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Born to Rock author Todd Taylor
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Jan 12, 2005
As a founding father of the music magazine Razorcake, Todd Taylor knows how to interview a band. Now he’s collected his favorite interviews into one book called Born to Rock.
Buy Born to Rock here
Daniel Robert Epstein: Your tattoo on the cover of the book looks like it hurt like hell to get.
Todd Taylor: It fucking did. With the stomach you can’t isolate a muscle out like you can do with your arm. All your muscle groups go laterally right there and it’s new pain every ten seconds. It took six sessions to get it done. In fact one guy was learning how to tattoo with my stomach. I highly suggest you don’t get a tattoo on our stomach.
DRE:
I have no tattoos and I don’t have any desire to get one even though people are always surprised to learn I don’t have them.
TT:
The book cover is weird because some people can’t believe it’s me. I’m not a guy without his shirt very much so I’m not oiled down and flexing a lot.
DRE:
Was there any special reason you went after an interview on SuicideGirls?
TT:
I’ve met a few SuicideGirls. Annie from Los Angeles knows Ben from one of our bands, Snake Pit. Ben came into LA and him and Annie came over. I had seen the website a few times and it made sense. No master scheme.
DRE:
Were you nervous at all about doing a book that has interviews with certain bands that no one has heard of?
TT:
In a way we stuck our neck out and said, these bands aren’t going to be as big as the Sex Pistols or Green Day but it doesn’t really fucking matter. If you make it good then it will last. We don’t have to have this widespread appeal that’s going to sell thousands of books. It just has to be something honest and good. There are a lot of people who can put out this kind of book if they just had the wherewithal.
There are some bigger bands that I’ve interviewed but I wanted each one to stand by itself. The reason I interview these people is because they are in bands but the reason I picked the ones I did for the book is because I think they tell good stories. I thought the interview with The Thumbs was a really good story when they talked about the Sprague Dawley Rats where they genetically bred these rats for laboratories. That’s how that song of theirs came about so I thought it was great. I would say that only about 2000 people know who The Thumbs are even though they are a really good band. But I wanted the interviews I liked the most in the book.
DRE:
Did you take out all the stuff that was timely in each interview?
TT:
I went back and took out stuff like “How is your summer tour going?” and things like that.
DRE:
Did you go back to the original tapes of the interviews?
TT:
I didn’t go back to the original tapes because I spend a lot of time getting it right the first time. What I do is I transcribe an interview then save that raw file and I’ll start cleaning it so if I have any questions I’ll go back to that original raw file. Just because I started doing this when computers were shit I’m a really good archivist so I have everything on CDs.
DRE:
I didn’t realize that Razorcake was big enough to have its own publishing arm.
TT:
We’ve been doing the books since the very beginning but it’s definitely picked up steam recently. Sean [Carswell], who is my partner, went to grad school with me, we both taught together so we didn’t want to betray ourselves. We read a lot and listen to a lot of music. It’s just balancing both of those things.
DRE:
Did you write a lot of new material for the book?
TT:
I wrote two brand new things specifically for the book. But I rewrote all the intros to the interviews. The funny thing is I added too much stuff. It was almost 600 pages so doing the editing was painful. We didn’t want to throw a tome out there. So we split it up and now I’m working on the second book which is going to be mostly essays and some interviews.
DRE:
A lot of the criticism that is thrown at web journalism is dead on like bad research and generic questions. Do you think that web journalism has hurt the kind of work that you do?
TT:
That’s a tough question. The immediacy of writing something and how it can be displayed within nanoseconds to thousands of people is a new thing. I don’t know if it’s good or not. Some writers are really good but most aren’t. I really have a gestation period with my stuff. I write it, sit on it, look at it again then give it to someone else and then write it again. I think a lot of it does suffer from the immediacy where things have to get done so quickly that you don’t have those checks and balances. I think research has gone to shit also.
DRE:
What’s the band you got the drunkest with?
TT:
It would have to be Tiltwheel and we’re talking about being drunk for two weeks straight. We would buy 30-pack at noon and by 3 pm it would all be gone. By the end of the two weeks we must have drunk a thousand beers amongst four people. They’re aren’t vicious drunks either but happy drunks. They can still kill live when they’re wasted.
DRE:
In the book you mention how you started off doing this for free.
TT:
Well even now Razorcake just breaks even. We spend a lot of money reinvesting in ourselves like with equipment. Both Sean and I have worked shitty jobs for most of our lives so to have something to reinvest into is exciting.
DRE:
You’ve gotten some pretty good reviews for the book. Have you read any of them?
TT:
Yeah, I’ve been pleased and surprised. I feel gratified. Razorcake has covered so many things that it feels good to make something that makes people react positively.
DRE:
I really liked the chapter on how to do an interview. Did you keep notes on what worked or did it just congeal all in one article?
TT:
I had some notes but mostly it just came together. At the very beginning I kept pretty detailed notes on what worked and what didn’t. I felt I should give people the tools if they are interested in doing this.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
As a founding father of the music magazine Razorcake, Todd Taylor knows how to interview a band. Now he’s collected his favorite interviews into one book called Born to Rock.
Buy Born to Rock here
Daniel Robert Epstein: Your tattoo on the cover of the book looks like it hurt like hell to get.
Todd Taylor: It fucking did. With the stomach you can’t isolate a muscle out like you can do with your arm. All your muscle groups go laterally right there and it’s new pain every ten seconds. It took six sessions to get it done. In fact one guy was learning how to tattoo with my stomach. I highly suggest you don’t get a tattoo on our stomach.
DRE:
I have no tattoos and I don’t have any desire to get one even though people are always surprised to learn I don’t have them.
TT:
The book cover is weird because some people can’t believe it’s me. I’m not a guy without his shirt very much so I’m not oiled down and flexing a lot.
DRE:
Was there any special reason you went after an interview on SuicideGirls?
TT:
I’ve met a few SuicideGirls. Annie from Los Angeles knows Ben from one of our bands, Snake Pit. Ben came into LA and him and Annie came over. I had seen the website a few times and it made sense. No master scheme.
DRE:
Were you nervous at all about doing a book that has interviews with certain bands that no one has heard of?
TT:
In a way we stuck our neck out and said, these bands aren’t going to be as big as the Sex Pistols or Green Day but it doesn’t really fucking matter. If you make it good then it will last. We don’t have to have this widespread appeal that’s going to sell thousands of books. It just has to be something honest and good. There are a lot of people who can put out this kind of book if they just had the wherewithal.
There are some bigger bands that I’ve interviewed but I wanted each one to stand by itself. The reason I interview these people is because they are in bands but the reason I picked the ones I did for the book is because I think they tell good stories. I thought the interview with The Thumbs was a really good story when they talked about the Sprague Dawley Rats where they genetically bred these rats for laboratories. That’s how that song of theirs came about so I thought it was great. I would say that only about 2000 people know who The Thumbs are even though they are a really good band. But I wanted the interviews I liked the most in the book.
There are some bigger bands that I’ve interviewed but I wanted each one to stand by itself. The reason I interview these people is because they are in bands but the reason I picked the ones I did for the book is because I think they tell good stories. I thought the interview with The Thumbs was a really good story when they talked about the Sprague Dawley Rats where they genetically bred these rats for laboratories. That’s how that song of theirs came about so I thought it was great. I would say that only about 2000 people know who The Thumbs are even though they are a really good band. But I wanted the interviews I liked the most in the book.
DRE:
Did you take out all the stuff that was timely in each interview?
TT:
I went back and took out stuff like “How is your summer tour going?” and things like that.
DRE:
Did you go back to the original tapes of the interviews?
TT:
I didn’t go back to the original tapes because I spend a lot of time getting it right the first time. What I do is I transcribe an interview then save that raw file and I’ll start cleaning it so if I have any questions I’ll go back to that original raw file. Just because I started doing this when computers were shit I’m a really good archivist so I have everything on CDs.
DRE:
I didn’t realize that Razorcake was big enough to have its own publishing arm.
TT:
We’ve been doing the books since the very beginning but it’s definitely picked up steam recently. Sean [Carswell], who is my partner, went to grad school with me, we both taught together so we didn’t want to betray ourselves. We read a lot and listen to a lot of music. It’s just balancing both of those things.
DRE:
Did you write a lot of new material for the book?
TT:
I wrote two brand new things specifically for the book. But I rewrote all the intros to the interviews. The funny thing is I added too much stuff. It was almost 600 pages so doing the editing was painful. We didn’t want to throw a tome out there. So we split it up and now I’m working on the second book which is going to be mostly essays and some interviews.
DRE:
A lot of the criticism that is thrown at web journalism is dead on like bad research and generic questions. Do you think that web journalism has hurt the kind of work that you do?
TT:
That’s a tough question. The immediacy of writing something and how it can be displayed within nanoseconds to thousands of people is a new thing. I don’t know if it’s good or not. Some writers are really good but most aren’t. I really have a gestation period with my stuff. I write it, sit on it, look at it again then give it to someone else and then write it again. I think a lot of it does suffer from the immediacy where things have to get done so quickly that you don’t have those checks and balances. I think research has gone to shit also.
DRE:
What’s the band you got the drunkest with?
TT:
It would have to be Tiltwheel and we’re talking about being drunk for two weeks straight. We would buy 30-pack at noon and by 3 pm it would all be gone. By the end of the two weeks we must have drunk a thousand beers amongst four people. They’re aren’t vicious drunks either but happy drunks. They can still kill live when they’re wasted.
DRE:
In the book you mention how you started off doing this for free.
TT:
Well even now Razorcake just breaks even. We spend a lot of money reinvesting in ourselves like with equipment. Both Sean and I have worked shitty jobs for most of our lives so to have something to reinvest into is exciting.
DRE:
You’ve gotten some pretty good reviews for the book. Have you read any of them?
TT:
Yeah, I’ve been pleased and surprised. I feel gratified. Razorcake has covered so many things that it feels good to make something that makes people react positively.
DRE:
I really liked the chapter on how to do an interview. Did you keep notes on what worked or did it just congeal all in one article?
TT:
I had some notes but mostly it just came together. At the very beginning I kept pretty detailed notes on what worked and what didn’t. I felt I should give people the tools if they are interested in doing this.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
