RFI: Tips on interview techniques

Here:
Interview Techniques

grrr how could I have missed that one from the Belgian lass? ;-)

thanks Jeff.

One thing that isn't addressed in there, though; getting around the PR presence (if there's any), i.e. conversation gets interesting and then some boss-eyed nitwit says "not relevant talk about new album" or "five seconds left"?

hehehe Marcello, congratulations by the way. Those threats worked ey? You are in print before the end of the year. ;-)

Buy them a drink, or offer them a joint/line of coke, or indeed all three.

Knowing your stuff helps a lot, especially with acts who have been interviewed loads, because they are sick of talking to people who know nothing => you should try to get across knowledge of and some sympathy with their work asap.

As for the time limit thing, a woman with whom I was briefly involved was once given 15 minutes with Prince, but got two hours. Her secret was that she was (according to Prince) the first black woman who had ever been sent to interview him. This may be a difficult trick for you to pull. (Shoe polish and socks stuffed in a bra? No, I don't think you'd pull it off.)

The first question is the most important. Sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people open up with "So, you're electroclash/nu-metal/black. What's up with that?"

Nardwaur's interview with Henry Rollins is textbook how to draw things out. A pissed off Hank has "One More Question!" turn into answering all his questions and doing a doot doot a doot doo.

All else fails make up bands and songs and see if said subject bites on it.

The hardest thing to do in a interview is to engage with the person and get them to say interesting things. To paraphrase Pierre Bourdieu, an interviewer should get the talent to identify their own problems. But (with obvious exceptions) musicians aren't very articulate or interesting to talk to. This goes for music journalists as well, so it's a pretty dammed process!

Many years ago I interviewed Goldie. I prepared loads of interesting questions (so I thought) but it turned into a passive-aggressive disaster because he was unthoughtful and bored.

Some time later I read an interview with Goldie in Graphotism magazine which was excellent. It nothing more than a nostalgia trip for Goldie reminiscing about his days in graff crews and his fantastic self but it was an excellent tale.

So, on a practical level, I think that you have to engage with the talent and figure out what they want to talk about. I'm not suggesting that all interviews should be lightweight and lazy ego-trips, I guess that is up to the sort of people you interview.

On an even more practical level, I think that there are too many music interviews and that you should write fiction instead.

Sit with your back to the wall, so they're not distracted by anything over your shoulder: roadies, groupies, general traffic.