You have practiced your instrument, worked out, put piercings and ink in the most (and the least) prominent places, and checked through the stills of the photo shoots to find the position of your head and butt that best displays them. You’ve practiced hard with the band. You can throw your microphone stand in the air and nonchalantly catch it as if you hadn’t practiced it 7,000 times in front of a mirror. But have you given any thought to giving a better, longer interview?

First, understand that this is your job. You need to practice and prepare just like a good comedian riffs on certain ideas, bounces them around a bit, then tries them out on a small audience before deciding if it should be included in a regular set. You need to treat your interviews the same way.

Research
Look at all of the magazines and websites within your genre. Get to know the main journalists/contributors and reviewers. Who are the up-and-comers? Start to read what they have to say. You’ll be better prepared for their style of interview and it will help you find a way in or, during an interview, a way out. It will also help you better target the press kit packages you are sending out.

Imagine some of the questions you might be asked and think about your answers.

What if you read the interview, but it was from an artist you don’t particularly like? Would you think: “I still don’t like this guy, but he made some interesting comments” or “Wow, this guy really is a dick!?” Be prepared to deal creatively and graciously with anyone’s questions even if they demonstrate a basic lack of knowledge of your band. They’re still there (either in front of you, at the other end of a phone line, or being transmitted through a computer terminal) and interested enough to ask.

Interviewers
You might have a very nervous interviewer. You don’t want a freak-out and a two-question, three minute interview. Think about helping the interviewer through the process so you can get what you need; 20 questions and two pages in the college paper.

With a more experienced interviewer, it’s a poker game. You need to be thinking about where they’re taking the interview, anticipating, realizing that all of their questions are designed to reinforce a pre-conceived idea of what you are all about so that they can have an arty, clever piece in their paper. You have to block and then steer carefully without showing your ‘tell.’

You need to be comfortable with the basics so your mind can bounce around, see what’s around the corner, and come up with the creative insights for which you will surely become known. You need to be doing all of this whilst looking at the clock (because you’ve got four other interviews scheduled and you still haven’t sound checked) but not appearing as if you’re in a hurry. Keep a mental track of the cool phrases and ideas you are floating. You don’t want to keep repeating the same themes to every interviewer in each city – spread it around.

Practice
Never turn down an interview with anybody. Even a shoddy interview with an ill-prepared interviewer from a tiny fanzine in the middle of nowhere is practice for you and more column inches than none.

Another reason to practice is the same reason that you practice stage moves in the rehearsal room before you’re on stage – you don’t want to look like a complete ass when you land on your hole, physically, mentally, verbally, and musically. You want to realize that you sound like a complete prick at two o’clock in the morning listening back to the micro-cassette recording of your fake interview. Not when you are reading your half-page interview in the latest copy of your favorite magazine. The former is fixable; the latter is not.

Have a Purpose
You need to decide what your message and purpose is and be sure to hit those points during the interview no matter what the questions are. For example:

Interviewer: You guys drive a vehicle that runs on vegetable oil?
Band: Yeah, it’s really amazing and saved us a lot of money, thank God – because the studio we used on the new album was soooo expensive.

Interviewer: So, you guys have been to Japan?
Band: Yes, it was crazy. We lost the lyrics for the new album and had to have them faxed over to us so they could be translated for one of the four different covers that we are giving away…

Interviewer: We have to stop the interview, my head is on fire.
Band: That’s exactly how I felt when the drummer joined the band – it was so right my head was tingling.

Interviewer (from Knitting Magazine): Err…
Band: That’s why I feel an affinity with your readers – they do amazing things with wool. We’re weaving a sweater made of musical notes and words. Both things give you a warm feeling in the tummy.

Interviewer (Train Enthusiast Monthly): Err…
Band: The band IS a train, fueled by the coal of ideas and excitement – every city is a station on our track to success. Yeah sure, sometimes there’s a tree on the tracks or a problem with the signals, but we just have to deal with it.

Interviewer: I’m from FOX news.
Band: Hundreds or twenties?

It’s your job to get what you need from the interview. Not to complain because the interviewer was lame – that’s lame. What – I’m lame, you’re lame, you lame, lame-o, lame-o-llama! Lame-o-pallooza? Last Temptation of Lame-O… (See? Keep practicing and you’ll be a master wordsmith, too).

Lame-o.

The only thing that communicates and cuts through the crap is being honest. Anyway, after awhile, you’ll be too tired to remember all of the lies about you and Burt Bacharach… But in order to be honest and project the answers you want to give, you have to be comfortable – not just in your chair, in your skin. Have a look around inside that bag of stuff between your spiky hair and your horribly smelly feet – you’ll be glad you did… eventually…




…lame-o.