Over Easy:”What Comes First, the Words or the Lyrics?”
“So what comes first, the words or the lyrics?”
Working at MuchMusic meant a steady diet of interviews with artists of all genres, from Mötley Crüe to Enya and Phyllis Diller to Steve Earle, sometimes all in one week. It meant lots of research, which I loved doing, because it made me feel more secure going into the interview. And these were rarely breezy 5 minutes and done sit-downs. We went on; in my case at times, on and on. At first, I gave the interviewees too much slack out of respect and a desire to please; at other times I’d ask smartypants questions hoping to impress a Peter Gabriel.
Eventually, I grew some discipline and directed the flow more efficiently. I found the confidence to ask George Harrison why he allowed “Something” to be used in a car commercial. To Leonard Cohen, I quoted the Montreal concert reviewer, who remarked that he had all the charm of a small-town undertaker. I’m not sure where the chutzpah came from to tell John Waters that I’d convinced a group of friends to go to one of his early films and that I was still working on getting their friendship back! He laughed heartily, which is what I was hoping for.
In Canada we can boast some truly great interviewers - Barbara Frum, Peter Gzowski and Brian Linehan come to mind. For a long time, pop music interviews were pretty tame – canned answers to rote questions about the album, the tour , the new guitar player with at least one testimonial to how much they loved their fans. Yawn.
Sometimes the mold got broken, like when Dick Cavett interviewed Jimi Hendrix. With Letterman came the era of the at-times-antagonistic interviewer, always looking for the laugh first, at least until Cher put him in his place, calling him an “asshole”.
The quality of the exchange was often based on the context – a prime time Oprah interview differed from what Terry Gross at NPR offered. Check out the latter’s duel with Gene Simmons. In Canada, “The New Music” peeled back the veils on the life of the rock star, usually with their collaboration. Much inherited their fearless approach to interviewing, adding a large helping of irreverence as we happily took our subjects to the rooftop, the sub-basement or the street to interact with the fans waiting outside.
Much had a whole other element in their artist interviews, something that can only work if you’re live. It was that giddy randomness of engaging the artist in something wacky with their full complicity. It wasn’t those staged ‘Artist X takes over the show' type of things, although we had lots of those with Weird Al, the Bon Jovi BBQ or Sandra Bernhard sabotaging the rock flash segment.
It was the disrupters who thrived in the setting at 299 Queen Street, the heirs to Don Rickles surprising Sinatra on the Tonight Show, bowing to him, kissing him and making mafia references, while Johnny just sat back and laughed.
Disruptions came from the many visits to the station by Crowded House, who were like a house band with their unplugged jams and loony interview responses. They also did their laundry at Erica’s place. Barenaked Ladies brought that same looseness. When Iggy Pop did an Intimate & Interactive special, at one point he climbed through the window out onto Queen Street, guitar in hand, to mingle with the fans and improvise a song about the city, while the crew scrambled to follow.
Things did go off the rails. Dee Snider of Twisted Sister tackled J.D. Roberts live on air, sending him tumbling over the console where a spike from Snider’s studded belt dug into J.D.’s elbow.
Kim Clarke Champniss had to endure being pelted with grapes by the disrupter-in-chief, Johnny Rotten, during an attempted Sex Pistols interview and Steve Anthony had to survive being threatened by Joey Ramone with scissors at his neck.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers always brought their own brand of chaos when they showed up (mics attached to nipples and a host of profanity for instance) and Duran Duran brilliantly exploited the wide open vibe of Much, on one occasion with water pistols and cake.
For me the kings of disruption were Motörhead, who were scheduled to be my co-hosts on The Power Hour. Philthy Phil and Lemmy arrived, each with their private 26 oz bottle of booze, which they downed steadily. The show deteriorated rapidly over the course of the hour, concluding with my “co-hosts” eating the life-sized poster we were giving away. The single from the album was co-incidentally called “Eat the Rich”.
