Interviews are crucial to a band. How a band or band member conducts themselves in an interview reflects upon them. These days, anyone can buy a digital voice recorder, a video camera, start a blog (see www.thegreatsouthernbrainfart.com), and/or post interviews to YouTube. This means that anything and everything you say in an interview will be out there floating around for any and every one to see, read, and/or hear. When it comes to representing your band in interviews, wouldn’t you want to do everything in your power to protect your band’s name, brand, and reputation?
Since starting The Great Southern Brainfart I have conducted interviews that run the spectrum of the good, the bad, and the downright awful. Trust me. I’ve done interviews with band members before and thought to myself, “I can’t believe they picked THIS guy to do interviews.”
If anything, I am going out on a limb and being a nice guy here. White Wizzard’s Jon Leon once told me that I was an asshole with an agenda. Well, this time around, my agenda is to make sure that both the interviewer and interviewee both have the best experience possible when doing an interview. Here are a few tips about conducting interviews to take in before the cameras and voice recorders start rolling.
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Tip 1: Don’t Drink and Talk
Watch this interview:
Even if your band’s songs and your overall vibe is all about partying and indulging, wouldn’t you want to use interviews as a way to show that there is more substance to you and your band than what most see? As a fan, if I’m watching an interview with your band and the person is so drunk that they can barely compose a literate sentence it’s more than likely that I’ll think you’re somewhat of an amateur and probably not the best person to be talking about your band. Then again, maybe you’re ok with your band being represented this way and if that’s the case, than have at it.
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Tip 2: Think Before You Speak! Remember That Everybody Is Watching
Going out on the road and putting out albums means hoping that you will get some press to help you spread the word. If you’re lucky, blogs, local papers, YouTube sites, and whatever else are going to want to talk to you. This is where you have the opportunity to reach a lot of people whether it is a site that gets 100 hits a day or a site that gets 100,000 hits a day. In this age of the internet, not only can you access more people but your band is now more accessible by people beyond your scope of imagination. This is a good thing but one must remember that you are being captured on a permanent medium.
Some people say things in interviews fueled by frustration, anger, and/or (again) just being piss drunk that they may not mean to say at that moment. If you’re out on the road and you give an interview where you talk about banging girls and doing drugs, your girlfriend, wife, or family members might not be overly stoked to read all about it and guess what? If you say it, it’s been capture. NO TAKE BACKS!
An interview is not the time for you to voice your frustrations. I’ve seen this kind of thing cause many a problem. Whether you feel that you’re not getting enough writing credit, if your singer slept with your girlfriend, or if you feel that your record label isn’t giving you enough support, this isn’t the place for you to slam anyone. Well, that is unless you are 100% sure that you are fine with the entire world knowing this and that you’re fine knowing it very well may get back to said party. Remembering that the world is your audience will work in your favor. If you’re extremely lucky you may find someone that would be willing to retract an interview for reasons like this but those are few and far between. Just remember that everyone is watching.
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Tip 3: Not In the Mood? Then Don’t Do It.
And finally, what if you’re not in the mood to do an interview? You’re sick. You’re exhausted. You’re hung-over. Then don’t do the interview. Either find someone else to do the interview for you or ask if you can do a phone interview at a later time. When I did an interview last year with Eric Peterson of Testament, no matter how hard I tried to engage him he just sounded like he’d rather be rolling down a hill of razorblades into a pool of rubbing alcohol than talking to me. Matter of fact, he was coming across as kind of a dick causing me to start cutting the interview short just to get it over with.
As the interview painfully went on, he admitted to me that he was severely hung-over from the DVD release party in Hollywood the night before. In this situation, had this been me, I would’ve cancelled these interviews so that I could’ve been on top of my game. I’m sure someone of Eric’s status though could probably care less how he comes across in interviews. As for bands on a more entry level looking to grow and progress I would hope that they would see the importance of being on top of your game before doing an interview.
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There you have it Fartheads. Just a little bit of wisdom from the mouth of the Brainfart. I hope everyone reading this will get something out of this. I would love to hear feedback from other writers and bands regarding this topic and to see if anyone else has anything to add to this list. I would like to think of this piece as a resource that could and hopefully will be helpful to any band who gives this a read. Take it or leave it, I’m just an asshole with an agenda.
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