Just found a good series of anecdotes in The Independent's media section on interviews with musicians that have gone wrong.
It has some gems including Mark E Smith being drunk and abusive (not all that surprising); a Smash Hits editor vomiting on Mariah Carey; a Sounds reporter accidentally calling shit Joe Strummer a shit; Robbie Williams being a slightly pathetic prima donna (again, not all that surprising); and a story I have long enjoyed: Loaded's Martin Deeson being so hungover in an interview with Alice Cooper that he left before even the first question had been answered, saying “Well Mr Cooper, I think I have everything I need.”
Interviews are a strange thing. You certainly get better at them the more you do, but getting them is often a major hassle. Musicians are among the very worst bunch though – they spend their lives outside of any normal constraints on politeness and the successful ones tend to have very big egos that don't fit in very well with journalists who, as a rule, are not great respecters of ego.
It is also true that music journalism does tend to attract an above-average number of shits, ego-maniacs and wannabe rock stars. As such, the interview situation is not always the most comfortable.
That said, I've had some very nice interviews with bands. Travis were a lovely bunch of blokes, especially since they were the biggest band of the moment when I spoke to them. Likewise, James were great guys, although their lead singer was a bit of a ponce. Beth Orton is a stroppy cow. The Longpigs were great fellas. As were Shed Seven, who I ended up on a massive bender with. Blur were a mix of fun, boredom and arrogance (Cox, Albarn, James in that order). And so on and so forth.
I should also mention that I remain embarrassed to this day that I accidentally left the Stereophonics in a pokey room for an hour waiting for an interviewer that never turned up. They stormed off. Still it didn't seem to have affected their career too much. Probably gave that extra bit of steel 🙂
As for the shits though. Supergrass were a bunch of twats. Failing to answer any questions and trying to make me feel small because they were rock gods. I'm sure it just wasn't the right day, but I have found myself not buying their albums as a result. Actually, I nearly walked into lead singer Gaz last month as he was walking in Oxford with his kid in a pram. I thought it only polite not to mention his poor behaviour five years earlier.
But in general, people are scared about being interviewed. Even though musicians are among the most egotistical people on the planet – or most likely because of it – they often fear being exposed to public criticism. After all, most long for public adoration which is why they do it in the first place.
It's a real skill to relax an interviewee, and if you get off on the wrong foot, it is usually impossible to recover. However, you do have to laugh at this interview on Fox News at the wekend. The interviewer was live in the south asking people why they hadn't fled from the impending hurricane.
The interview went as follows:
Shepard Smith: You’re live on Fox news channel, what are you doing?
Man: Walking my dogs.
Smith: Why are you still here? I’m just curious.
Man: [Pause] None of your fucking business.
And he then walked off.
