Do you like your interviews as they are, or mingled with a story?

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I hate opening a magazine that says "Interview with ______ inside" only to find it is a story with quotes from _____ mixed in. WHy is this done? Could they not get enough info from the artist? Was the interview full of boring dreck that the author saw fit to excise? Oftentimes when an interview is written in story form, it seems like an excuse to shoe how buddy-buddy the interviewer was with said artist. "We went to the record store and he picked out an anthology of pre WWII-Hawaiian slide guitar music. Who else would do that? AND we got to sit on a park bench together."

― Fivvy (Fivvy), Monday, 12 May 2003 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I like all writing to be mixed dialogue and action. In interviews, I don't like it when it's *all* dialogue with no setting, no sense of place, no context, no nothing. It just feels disconnected and strange. At the same time, I'm not crazy about "articles about bands" which are just 2000 words of the writer talking about how much they love/hate the band with nary a word the artist said.

I like interviews that are balanced, that read like stories, with a nice balance of dialogue and plot - especially supporting writing. This is the essence of writing good dialogue - not just *what* the person said, but how they said it, their expression, tone of voice, all that kind of thing.

Ideally, when reading an interview, you should feel like YOU were there, like you were the protagonist interviewing the artist. That whole "buddy-buddy" "and then we went to the park and talked about Hawaiian guitar" thing helps transmit the sense that you were actually there with the person. Which *I* like.

― kate, Monday, 12 May 2003 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like it when it's *all* dialogue with no setting, no sense of place, no context, no nothing. It just feels disconnected and strange.

Yeah, but I'm about to do an interview over e-mail soon, so I don't think I'll be thrilling people by saying 1000 words about my old desk.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 12 May 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Pegasus Realizes They're Playing His Tune

― the pinefox, Monday, 12 May 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there's a time and a place for both.
In longer features, I like it when they have a narrative that occasionally breaks into
A:
B:
A:
B:

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 12 May 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Fivvy - dude, I TOTALLY agree. This is something that's been on my mind quite a bit lately.

I say write a review or do an interview, but don't have the two meet...

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 12 May 2003 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

One of the biggest reasons that I hate email interviews, and I'm no good at all at writing them...

I say write a review or do an interview, but don't have the two meet...

This is my NIGHTMARE view of the worst of music journalism...

― kate, Monday, 12 May 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

It also depends on who or what you're writing for.
If you're writing for a zine, you can probably assume that you're readers know the band, allowing you to set up the piece as a Q&A. If you're writing for a newspaper, you have to assume, and you're editor will make sure you do, that the readers aren't familiar with the band, meaning you have to provide that context, etc.
And yes, sometimes the interview just doesn't generate enough interesting quotes or information. Sometimes a bandmember isn't that articulate or isn't that interested. Sometimes you only have a five-minute window in which to ask your questions. Sometimes you're off your game and ask some lame-ass questions that elicit many yawns.
Generally, as a reader, I prefer the mix anyway. I find straight Q&As kinda boring.

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Monday, 12 May 2003 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I say write a review or do an interview, but don't have the two meet...
ah, the only person with who holds my trade in lower esteem than myself.
So you're saying that music journo's should simply be stenographers?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 12 May 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

So you're saying that music journo's should simply be stenographers?

Depends on how good the questions are - or how many you're allowed by their publicists to ask.

I'm personally glad to stay out of the feature and let the artist speak for himself unless the transcript is so poor, jagged or dull that it's better used as a source of quotes in a profile. Transcripts have to be really good to sustain my interest, especially if I don't know the artist beforehand.

I think the Onion A. V. Club has set the bar for transcripts by choosing, not overt stars who are out to push product ("Everyone I work with is a genius!" - Leonardo DiCaprio) but artists who are mature, experienced, and also sort of ambigiuous on how they feel about themselves and their work. With a case like that, I'd rather let the artist speak for him or herself - and chew over what to make of it - than risk having the writer try to "sum it up" or simplify it.

As to just being a stenographer, I realize that letting the artist dominate the article makes the writer deeply subordinate - in fact, in a case like this, it seems like the writer can only get in the way. But the article is about the artist. I had a history prof once who told me that basic biography is considered the lowest form of history writing, and it seems like this is why.

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a history prof once who told me that basic biography is considered the lowest form of history writing, and it seems like this is why.

Maybe so -- I think this gets down to what people are reading for: the writing, or the content (hardly either/or, but I suspect each person has a bias). I also think ILx has had this conversation a million different ways, so let's all hope this thing has 600 posts by tomorrow.

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

For music interviews, I vastly prefer just writing down the Q/A thing, sure, it's nice with an introductory paragraph or two, and some notes about things occuring during the interview, but I frigging despise interviews writtein in that whole:
"Seeming to be drawn years back, Mr Monkey smiles briefly and seems for a moment to be transfixed in thought, finally bringing himself back to the present and replies 'Why yes, I do indeed enjoy eating cookies.'
Thinking back to the stories of the bands early fame for dancing the lambada on stage, I ask whether dancing in general has been a great influence...'

Meh to it all!
Q: So you have a new album out
A: Yeah
Q: Cool
A: I like to think so
Q: Who did the cover art?
A: John Macintyre
Q: He's pretty good
A: Yeah
Q: Any tour planned?
A: Yeah

Much better! Yay!

(anyone surprised that I've never conducted an interview and hope to never ever do so either?)

― Øystein Holm-Olsen (Øystein H-O), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I say write a review or do an interview, but don't have the two meet...

One of music journalism's biggest problems is that this DOESN'T happen. I've ranted about this before, but the unspoken rule that you can't be critical of an artist in a feature is maddening. I'd love to see more writers contradict what an artist has to say or really take them to task. But everyone's too scared of the publicists for that to really happen...

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Ahh, keep in mind that when I want a Q/A interview like that, I DO prefer the interviewer getting involved and going off on tangents and what have you, not just going down his little notebook-list of questions to ask. The example I made of right way was obviously an attempt at showing the most boring of boring.
But just don't type out the interview like it's a shortstory, k thx lol omg.

― Øystein Holm-Olsen (Øystein H-O), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

(*meep* Yancey OTM *de-meep*)

― Cozen (Cozen), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm boring I guess, I love the Q&A, everything else is superfluous. I think it's vital to do it in person rather than e-mail or whatever though. Some of the best interviews I've read were all about following up on tangents, switching the line of questioning, or even switching roles for a minute with the musician asking about something the writer brings up or is interested in (they seem to enjoy that).

I think the interviews at Jazz Weekly are pretty good. I just read a Jeff Parker one from somewhere that was cool, and that old Aphex Twin one that someone posted recently is fantastic.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

And I've found that any artists with half a brain will RESPECT you for being up front with them. I was at this BBQ festival in Brooklyn on Saturday and this Boggs offshoot was playing bluegrass and it was really good. I know a couple of the Boggs guys through friends of friends so I talked to Zeke, their bearded guitarist, for a while. At one point he talked about this grand discovery the Boggs had made and were going to chase on their next album. "That's hardly a revelation," I said to him. He seemed really taken aback, but then the conversation became MUCH more open and interesting. Of course this wasn't an interview -- this was two VA boys chatting -- but I've found that interview situations will work much the same way, so long as you're respectful with your disrespect. I would wager that the same would hold true in a written piece as well (although personal experiences with a couple of bands being pissed about features I wrote about them would suggest otherwise).

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Monday, 12 May 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

A fellow who sometimes fancies himself my mentor often says that whatever a "regualar person" says, a good journalist can say it a million times better.
He annoys me.
But he has something of a point. The point of an interview (or most of them, at least profiles and features) is to learn about the subject. A good journalist can often convey more information through narrative than by merely transcribing the shared verbiage.
In my going on six years of ento-journo, I think I've done maybe five ABAB style pieces. Two were done out of sheer laziness, and two were done for stylistic concerns (knowing I could fit in more good stuff if I cut out the narrative).

Also, I'm not afraid to challenge what a subject said. It's sort of unfair sometimes, like you talk to somebody from your desk and they're on a payphone with screaming babies in the bkgrnd, or on a cell while traversing some highway or something, and then you take what they said while their mind was clearly on other things and you have time and resources on your side. But they (half the time) get paid more anyway.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Monday, 12 May 2003 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

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