Testify - PSA on how not to do an interview.

OK folks, here is a good example of how not to do an interview (courtesy of one member of an unnamed touring band who I was interviewing this week). 

If someone sends you questions, try and say something interesting and at least feign interest. If I were to ask Neil Young what’s the story behind “Pocahontas”, the reply should be a bit more in depth than “The song is about Pocahontas.”   If someone asks you about bad shows or ideas that never took off, you are bullshitting when you say “all of our ideas have worked. every show is memorable.”  If Phil Campbell of Motorhead can laugh about making an ass of himself on stage, you can too.  A red flag should be that if the questions are longer than your answers, you are either pretty shallow, boring, or both.  

The idea of an interview like the kind I do here is to learn about the band - make them sound interesting - and, in doing so, promote the show.    If you don’t like being “being questioned about your motives and music… being categorized and analyzed” then don’t do interviews - that kind of the whole fucking point of an interview.  See, I send a few questions, you answer a few, I do a few follow ups, and I knock out a short introduction to frame why the band is worth people’s time and maybe together we help get the word out. If you can’t be bothered, just let me know and we can save us both a lot of time.  So here are the answers I got from a band playing this week combined with some questions from a Lemmy interview  because, really, like it matters.

FPH - Where did the name Orgasmatron come from?

Band - it started as a joke…. someone has an idea lyrics or music..then we just [went] from there.

FPH - So Orgasmatron has nothing to do with any Woody Allen movies then?

Band -well pimp c said atlanta isn’t the south..so it must be true. what? it doesn’t change our music at all.

FPH - Now that you’re 40 years old, do you get a lot of people that come up to you and say, “You’re 40 now, so why do you cultivate all this adolescent anti-establishment stuff? After all you’re making a good living, etc… ” How do you answer these types?

Band - Britney Spears piece of me…why not?  all of our ideas have worked. every show is memorable…we never wished we were at home…we don’t do laundry.

FPH - Is this the best incarnation of Motorhead yet?

Band -oh my god..yeahh. every show we play especially when younger kids are there. we played the first day of girls rock camp in austin one year and it was AMAZING.

FPH- I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about your lifestyle. Do you get a lot of grief about it?

Band - [we hate] being questioned about [our] motives and music… being categorized and analyzed. being asked about being a girl in a band… you know… stuff like that

FPH - Your lifestyle. Would you recommend it to kids?  It’s pretty well known that you have taken a lot of hard drugs…

Band - the best shows are the shows when we feel like shit..

FPH - Do people always read cosmic meanings into your lyrics?

Band - don’t touch my shit is about not touching our shit. getting mad and pumping iron is about getting mad and pumping iron. we have recorded every song we have wrote except this one about a killer robot drinking coffee…

FPH - What’s Motorhead really about as far as you’re concerned?

Band - everything. life.

Motorhead performs on July, 16, 2024 @ Hazerfan Airfield in Istanbul Turkey.  

by Guest Author