Most people think of an interview as two people meeting in person, perhaps getting a cup of coffee somewhere and having a conversation with a tape recorder between them, and having a casual conversation.

Actually, most of the time interviews are conducted over the phone (especially with the big names) and is a lot less romantic than you’d imagine. And sometimes, as was the case with Tenacious D, it becomes downright soulless.

It’s a fairly common practice: Famous Rock Band gets ready to go on tour. Famous Rock Band needs publicity for the tour. Famous Rock Band agrees to do interviews with the dozens of magazines and papers across the country. But Famous Rock Band is very busy, what with preparing to tour the universe and all that. They don’t have time to dawdle over cups of coffee with a tape recorder between them.

So the band – I mean the publicist -- picks a day that everyone in the band is available for interviews. Then, on the day in question they sit in a room for three to five hours and answer questions from journalists via conference calls. Each journalist gets, give or take, 15 minutes to pump out his best questions.

For Famous Rock Band, that can get very tiresome. In a four hour period they are bombarded with hundreds of questions – most of which are unoriginal and unexciting – and the pressure to answer those questions in a provocative way can wear thin after a few hours. Nobody can be funny and smart all the time.

My interview was scheduled in the morning – a great slot to be sure. But in a cruel twist of fate, I was switched around to the back of the line, like 3pm. When I finally got to them, they were done trying to be funny. They were done trying to be profound. They were probably hungry and probably annoyed.

They responded to each question with complete disinterest, and one-word answers. I detected that they were not particularly impressed by my questions -- Which really isn’t fair because fifteen minutes is not much time to explore beyond the universal questions.

TR: What do you consider a good interview?

ED: The more an interview seems not like an interview and more like a conversation, the more I like that interview. Since the interview, by its nature, is one-sided, it can never fully resemble a conversation. But the closer I get the better.

TR: What would you consider a bad interview?

Interviews can go bad for one of three reasons:

1) You blew it as the interviewer. Maybe you weren’t prepared, maybe you are a lousy interviewer, maybe you were off that day, or maybe you mis-prejudged the subject.

2) The subject is lame, uninteresting, un-profound, un-likeable – whatever.

3) You are both lame; as was the case with the Tenacious D interview.

In the Tenacious story, I’d say we were both not clicking.

Of course, that’s the rush, that at any time, the whole thing could go into the toilet, and you could have Jack Black -- or worse, Henry Rollins -- on the line telling you where to stick your tape recorder. Rollins told me that he once told an interviewer he was going to crawl through the phone line and beat him down.

Normally, what follows a bad interview is a bad story. The Tenacious D. story was for the cover. So I panicked when the interview went south. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a babbling nervous breakdown or anything. The interview was just dying and I had to save it. So I began saying things just to piss them off to make a story.

TR: What do you normally do when you get no cooperation and vague responses from someone? Do you pursue it or just say to yourself that they don’t deserve your time and energy?

ED: I pursue it because it’s still a challenge. I usually just start becoming argumentative and annoying. Not because I’m mad, but just to stir it up a bit – I mean, what do you have to lose at that point? The interview is already wasted. Besides, I enjoy argumentative interviews. My favorite was one that I had with Lieutenant Chris Ball of the San Diego Vice Department. He was one debatin’ muther hugger. I especially love getting into heated arguments with famous people. It’s like a badge of honor for me to upset someone more famous than me (which is nearly everybody). I’ve jawed with the best of ‘em – Warren Zevon, Wendy O’ Williams, Todd Rundgren, both Indigo girls -- when BB King called me arrogant or selfish or whatever it was, I walked out of the room with deep and everlasting pride. Same with Tenacious – At one point, near the end of the interview, which was just about flatlined, I called them a novelty band. Man, that woke them up. The interview started rolling then. But the publicist broke into the line and told us that time was up. It was a strict itinerary.

TR: Regarding Sordid Tales…. Are those true stories? I do admire your candor and willingness to tell exactly how it was.

ED: 95 percent of the stories in my Sordid Tales column are true. I am lucky enough to have had a lot of crazy, wild things happen to me in my life, and still be alive to write about them.

TR: Do the women ever come after you for what you wrote about them?

ED: I’ve never had any women come after me. But I remember when I had my first stalker. It was some nutty guy who kept phoning me and following me around. I was so excited. I told all my friends how I had my very own stalker.

But stalkers are yesterday’s news. Two weeks ago I got an almost death threat. At first I thought it was an actual death threat, and was so pleased with myself, because getting death threats are truly the big time.

The guy wrote, "I hope you die ASAP on an overdose you f*****g LOSER!!!"

Upon scrutiny, however, I realized that it wasn’t technically a death threat because he wrote "I HOPE you die," rather than something more proactive like, "I am going to kill you," which would have been a legitimate death threat.

Imagine my sadness. Beastie from Soulcracker had already had his death threat, Buddy Blue has his – and here I am, ten years of professional journalism in my resume, and still no death threats.

TR: We enjoyed your Alaska journals and now plan to run your Peru journals. Do you plan to have either published in hard copy in the near future?

ED: I have no plans of any kind. I am a lazy, unmotivated writer who hates the very nature of "plans." I’d rather watch TV than make a plan.

TR: What did you do in New York on your recent trip?

ED: Among other things, I visited the cavity that was the World Trade Center. I could not possibly say anything about that place, or that event, that you have not already heard. And the last thing I would do is recite some corny cliché for you. So all I will say is this . . . "Can’t we all just get along?"

J.M. Do you think San Diego has a great music life as far as entertainment in clubs and concerts?

ED: San Diego is an amazing city. I live here on purpose. But no city can have everything. We have weather and nature and an ocean, we just don’t have culture. Not as much, anyway, as say New York, or San Francisco, or Portland even.

That being said, there are some awe-inspiring bands that live and play in San Diego. The best clubs to see local original music around here is the Casbah, Winston’s, Blind Melon’s, the Tiki House, and now Canes which has really stepped it up lately.

J.M.: What about the writing environment and connections in San Diego?

ED: The guys who own the Pasadena Weekly and the Ventura County Reporter just bought out SLAMM magazine, the magazine in which my column appears. They are going to be a Weekly paper. Perhaps they are going to give the San Diego Reader a run for their money. I think there is room for alternative papers in this city. Time will tell. Mostly, I’m excited that my column will be weekly now.

Thanks Ed, I ‘m looking forward to your Peru Journals in RockyMountainReader.com and your new weekly column in that new City Beat. Your people have just told my people that my time is up. Byeeee.

J Allison Marlowe
Circa January 2002

For an older interview by Marlowe click here