Interviews

Earlier this year I spoke to Ben Elton. What a dream. I shared the audio as an episode of my podcast. But there was also a transcript and written piece (for my Sounds Good newsletter). So if you missed that at the time I offer it up here now.

I feel like Ben Elton’s work – the very best of it – has been with me my entire life. I watched The Young Ones before I really knew quite what was going on, then when I knew exactly what was going on I I watched it again – and again! Same with the Blackadders. Then there’s the books. Those hilarious early novels that send up various genres, that get very clever very quickly and the page-turning hurtles – to a run of biting satirical works addressing social media and insta-celeb culture (he’s still returning to that as a subject, as his very latest novel shows). But in and around that historical fiction, the stand-up sets – and then one of several rebirths, creator of rock’n’roll musicals, director of films. I mean where do you start when Ben Elton is on the line? Read More »

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November 28, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

“I Don’t Mean To Be The Most Irritating Person On The Planet” – Jaz Coleman Celebrates Himself On Record and Whenever and Wherever He Can

Jaz Coleman has a brand new album out – the wondrous Magna Invocatio recorded with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra – put simply it is his “Killing Joke Symphony”, a follow-up to successful orchestral rearrangements of classic rock acts including Pink Floyd, The Doors and The Rolling Stones. It was time to turn inward, to take his own music as leader of Killing Joke and make a symphony from it; the two sides of his musical personality, the two worlds he’s inhabited, finally coming together.
Read More »

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February 18, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

He likes Doing It. He Likes Being It: The Overseer of The Architecture of Songs – “I Wanted To Be A Filmmaker Anyway” – Alejandro Escovedo on Trump, his new album, overcoming “That Disease” and then the songs, the music, the influence of his family, the connection, the gift…

Alejandro Escovedo is a songwriter’s songwriter – people like Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and Bob Dylan reference him among their favourites – not only that, he has backstory that would make you want to get on board anyway. Maybe even if his own music wasn’t super-great, which it is and has been across the last quarter-century. His enviable talent was nurtured early. The son of Mexican migrants to Texas, he is part of a musical dynasty that includes his brothers Coke and Pete (percussionists for Santana) and niece Sheila E. He played in a punk band that opened for The Sex Pistols. And in 2003, having lived with Hepatitis C for many years already, he collapsed on stage. An all-star tribute album (featuring John Cale, Son Volt, Steve Earle, The Jayhawks, Jennifer Warnes and many others) helped raise awareness and money – when Alejandro returned to the stage and to the recording studio it was with, perhaps miraculously, a renewed focus. A sharper pen. Even better songs. He already had a fearsome catalogue of albums. In recent years he’s newly married and has finally got his health back in check, working hard once again and feeling great. Read More »

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July 10, 2017 by Simon Sweetman

“Keeping It Interesting Is No Issue”: On Steve Gunn Finding His Voice/s

Steve Gunn, American guitar wizard – one of many exciting talents currently cutting their own path away from the early influence of John Fahey – says that once he discovered music he “kinda gave up everything else that was going on as a kid”. He was born in Pennsylvania and grew up in Philadelphia – a fan of punk and hardcore. From there his tastes and talents extended out to the psychedelic jam-band vision of The Grateful Dead via the sprawling, exploratory folk-jazz of Fahey, Sandy Bull and others. Gunn, formerly a member of Kurt Vile and The Violators, has over the last half decade released a handful of records with bands, as a collaborator and solo artist that roll out his pastoral folk and indie rock in the entwined ball that he presents them.

Ask him about contemporaries – William Tyler, Ryley Walker and Cian Nugent (just a small list of names) and he’s buzzing with adjectives to describe how brilliant they all are; how important they are in and of the scene and how “those guys you named are all friends, all people I’ve followed, got to know, played with and all guys who I think are just amazing – and yeah, I guess we’re all doing our own different version of a set of sounds we’ve all heard at different times in our lives, all putting our own sounds together and finding our way”. Read More »

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May 7, 2017 by Simon Sweetman

My Tony Levin Interview: Q&A

Tony Levin is perhaps best known for his work with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson but he has appeared on over 500 albums. He has worked with Lou Reed and our own Tim Finn; with James Taylor and Carly Simon. He even appears in Paul Simon’s cult film, One Trick Pony.

Over a series of emails I asked Levin some questions ahead of his 2010 visit to New Zealand for activities at this week’s G-TARanaki Festival. Levin wrote at length about his times with Crimson and Gabriel, told me that he considered Tim Finn “an amazing talent”, saying the one short tour he completed with Finn was a joy. “He’s a great guy to be with and great both in the studio and live, maybe even more of a talent in the live arena.” That’s not Levin’s only connection with New Zealand (and no, I didn’t ask if he had been to our Levin).

Tony has toured here with Peter Gabriel, “he had us go out on boats after our show; a few days of ocean fun!” He also visited New Zealand in a non-touring capacity for some time out after Australian shows (“I just wanted to check it out”).

Read More »

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May 1, 2017 by Simon Sweetman

Talking With A Living Legend: The Aaron Neville Interview

Aaron Neville is 76 years old. He is – in so many ways – a giant of American music. Aaron Neville is the owner of a distinctive voice – one that soars, almost implausibly – at least in the sense that it does not look like it comes from its owner. It’s a voice that has been put to stunning use on a range of material as Neville has managed parallel careers as a solo artist and with the family band, The Neville Brothers.

He owns a voice that is as capable and confident singing Ave Maria as it is Everybody Plays The Fool. There are so many songs that he has made his own – from soul classics like Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come to folk songs from the pen of Bob Dylan (With God On Our Side); taking on weighty words from Leonard Cohen and soul/funk classics by The Temptations. Read More »

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October 17, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

The John Waters Interview: From The Archives

I have John Waters on the line, cult film-maker, writer, visual artist, collector and curator, journalist, raconteur and lifelong music fan. His voice, that unmistakable purr, camp but measured, a highbrow hick so happy to talk. The subject/s? Anything. Everything. He’s back in his home. Baltimore. The only place John Waters could come from. We know that now. Due to his work; forever referencing the place – casting it as a character in his films, writing about it with fondness; always a twinkle in his eye, that twinkle poured out through his “voice” on the page and on the stage.

John Waters will make his first New Zealand appearances next month. He will perform his spoken-word show, This Filthy World, in Auckland and Wellington. Read More »

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October 16, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

One Meat – Two Interviews: Interviewing Meat Loaf Twice in One Month

Interview 1:

It was going to be so easy. I was chatting with Meat Loaf. He had a new album to talk about, sure, and we would do that.

But surely we’d also get to Bat Out Of Hell – love it or hate it, the album is huge. And then there’s the acting work, quirky roles in such classics as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club…Roadie…

Meat Loaf was in New Zealand for two days, early in March. He was playing his new album, Hang Cool Teddy Bear, to selected media folk in Auckland. And doing a few interviews. One TV crew presented him with a meatloaf. The man born Marvin Lee Aday is a vegetarian. Read More »

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February 25, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

Emailing a Mummy: The Garage-Rockers That Put The Band in Bandages Will Answer Your Questions If They’re Just Dumb Enough

The Mummies don’t want to do interviews. They don’t want to update their Facebook page – or Twitter account. They don’t hashtag #every #fucking #thing. But they do get together still to play some dirty rock’n’roll and garage/surf tunes. And they’re playing their first New Zealand shows in March – Auckland’s Whammy Bar on Saturday, March 12 and Wellington’s Bodega on Sunday, March 13, click right here for tickets/info.

There’s lots of good clips – and not so good clips (depends how you look at it I guess) of them doing their thing on the YouTube but check out this show if you don’t already know what The Mummies do. It’s going to be a blast to see them. And hear them. And feel them. Read More »

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February 23, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

Rock music is freedom, the Eagles are shit, John Key’s a liar and we’re getting what we put up with – which is why we’re getting shit; Jaz Coleman talks…and talks…

I’ve interviewed Jaz Coleman once before. So when it comes to the worlds of this Killing Joke frontman, industrial music pioneer, post-punk godfather, record producer and classical composer, conductor and arranger, well, I know the score. I remind him of this, and he cuts me off by saying, “Yes, yes, I know who you are, bloody BBQ Reggae, fantastic man. I know who you are…BBQ Reggae, fucking John Key’s soundtrack…”

So, we’re off… Read More »

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October 16, 2015 by Simon Sweetman

The Joan Baez Connection/s: Just a Few Minutes to Talk About a Lifetime of So Many Little Victories

Joan Baez is on the line, time off in Brisbane – she’s just walked around the “beautiful botanical gardens, on a gorgeous day” – and after her Australian shows she’s here in New Zealand. I don’t really know where to start because I’m talking to Joan Baez. The Joan Baez who was so crucial in assisting Bob Dylan as he assimilated with the folk movement then towered above it, Joan Baez who marched on the front lines of the Civil Rights protests and was chosen by Dr. Martin Luther King as song-serenading siren, her “voice of an angel” providing the lullabies needed so the good doctor could get some rest before making his I Have A Dream speech. Read More »

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March 12, 2015 by Simon Sweetman

The Quiet Kid, The Introvert: Sharon Van Etten and Her Emotionally Resonant Songs

Sharon Van Etten tells me she feels “blessed” to have a career; she’s “incredibly lucky” by her reckoning. And the last year, the last two years even, provided “more pinch yourself moments” than Van Etten could have ever dreamed of, growing up in New Jersey, a record-obsessed, introverted diarist.

“It’s funny”, she says, not laughing, “I moved to New York ten years ago to get some guidance – I was hoping, naively, for some help; to intern and get some experience, to try to better myself as a songwriter and to spend some time with music, with other musicians and with people that know about music. What I didn’t expect out of it was to be here talking to people about my music now; to be touring, to be making records – to have a career”. Read More »