Terry Fuckwitt - The Unintelligent Rock Star

xoxo

It's worth considering the sheer volume of interviews today's stars do when compared to other decades: that's gonna dumb down their answers for sure.

The feller from Korn stated talking about his suicide attempt within two minutes of speaking to me - on the phone, I'd never spoken to the chap before - and was so eager to put across his troubled past, I managed to wrest a 5,000 word cover article for Rolling Stone (Australia) from a 12 minute interview. You may think this indicates precisely the opposite trait to what you're discussing, but I think it amounts to exactly the same thing.

But Coldplay are definitely my nominees. Spent 150 minutes wrestling with their genial, genuinely lovely, dull as dishwater personalities... and although I can't deny the Sun ran a Bizarre lead two weeks later on the one revelation I got from Chris about his virginity, I reckon that was because The Sun too couldn't come up with anything of interest.

But there again, why should we expect pop stars to be interesting simply cos they've made a record? Surely, that's why they're making records: because they have no other way of communication. I never used to read interviews in the days I bought the press, knowing that was the least interesting part of the papers. Times haven't changed. Muscians are still some of the dullest kids on the block.

Coldplay are really nice people though. Still... their lack of good interview might explain the music.

"I'm not a bedroom geek, no, I like GURLS, I do!"

Although I guess he did have plenty to say, it wasn't worth saying. Music's good, though.

Where does most of yer writing appear these days, BTW?

xoxo

xoxo

My writing doesn't appear anywhere nowadays. Why do you think I'm conrtibuting to this? (Got a new book out though next week. S'pose my publishers would want me to mention that.)

You journos sharp-focus on bursting (or maybe taking control of) the pop star-as-icon myth. And you have editorial control, no wonder our defenses are up.

As for the great lyrics/dumb talking - you have all the time in the world to work on lyrics in private, while speaking in interview is spontaneous.

>> -- Lyra

I've seen theorists propose the existence of different types of intelligence--emotional, spatial, etc. Seems to me it's not unlikely that a person could be brilliant in music and less so in verbal skills.

Of course, part of it might be that they steep themselves so much in music, perhaps talking mostly to other musicians about music, that they simply don't know that much about non-music topics. (I have no intent of ranking on him for this, but Travis Morrison last night was out of his depths when he tried to do a Fugazi-style rant about local politics. His heart was in the right place, but the results were cringeworthy.)

Perhaps they don't take chatting about the world with Joe Sycophant from Rolling Stone as seriously as Jackson Browne might? It's not like their fans fucking READ, anyway.

Did anyone read the interview with the Rock in Rolling Stone? All of a sudden, with no context at all, the writer writes something about how the Rock always wakes up with morning wood. It's like a separate paragraph, with no quotes or anything. It might have been the most jarring thing I've ever read.

I wouldn't call Timabland's interviews stupid, but he's incredibly difficult and insane on them. Witness the wire interview where he complains about the description of his snares as "clean" and insists on how dirty they are, then starts talking about ppl ripping him. Beck interviewed him for Interview magazine and it degenerated into the two of them just shooting the shit.

Snoop's verbal gymnastics have never been that coherent on record either, mind you. Remember with Brian Wilson that the man burnt his brain out on drugs and used to interview quite normally before. Howabout the would-be-insane artists who give quite average interviews?