what he’s started. He’d found four local musicians to record their debut EP, 2007’s Bear Smashes Photocopier, within “a few weeks”.

    What’s Next?: Besides returning to the studio to “belt out the next one,” Brique says, he also hints at the possibility of their first interstate tour in June or July.


     

  • A Conversation With Neil Strauss, New York Times bestselling author, 2011

    Almost two years ago, I traveled from Brisbane to Sydney to meet Neil Strauss – my favourite writer [pictured right] – for a face-to-face interview. It was a life-changing experience, and that’s no exaggeration: being in his presence solidified my decision to seriously pursue journalism. (Up until that point, I’d only dabbled; the interview was ostensibly for FourThousand.com.au, a Brisbane-focused online publication). That meeting, and our resultant conversation, is documented in full here.

    This time around, when Neil’s new book Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead – a collection of enlightening and revealing moments taken from his 3000+ interviews with cultural figures for Rolling Stone and The New York Times – appeared on Text Publishing’s Australian release schedule, I was in the position to get paid to interview my favourite writer, rather than spending a few hundred dollars on travel for the same opportunity. Which is nice.

    I interviewed Neil over the phone from his home in California for The Courier-Mail in early March 2011, before the book was released. I published a 800 word article here, which summarised our 45 minute conversation.

    Our full interview transcript is included below.

    Beware: throughout our interview, there are many references to the content of …When You’re Dead, so if you haven’t read it yet, you might want to avoid reading this interview. Maybe not.

    ++

    Firstly, I want to talk about the final chapter of the book, and the epilogue. I thought it was a very touching note to end on; it wrapped everything up nicely. It made me wonder; was that section about [American rock and folk music critic] Paul Nelson always going to close the book? [Note: Nelson died in 2006 due to apparent starvation. Strauss wrote a feature for Rolling Stone about his death, called “The Man Who Disappeared”; in When You’re Dead, he says it was the hardest article he’s ever had to write.]

    No. I don’t think any book is ever planned. It always sort of just happens. I guess I knew I wanted the last section to be about family and mortality, and I felt I put so much heart and time into the Paul Nelson piece, it seems like a fitting epilogue for the book. And it rolled so nicely into the actual epilogue. I knew that each section was going to have a theme, and the last section was really going to look at mortality around different angles, in a parallex way. That got more appropriate there. It just sort of landed there.

    When I’m writing, I never think in advance. I just keep hammering and hammering. They’re like puzzles. You’re putting everything together and you keep rearranging until you feel that it’s right.

    Something that Paul’s ex-wife said made me think of you, Neil. She said, “I found out more about him by reading what he wrote.” I wondered if you’d ever heard the same thing from those close to you.

    [laughs] You know what? That’s such a good comment. I’ve never heard that, but I know it’s 100% true. One hundred per cent true. There are things that I can’t tell people face-to-face, whether they’re just friends of mine, or people I love who are close to my life, yet for some reason I’m not afraid to write about them, even though I know they’ll see ‘em.

    Even the stuff in The Game, I’ve never told people because I was worried they would judge me. The stuff in Rules Of The Game, in that first story about that really, really old woman. My friends would have just ripped… it would have been publicly humiliating. But I guess I feel if I can write it I can really explain it fully, all the dimensions to it and I can make sure it’s said right, and comes out right.

    That way I can say it the best way I can possibly say it. It’s so true. It’s interesting. It might be something… I just interviewed Howard Stern for Rolling Stone, and I realised what we have in common. It’s hard sometimes to communicate the truth, as a guy like me, because it’s hard to deal with peoples’ emotions. If you say something that affects someone you have to deal with their emotional reaction to it. And maybe in a book, as horrible as this sounds, no-one is talking back to you, to that idea. No-one is saying that it’s wrong or that it hurts them, or is an unhealthy way to think, or it’s a judgmental thing to say, or whatever. It’s a semi-one-way conversation. I’m speaking to a bunch of people, but they’re sort of a faceless, invisible mob.

    I see what you mean. Most journalists I know admit to feeling guilty for drilling into peoples’ minds to make their stories public. I’d like to know your take on that.

    I never feel guilty, because I never try to hurt anybody with a story. I’ve never been a gossip reporter. I’ve never sat outside somebody’s house chasing them. Everything I’ve ever written, at least in journalism, is in the context of, you know, “I’m here to write a story, and anything you say or do can end up in that story”. So they’re making the choices. I’ve never tried to assassinate anyone. I’m always trying to show them as they are.

    Sometimes I feel guilty in the sense of after we did this interview; say I spent a long time with this musician, and I’m leaving with four hours of recordings of them spilling their soul to me, and all of a sudden it’s like, “thank you very much, good-bye”, and I’m just walking away with their soul on a tape, to some degree. They have nothing. That part always feels strange to me, like having sex with someone, then pulling out and running away.

    The fact that you’re working with ‘household names’ most of the time, does that increase the guilt, knowing that you’re exposing them even further?

    No. I would feel that with anyone. If I’d just interviewed a guy off the street for four hours, or for a day or a week, about their inner most thoughts and fears; their life, their insecurities, and their hopes and dreams and ambitions, and then I just walked away… I’d still feel horrible, because they have nothing. I’ve got this tape recorder that has everything. It’s a feeling of: I’ve taken something and I’ve walked away with it, and what do they have? Nothing.

    Even though that’s not how it works – obviously they have the promotion and the press and whatever the article is [about] – but it’s still a way where they’re bereft, and here I am with everything. You try and shape it as honestly as you can, but there’s also a trust element, where you could shape it any way you want.

    Speaking broadly, have you thought much about why people are so interested to read about the lives of famous people?

    I don’t believe that. I didn’t put the most famous people I interviewed in the book. A lot of the people I interviewed, whose heart and fame I adore, whether it’s Stevie Wonder, Iggy Pop… who I didn’t put in the book, because the interviews weren’t revelatory. I think if anything, what makes it look unique is: there are a lot of people who spend their lives interviewing famous people, but just as interesting as Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake and Bruce Springsteen are Von Lmo, and Patrick Miller, and Lucia Pamela, who probably 99.9% of readers never heard of. And yet they’re going to find those just as interesting as the big stars.

    I just think people are interesting if you get them at the right moment, you know? [laughs] I do think that on some level, celebrities are being used to sell the book, and that’s a lot of what I’ve written about, but to me the Ernie K-Doe experience – the 50s R&B star who tried to have me arrested, or again, Patrick Miller who’s smoking crack and doing heroin in his basement and fighting off hallucinations – they’re even more interesting than reading about… for example, Led Zeppelin just being assholes. [laughs]

    To talk about the book in broader terms; this book is not directly about you, it’s about revealing other people. It’s been a while since you’ve done a project like that.

    Right. But I think in a lot of ways the book is about me. I really made a conscious effort to keep myself out of it but I think between the lines, the book really is an element of my… I think each book is little elements of my autobiography. Whether it’s The Game, which covers a couple of years; Emergency covers a couple years. This, to me, is like the prequel in some ways, [laughs] because this is all I did for 20 years. This is my life for that time, and I think if you look at the pieces, you can see my own evolution as a person. Whether it’s Led Zeppelin making fun of me [for being inexperienced], to learning The Game and trying to seduce people into these interviews, to much later, meeting Lady Gaga and Chuck Berry and giving them life advice. I can see my own evolution in the book. It’s just not explicit.

    When you began putting this book together, at what point did you decide to do that concept of the threaded narratives, or ‘open loops’?

    I think what I did was, I broke down all those interviews to those little clips, and each clip was a standalone clip. Then I collected the most interesting [clips]. Some people were interesting for only one clip, for one little vignette. Other people maybe had three or four vignettes in which they were interesting. Then I sort of sequenced them together, so that everything matched together. The vignettes were really standalone stories about an idea, so I thought that it’d be nice where, “Hey, we get this idea, now here’s a couple ideas from someone else, now let’s return to a new idea for that person we just met”.

    I kind of saw each piece as almost a standalone piece. Even when they continue from scene one to scene two to scene three, sometimes the story continues. Sometimes they’re just completely separate ideas. Other times, which I kind of like, you see artists at different times in their career. Maybe a couple years later, they feel bad about what they said earlier.

    It’s interesting that a lot of the segues between the vignettes are artists mentioning other artists. That shows the breadth of the 20 years that you’ve spent doing this.

    Yeah, it’s really funny. I’d probably say, with one or two notable exceptions, almost every artist someone mentions is interviewed elsewhere in the book, so it’s like the book itself; it’s kind of a closed loop. It is funny, there really were points where Trent Reznor mentions Beck, Gwen Stefani, Marilyn Manson and Oasis and I’ve got all four of those people interviewed elsewhere in the book. It’s like: which one do I put next?

    I think there’s one section where all the artists are always talking about each other, Billy Corgan, Marilyn Manson, I think Courtney Love, Dave Navarro, And they’re all kind of referencing each other.

    You state in the intro that “you can tell a lot about a person in a minute, if you pick the right minute”. Was that always the premise of the book?

    No, the original idea was because Emergency – as you know from when we talkedEmergency was so much work. I basically had to learn how to rebuild the entirety of civilisation all by myself, you know? [laughs] It was so intense, so much work, I thought I’d give myself a break and do an anthology because anyone who’s been writing articles and features for 20 years feels like, “why not collect my favourite pieces and put them in a book?”

    I started collecting [my] pieces and reading them, but… I like telling stories. There were no through lines. I bought a bunch of anthologies from writers I liked. Half of them I didn’t finish, because I got bored. With the other half, after I was done, I was bored of the writer, and bored of the voice, because it’s not a book if it’s just articles bound together.

    Although it literally is my dream project, as for over 10 years I’d been collecting all my favourite articles in a file to put into an essay book. Then I realised it doesn’t work. Every book one does, or every film, or every record should be good enough that if anybody starts with any single one, they’ll then want to read the rest of what you’ve done. I felt if somebody read [a straight anthology] first, and it was the first book of mine [that they’d read], they might not be be intrigued enough to want to read the others.

    I wrestled with it for a while. I thought I’d write a story about being a down-and-out writer in New York, and merge some of the articles that happened during that time, and tried a couple of other formats. Gradually I realised that essentially, these articles were moments when you saw the real person behind the mask.

    I started collecting those. That two month quickie book became fuckin’ two years of intense work. Unlike Emergency, which was fun, I got to go live off in the wild and learn how to pick locks and go to junkyards and hotwire cars. The Game was fun because I got to run around the world and meet women. This time, I was stuck in a room with my own past, sorting through thousands of pages of transcriptions.

    The way I think of it, this book is the journalistic opposite of taking the easy way out. Like you said, rather than putting together your best, or favourite published work, you’ve really gone through and mined your past for the best material.

    Yeah, and it’s funny because I even had most of the interviews re-transcribed. I had somebody go back to the tapes. I said, “I want every time someone coughs, every time they paused, every time there’s an interruption, I want you to write it out like it’s a play and tell me everything going on”. Even though that’s time consuming and expensive and laborious, I was pretty adamant about getting everything from those tapes and looking for those little moments.

    I was going to ask: how much of this book existed on your hard drive already?

    I think only about 10% were on the hard drive as they were.  A lot were already transcribed, but just not well enough. Sometimes, for example, if it’s someone transcribing something, they might not take the part where the guy just asked me as an off-hand thing, “Hey, do you know now to make beans?” The truth is; the guy who’s talking about his album and why he wrote songs, it’s really more revealing to me that he asks the journalist “How do you make beans?,” because he’s trying to cook for his son. That tells me more about the person than some long story about his album. I tried to get most of them transcribed, and the only ones that didn’t were when I couldn’t find the original tapes. I literally called people who transcribed tapes 10 years ago, and had them find the tapes and bring them back to me.

    Was this the first time in your career that you’d really sat down and gone through all your old stuff?

    For sure. Absolutely.

    What were some of the personal highlights when you were going through that material?

    To me, the highlight for sure was finding all these all pitch letters I’d written to people, trying to write articles for different magazines, different newspapers; finding letters I’d written to my family about how excited I was that this article was out, because you forget how much you struggled sometimes. You forget how excited you are at those first-floor victories. That was kinda moving. It’s really easy to forget the past, because we get so caught up in the present. It was cool to see that. Everyone has a passion and a dream, and it was cool to see that I somehow was lucky enough to live that passionate dream, and even overshot, somewhat, my goal. My only goal was to write a weekly column for Village Voice. I did that by the time I was 22, so everything since then has been gravy.

    That’s awesome. Let’s talk about interviewing. What is an interview to you, now? Has it changed since you started doing interviews back then?

    No. I think I’m better at it. The interview’s still the same thing. An interview is still me trying to get as close to someone I can and write an article that somehow captures who they are, and that says something new about the person that hasn’t been written before. It’s always been the same thing, and I’ve always been really hard on myself about them. They’re never easy, and they need a lot of preparation.

    What makes a good interview?

    In the end, it’s about how you write it. I could say to me there are three kinds of good interviews. I’m just thinking of this out loud as we’re talking. One is where someone really examines themselves in a very honest way and is really emotionally vulnerable, and open, and honest with you. Another kind of good interview is where crazy shit happens, like the first time I’m going to interview Motley Crue, and the police are literally arresting Nikki and Tommy, and in the meantime Vince Neil is blow-drying his hair the whole time. That’s a great interview. They haven’t said a word, and it’s already the fucking best interview ever. The third kind is where the subject sucks, where they’ve got fucking nothing to say. They’re really closed off, not giving you anything, and then that’s an opportunity for me to be a creative writer. [laughs] One thing is the material. The other thing is what you make of it.

    I saw a recent press interview for this book, with Cleveland.com, where you told them that when you do an interview you’re petrified with fear and you’re stressed out. I’m surprised that you still feel this way, after doing it for over 20 years.

    For sure, man. My last interview was with Howard Stern… I’m definitely doing fewer and fewer [interviews] over time. I really only want to do one or two a year. But yeah, of course [I’m stressed], because you have to somehow go in, you have a limited amount of time with someone, and you have to walk away and leave with something they’ve never told to anyone else before, or at least any other writer before. That’s a lot of pressure. You’re not in control of it, they’re in control of it.

    My last interview with Howard Stern, who spills his whole life on the radio every day. How do you get that guy to say something new? There’s a burden. I think the better you get at something, the more intimidating it gets. For example, the better I got at pickup during The Game, the harder the approach was because my expectations and everyone else’s expectations were so high of me. To make the parallel, when I approached a girl in the past, if I didn’t get slapped or laughed at, it was a success. In other words, if some crazy wild adventure didn’t happen with this woman, then I failed.

    It’s the same with an interview. In the past, just to get the interview was enough. I succeeded by getting to be in the same room as this great artist who I looked up to. Now it’s not enough. I’ve got to get the best interview this person has ever given in their life. So the better you get at something, the harder and more intimidating it gets. I’m sure that’s true for you. When we had that interview before, I would say the success was fucking even getting it [in the first place].

    Definitely. I know what you mean. You said when we first met that your goal was to get the best possible material out of someone, and like you said; if it’s someone who speaks for a living it’s hard to find some new truth in that. But it’s still the goal. It’s my goal every time, regardless whether it’s a 15 minute phoner or a couple of days with someone, you still want to get the best. You want to be the best. It’s your standards you’ve got to live up to and you want to put them as high as you can.

    Yeah. And as an interviewer, you’re not in control of that. If you’re just writing an article you can make it the best if it’s all up to you, and how well you write, but in an interview you’re not in control of that. I agree.

    Is it a matter of the bigger the star you interview the more nervous you are beforehand, or is it similar across the board?

    I think it all depends on the situation. I’m more nervous if the star has only given us one hour in a room together. Unless I’m going to be going on tour with them for a week because I know I’ll get time to get what I need. I guess it’s not how famous they are, it’s how short of a time I have to get to connect with them.

    When we first met, I think the first thing you told me when you walked over and looked at my sheet of paper, was: “Ready for all 15 questions,” and then you said what you do to prepare for an interview is brainwash yourself with the person’s career and write down every single question that comes to mind. Now besides those two elements, researching and writing down questions, is there something more? Is there a routine to preparing for interviews beyond just research?

    I think it’s kind of what I said before, that brainwashing which is reading all the books, reading every article about them, reading any books if they’ve written any, listening to every album, watching every movie they’re in, and then as I’m doing these things writing down every question that I can possibly ever thing of. Then studying those questions and arranging those questions in a sequence I kind of want to ask them, and then studying those questions like I’m preparing for an exam, where I don’t know what the questions are going to be on the test. [laughs] There’s a lot of big interviews I turned down, because I really didn’t want to get that deep. I wasn’t that interested enough in the artist to get that deep in their life, and their work.

    When you’re meeting face-to-face with your subjects, do you pick clothes to make you appear a certain way?

    No, in fact I’ll usually dress more down than I would if I was going out myself because I want them to know they’re they star, I’m not trying to say… I think if someone walked into the interview saying “hey, we’re equals! Hey, look at me, I’m one of you too!” the star’s already like “no you’re not.” [laughs] So if anything, I try to play myself down. Even the Howard Stern interview I did today ended up on the air and it’s on TV and you see it, I’m dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. I really try to be like, “you’re the star. I’m not going to be so embarrassing you can’t be seen with me, but I’m not going to be dressed like I think I’m a star too”. I think that’s the wrong attitude to go into an interview with. In fact, going into any situation whether it’s pickup, survival, or an interview trying to impress someone is the exact wrong attitude to have.

    The way you say that makes me think that you’ve made that mistake in the past and you learned not to act that way. Is that correct?

    No, I never did because when I started out, I really was super, super humbled by these amazing people I got to be in the same room with. And I really was kind of young and innocent. I did it before, but it wasn’t a mistake, when I did that Ludacris interview. There was an idea that we had the ‘Ho’lympics’, a contest where it was me against Ludacris doing all these crazy things, like the one-hand bra unhooking contest. I brought one of my peacocking outfits from The Game, like this snakeskin suit. It was funny. He loved it. He thought it was fucking hilarious. It hasn’t been a mistake when I’ve done it in the past and I think it’s less about dress and more about attitude. But I know my place, I know the role. They’re the star and I’m the person who’s translating that message to the world.

    Out of interest, Neil, do you have a musical background?

    No, I can play a little bit of music and I’ve even been in bands and stuff, but my goal was never to be a musician. If anything, if I was to end up anywhere in the musical side of things it would have been as a producer, because I think in a way it’s similar to being a critic. There’s a sense of saying “what can we do?”. It’s being a critic, but earlier on in the process, where you can actually have some effect on the music.

    True, I see that. The reason I asked is: that bit of musical knowledge that you have beyond being a critic – you actually know how to play some music – do you think that’s been advantageous for you to help relate to musicians?

    Not always. Sometimes it’s been fun, because I did piece on this band Sebadoh, and we went and recorded a punk rock single together. There were a lot of cool things that didn’t make it in the book, but I had to select what was most interesting. But [musical knowledge] has helped in a couple of cases. I also find that musical dialogue won’t be interesting to the general audience of Rolling Stone or The New York Times. If I wrote for Musician or Guitar World it would, but I think that would have hurt the interviews. Because maybe [the interview subject and I] would have bonded over it, but it’s not going to create any kind of dialogue that’s going to be appropriate for that kind of article.

    I think there might be an element, too, of if you cover musicians, then I think you need to come in as a journalist, and not as a fellow musician. To me, the best asset one has in an interview is curiosity. It’s better than an outfit; better than musical knowledge. And even having brushed up and having prepared, I think genuine, sincere curiosity is the best tool you have.

    I find that simply listening and responding to a person is just as important as background research. A good example of that in the book – of you just listening and going with the flow – is when you tell Britney Spears that you know exactly what she’s talking about, even though you have no idea.

    [laughs] Yeah, exactly. I think there are a lot of points in a lot of interviews where you’re saying ‘yes’. We’re agreeing just so you don’t stop the roll they’re on. I think there’s definitely some crazy things I’ve fucking agreed with in interviews. I think it’s important not to judge the person in an interview, and not to judge whether they’re right or wrong, or if it makes sense. The job is to let them speak. Often, some of them I don’t even know… it isn’t until I look at the transcripts that I know what someone was really saying, or trying to say, because I can slow it down.

    To talk about some more specific sections of the book, my favourite band of all time is Led Zeppelin, so I thoroughly enjoyed that section. [Neil interviewed Jimmy Page and Robert Plant for The New York Times. It was their first interview together since Zeppelin broke up 14 years earlier.]

    That’s awesome.

    I want to know what was going through your mind when you discovered that you hadn’t recorded those first 40 minutes of your interview.

    One, was that I was so fucking mad at myself. There are two interviews… I also love Ray Davies of The Kinks, and I missed that interview, too. I was just furious. After that, I started bringing two tape recorders to every interview and I’d have them recorded on two audio recorders just in case one failed, or goes wrong. I was thinking: “how do I re-ask these same questions and get those answers without them catching on?”

    The other funny thing about that interview was that I was so young, and they were these icons. I think I’d read [Zeppelin biography] Hammer of the Gods and was obsessed about their… I was a guy who’d maybe slept with one or two women my whole life, so I think I was more obsessed with their sex life than their music. [laughs] And I wanted to know the story. I think at one point Jimmy Page asked me, “Do you have any questions that don’t involve sex?” [laughs] To me, they were legends not just for their music, but the lifestyle around it.

    That bit about how you missed the first 40 minutes, it’s funny because it’s such a rookie error, and yet it was one of your first assignments for The New York Times.

    Yeah! And that happens. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. There are so many things that could go wrong, especially with cassette decks. You can plug the microphone in the headphone jack, the batteries can die in the middle of the interview and you don’t notice it. The pause button can be on, and you’re recording. I think every one of these errors has happened to me, and that’s my biggest paranoia. I’m almost OCD about checking to make sure that it’s recording. Especially now, I get really paranoid with digital recorders because after you stop it, it has to store the information after you stop it, and what if it doesn’t store… I get so paranoid, man, because you can’t recreate what just happened.

    That’s true. But you’ve got to have faith in technology, Neil.

    You can have faith in technology, but if it goes wrong… like, you don’t know what’s left on your computer if it shuts down, and you lose your work.

    I see where you’re coming from. I’ll remain blissfully naïve until that happens to me.

    You can have faith in technology, and technology has things that are operated on electricity. Batteries can die. You can be working there and the power can go; anything can happen, especially when one has more faith in technology than one has in one’s self. One can rely on one’s self, you can’t rely on technology.

    Some of my favourite parts in the book were when you revealed part of yourself, like right near the start when you’re talking with Madonna about drugs. You said that you didn’t like pills because “it’s a control thing”, and by making a statement and not asking a question, you encouraged her to go off on her little tangent about how she feels about that, which is an interesting tactic.

    I do find that… I put those parts in this book less, but I’ll tell you something interesting, which is that as I was compiling the book, I was going back through a lot of parts in the book. You have to give a little to get something, so the parts of Madonna in the book – I saved these. I’ve got about 100 pages of it, I kind of collected my own personal biography through these interviews with these artists because at some point I’m telling them about my life. I’m telling Bruce Springsteen about how I got a job at The New York Times. I’m telling Lady Gaga about how I came to write The Game. I’m telling Tom Cruise about, I think about The Game also. I’m talking to Christine Aguilera about my childhood. I collected those parts of the interviews because I thought it would be fun if I ever do a straight-up biography, to mix in those interviews.

    I was impressed by a few sections where you revealed your ability to form a bond with some of your subjects, like Shawn [Crahan] from Slipknot, and Chuck Berry.

    Going back to what you were saying before, I do think I was very conscious to leave myself out of this as much as possible because I felt like you can see the book is showing who these other people are, and the less I’m in it, the better. In all my books, even though I might be a central character in The Game and Emergency, I still tried to put myself in as little, only in there as much as necessary to understand the subject being written about. I’m not in The Game and Emergency, I’m not giving my whole biography. I think I did the same thing in here, I just tried to give myself as little as possible, as was necessary to get to know the subject. But you like when those special bonds happen, you were saying?

    Yeah, it’s cool, because the only time that most fans see these musicians is when they’re performing on stage, or in a music video, or they’re being interviewed on TV. But when you break outside of that… like how Shawn from Slipknot took the second cup from the top of a cup pyramid; this tiny little detail tells you a lot about a person.

    Yeah, and I loved that. That’s one of my favourite things about this [book] is when you come back and check in with someone later and see how they’ve grown, how they’ve changed, how maybe they take back what they said then, whether they’re sober or whether they’re on drugs. Whether they’re talking rehab speak – it’s a really cool barometer of watching someone grow in these little snapshots. They tell you about your own life too, because you can see how you’ve changed in those interviews as well.

    But my favourite time to talk to artists is when they’re in the creative process, versus when they’re in the promotional process. I love talking to them when they’re in the midst of creation because then they’re really wrestling, they’re really raw. When you get them in the promotion process, they’re closed.

    I think an example in the book was Trent Reznor; you made that comment about how he was unpacking a videogamesconsoles, which would be upsetting to his listeners, because he’s obviously procrastinating, and not creating music.

    Yeah. And I loved that interview, because it was so honest.

    The idea of revealing a bit of yourself to the reader, there was a bit more of that when you asked Brian Wilson whether he’s a nervous person. Then you went on to state that having a very domineering, critical father can make people nervous and hesitant later in life, which I believe is a reflection of your own life.

    It wasn’t that case, I think it was just from observation. I do have critical parents, probably more so on my mother’s side, but I think that was more like a general observation from a number of interviews, [as opposed to] saying that about myself. Though of course in interviews, I will often talk about myself. Again, I think if someone tries to suck all the information out, you’re kind of an asshole if you’re out to do that. There should be reciprocity. But I definitely wasn’t referring to myself in that case. Though now that you mention it, I definitely grew up in a household where nothing was ever good enough, and that definitely probably did contribute to the hesitancy and lack of confidence later in life, for sure.

    After The Game came out and you started to get noticed, were there many instances during interviews of your reputation preceding you? Were some of your subjects were already aware of your work, even beyond music journalism?

    Yeah, and it usually helped if they were aware of my work. I think it’s definitely true, versus some random name coming in to interview them, or a guy whose stories they’ve read in Rolling Stone. If they’ve sat there with a book, and read a book. It definitely helped.

    Are you concerned that journalists like myself are going to read the book and steal your best material?

    No, because that material is already out there. I mean, to me it’s like if somebody steals it… I’m scared until it’s out, like before I put the book out, I’m scared someone else is going to do an anthology like this, when it hasn’t been done before, and some other journalist is going to think about creating something like this. But once it’s out, I look forward to people… let’s not say stealing, but being inspired by it. [laughs] I think that’s the most awesome thing ever. If someone likes it enough to do something similar or use that material in their own way, that’s cool. Otherwise you’d never do anything, because otherwise you’d just be frozen.

    There were two questions you asked in the book that totally blew me away, because I would never even have considered asking them. Do you want to know what they are?

    Yeah, go ahead. Wait, I know your first one’s going to be: “could you made the best album ever, then bury it and never listen to it, but still be content?”

    Yeah, that’s one.

    And is the other one about “what’s more important, music or children”?

    No.

    I liked that one. “What’s the thing you felt you’ve given to the world most, music or children? What’s benefitted the world more?”

    The other one was what you asked [the rapper] The Game – “what was the first money you ever made?” It’s such a simple question, but his answer reveals so much about him.

    Oh yeah, “the first money I made wasn’t made, it was stolen”. [laughs] I don’t have stock questions I ask everybody. I really should have a list of questions I ask everybody, but I don’t.  I usually ask that if I’m curious about it for that particular person. There are a couple that have been themes in my life because I’m always curious about family, and curious about artistic stuff.

    So, my last question: have you sent this book out to any of the people who you interviewed?

    Umm… no. [laughs]

    Are you intending to?

    No, I’m not planning to. I’ll just think I’ll let them find it. I don’t know why. It seems to me something where… for some reason, it seems boastful to send it to them. I don’t know why. I probably should. I think that would be a good idea to do. Even, like, Russell Brand, who I’m friends with, he told me I was in his book, and I didn’t tell him he was in my book. So I should probably do that.

    Totally. Alright Neil, I’ll leave it there.

    I look forward to catching up with you at a more calm point, and seeing you when I’m in Australia.

    For sure man. Thanks for your time.

    Thanks man. It’s been fun watching your evolution. Bye Andrew.

    ++

    For more Neil Strauss, visit his website or follow him or Twitter.

  • The Courier-Mail author profile: Neil Strauss – ‘Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead’, April 2011

    An author profile for The Courier-Mail. This isn’t available on their website (at time of publishing), so you can either click the below image to view a bigger version, or read the full article underneath.

    Neil Strauss: Choosing the right minute

    To American writer Neil Strauss, the traditional format of the cultural journalism anthology was tired and predictable.

    After his 2009 book, Emergency – wherein Strauss switched into survivalist mode and learned a raft of new skills so he’d be prepared in the event of an apocalyptic catastrophe – the accomplished Rolling Stone and The New York Times writer thought he’d give himself a break.

    “I thought I’d do an anthology,” he says, “because anyone who’s been writing articles and feature stories for 20 years feels like, ‘why not collect my favourite pieces and put them in a book?’”.

    The problem with this formulaic approach became evident once Strauss started sifting through thousands of published interviews with some of the world’s most famous musicians and actors.

    “I like telling stories,” he explains – as evidenced in Emergency, and in the 2005 bestselling exposé of the then-hidden pick-up artist community, The Game – but in this instance, “there were no through lines”.

    He spent some time with anthologies by some of his favourite writers.

    “Half of them I didn’t finish, because I got bored. With the other half, after I was done, I was bored of the writer, and bored of the voice, because it’s not a book if it’s just articles bound together, he says.

    Eventually, Strauss realised that his best published work simply showed moments where readers were allowed to see “the real person behind the mask”.

    So he began collecting those moments. The final product is a 500-plus-page tome named Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead, which features 228 such moments.

    In the book’s preamble, Strauss writes that you can learn a lot about a person or a situation in a minute – but only if you choose the right minute.

    Strauss is known for his ability to get closer to his interview subjects than most writers.

    Some of the book’s best moments are when he’s far from the regular interview locales, like hotel rooms or cafes.

    Instead, far more revelatory material is gained when he’s lying in bed interviewing Jewel, or driving with Snoop Dogg to pick up diapers for his kid, or being flown in a private jet by licensed pilot and jazz saxophonist Kenny G, or riding motorcycles and going to the Church of Scientology with Tom Cruise and his mother.

    Reporting from these extraordinary situations comes at a cost, though. For Strauss – who says he only does one or two interviews per year, now – these outlandish experiences have raised the journalistic bar considerably.

    “In the past, I succeeded by getting to be in the same room as this great artist who I looked up to,” he says.

    “Now it’s not enough. I’ve got to get the best interview this person has ever given in their life. You have to somehow go in, with a limited amount of time with someone, and you have to walk away and leave with something they’ve never told to any other writer before. That’s a lot of pressure. The better you get at something, the harder and more intimidating it gets.”

    Does he ever feel guilty for relentlessly extracting information from his subjects? “Sometimes I feel guilty. Say I’m leaving with four hours of recordings of one person spilling their soul to me, and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘thank you very much, goodbye’. I’m walking away with their soul on a tape, to some degree. They have nothing. That part always feels strange to me. It’s like having sex with someone, then running away.”

    Aspiring and existing journalists will be pleased to learn that Strauss is human after all, though. He doesn’t shy away from including one of his most embarrassing moments in the book.

    Forty minutes into an interview with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant – guitarist and singer for legendary British rockers Led Zeppelin – Strauss realised that he’d plugged his microphone into the headphone jack. The result: blank tape.

    To make matters worse, it was the pair’s first in-depth interview together since Zeppelin broke up fourteen years earlier, and it was one of Strauss’ first assignments for The New York Times.

    When he later attempted to surreptitiously backtrack over some of his questions, Page and Plant gleefully discovered his mistake.

    Strauss can laugh about it now, but at the time, he was  “so mad” at himself.

    “After that, I started bringing two recorders to every interview, just in case one failed, or something went wrong.”

    Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead is out now in Australia via Text Publishing. For more Neil Strauss, visit his website or follow him or Twitter.

    Bonus material: for the full transcript of my 45 minute interview with Neil Strauss in early March 2011, click here.

     

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘Jebediah Return From Hiatus’, February 2011

    A news story for the March 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. Click the below scanned image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Jebediah Returns From Hiatus

    Much-loved Perth rockers prepare for fully-fledged comeback with fifth LP
    By Andrew McMillen

    Instruments in hand, four Perth musicians glance nervously at the ceiling as debris falls around them. Overhead, a Godzilla-like monster trades blows with Comet Girl, a costumed vigilante who’s fighting a losing battle. All looks lost until another superhero arrives: Jebediah! The two heroes join forces to vanquish their foe.

    Embedded deep in the realms of fantasy – a warehouse in Sydney’s inner suburbs – the real Jebediah, Perth’s celebrated alt-rock outfit, are shooting their first video in more than six years. “She’s Like A Comet” is the second single from the band’s fifth album, Koscuiszko, due in April. Between takes, drummer Brett Mitchell laughs about the “contrived” nature of music videos. Earlier, he was attempting to drum along to the song at a precise speed of 145 per cent in order to capture some slow-motion footage. A few hours into the shoot, as frontman Kevin Mitchell sings into a microphone placed just inches away from a camera, one of the crew expresses his surprise that the singer is so willing to be filmed: he’d heard of Mitchell was camera-shy. “They must have been being sarcastic!” bassist Vanessa Thornton laughs.

    Amid a worldwide climate of once-popular acts reforming for cash, Jebediah – completed by lead guitarist Chris Daymond – are different: they never broke up. Though their last release was 2004’s Braxton Hicks, they’ve played a handful of shows per year, and 2010 was no different: the day after their video shoot, they played to a packed Annandale Hotel, before doing the same at The Zoo in Brisbane. With a seven-year gap between albums, the band is relishing the new material.

    “This one’s easily the most fun I’ve had making a Jebs record since the very first one [1997’s Slightly Odway], and I also think it’s the most playful we’ve been in the studio,” says Kevin Mitchell. “It’s the closest thing to the first album, where we made a record without considering anyone except ourselves.”

    For more Jebediah, visit their website. The music video for ‘She’s Like A Comet‘ is embedded below.

  • Rolling Stone album reviews, December 2010: The Naked and Famous, Fuzz Phantoms

    Two albums reviews for the January 2011 issue of Rolling Stone.

    ++

    The Naked and Famous
    Passive Me, Aggressive You
    Somewhat Damaged/Universal

    New Zealand punks bring the dance-noize to new audience

    Owing to their fascination with Loveless-like walls of guitars and the synth-led electro-pop of Passion Pit and MGMT (circa Oracular Spectacular), this N.Z. five-piece have a foot planted firmly in both past and present. Their debut album bristles with nervous energy, like they’re itching to impress. And they do. Central to Passive Me, Aggressive You’s success is the skill with which their two main reference points are balanced: “Frayed” paints a mood of dark, distorted menace, yet it follows the album’s most optimistic jam (“Punching In A Dream”). In “Young Blood”, though, the band has conjured up one of 2010’s best singles. Alisa Xayalith delivers its self-aware opening line (“We’re only young and naïve still”) amid a storm of skittering synths and a hefty bass swoon. It’s a monster track masterfully handled, yet there’s the unshakeable sense that their best is still yet to come. Despite pursuing two disparate musical styles, The Naked and Famous embrace both, and thrive.

    Key tracks: “Young Blood”, “Punching In A Dream”, “Frayed”

    Elsewhere: An interview with singer/guitarist/producer Thom Powers for The Vine

    ++

    Fuzz Phantoms
    Fuzz Phantoms
    Independent

    Kisschasy frontman’s garage rock side-project unveiled at last

    Best known as the lead singer and songwriter of pop band Kisschasy, Darren Cordeux has left his bandmates behind – for the time being – in favour of pairing up with his partner Tahlia Shaw under the Fuzz Phantoms moniker. Funded by 50 individual backers via online platform Kickstarter, this debut is a 12-track, 28-minute collection that flits between power pop and garage rock. Shaw is no gun on the kit, but her loose style is nicely juxtaposed by Cordeux’s considerable chops: his occasional flights of six-string fancy (best exemplified in “Met A Youngster”) are tasteful and impressive. Fans of Cordeux’s past work will find much to like here. The singer seems to have found solace in simplicity: stripped back to basics, Fuzz Phantoms sounds like two musicians (and their bassist pal) enjoying themselves. They’re unlikely to set the world alight with this release alone, but for the moment, the pair seem content – and rightfully so.

    Key tracks: “No Crime”, “Nowhere”, “Met A Youngster”

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Cat Empire and The Key Of Sea’, December 2010

    A story published in the January 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, about the musical collaboration project The Key Of Sea. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    The Cat Empire’s Asylum Campaign

    Harry Angus wears a broad smile. “This has been a total headfuck so far,” The Cat Empire’s co-vocalist and trumpet player says. He and his bandmates are nearing the end of a session at Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios. It wouldn’t be a particularly out-of-the-ordinary occurrence, if not for the man with whom they’re recording: an Ethiopian singer named Anbessa Gebrehiwot, who also plays the krar, a lyre-like stringed instrument. The song they’ve spent the last two days rehearsing and recording, “Zero”, was arranged by Gebrehiwot.

    The song’s traditional Ethiopian cadence has proven difficult for The Cat Empire to get their Western minds around. “It’s something really new for us rhythmically,” says lead vocalist and percussionist Felix Riebel. “I feel for Ryan (bass) and Olly (keys) especially, because the phrases are hard and intricate, and don’t make sense in terms of what we’re used to.”

    Written five years ago as “a love song, not a political song”, “Zero” took on another meaning for Anbessa upon seeking asylum in Australia three years ago, reflecting the conditios in which asylum seekers live in Australia: no right to work, no Medicare, no income. “Life is zero when you separate with friends and family,” Anbessa says.

    The song is one of eleven that will form a project dubbed The Key Of Sea; Sarah Blasko, The Vasco Era, Tim Rogers and others also appear on the album, released in November. “We were excited to be a part of this project, because in terms of the issue we’re trying to promote, it’s now or never,” says Angus. “We’re showing people the human face and sound of asylum seekers.”

    The Key Of Sea was founded by human rights advocate Hugh Crosthwaite and Australian Independent Record Labels Association’s General Manager, Nick O’Byrne. “There’s been a lot of negative press and public sentiment around the issue of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants,” says Crosthwaite. “We wanted to do something that would resonate with the man on the street, and we thought that the easiest way to do that would be through rad tunes.”

    For more on The Cat Empire, visit their website. For more on The Key Of Sea, visit their website, or watch the project documentary embedded below.

  • Rolling Stone Q+A: Rob Swire of Pendulum, December 2010

    A Q+A published in the January 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, which featured in the ‘Sounds of Summer’ music festival guide. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    Pendulum – Heavy Dance

    Leading the Perth-born, U.K.-based drum-and-bass act Pendulum isn’t all Rob Swire has been doing recently: he also co-wrote and co-produced Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”, which meant double platinum in Australia. Pendulum have just wrapped up an Aussie tour ahead of their appearance at the Future Music Festival tour in March, and we caught up with Swire on the eve of their show in his hometown, Perth.

    Onstage you rely on around a dozen computers – that’s a lot of trust in technology.

    Well,  the point of having 12 computers is so that if one of them goes down, the rest are relatively alright. We do get the central computer resetting sometimes, because that thing’s being raped, to be honest.

    When you were younger, do you remember watching particular artists or bands and thinking, “that’s what I want to do”?

    I was fairly heavy into electronic music, so I never really saw that many bands. I think the first band I saw was Spiderbait and the second was The Prodigy. We were in a band before, a sort of metal band and that was just sort of inspired by death metal bands, but I think watching Strapping Young Lad and Muse pretty much inspired us to get a band together.

    Your background is in metal, yet you’re now in the biggest electronic rock act in the world. You’ve also co-written with Rihanna. Do you get bored easily?

    I do, yes. I’m totally ADD in terms of writing music. I just get bored of whatever I last did, and if I do something too long I get bored and do something else. The Rihanna thing is something different and it’s far, far removed from the Pendulum stuff. It’s good.

    Do you see yourself pursuing more co-writing in the future?

    I can, yeah, but it’s such a different thing to the way we’ve done things in the past. With Pendulum, we have 100 percent creative control. With the stuff like Rihanna, you pretty much do what they say. If they don’t like a bit of a verse, they fuckin’ take it out. If they don’t like a vocal, that’s not the vocal they use.

    With Pendulum, you’ve been performing your ABC News remix as the encore of the current tour. That song’s become something else entirely for you, hasn’t it?

    Yeah, in fact, it’s a very scary thing. I think the slight weirdness of the Sydney show might have been a lot of people were solely there to see that tune. They’d heard it on the radio and thought we might be a sort of electro, DJ group or some shit like that, and they came along and there’s a band playing metal-infused drum and bass. There was a lot of chanting of “ABC!” throughout the set. It was a bit weird.

    For more Pendulum, visit their website. The music video for their track ‘The Island‘ is embedded below.