This is the first in a series of How To features we’re going to run… on topics that are helpful to musicians but not your run-of-the-mill “how to play like Hendrix.”
Let’s start with something close to my heart … let’s say you want to interview your favorite musician. Whether it’s John Mayer or your Grandpa Jeb, here are some tips. This is probably no-brainer stuff to writers who do interviews for a living, but hopefully it’s helpful to some of you.
First, figure out why you’re doing the interview in the first place. Are you hoping to write an article for a magazine? Are you hoping to do a podcast? Do you just need some content for your blog? Perhaps you just want to chronicle your local music scene’s history or learn more about a piece of gear? In the perfect world, you’ll get a great interview that will work for any of the above, but it helps to plot out your needs before you do anything else and shape your interview (and your requirements) around that.
Next, you have to track down your subject and actually get a commitment to do the interview. In the old days, you’d have to do your research, call a record label, figure out who your subject’s publicist was, sell yourself (and your outlet) to them and beg for some time. After doing all that, they’d probably say no. Heck, sometimes you still have to go through all this!
Today, thanks to social networking, things are a bit easier. If you don’t personally know your subject, you can often contact your favorite musician directly via their Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook page. You can explain your case and, with any luck, they may agree to talk to you. It always helps to put yourself in your subject’s shoes: can your blog post or article help them sell tickets to their forthcoming show? Is there a way your little interview will go viral and help promote their favorite cause? Most well-known musicians are extremely busy, so just be prepared for a refusal (or no response at all) and don’t take it personally. Move on.
Now let’s say you were granted an interview. Congratulations! Before you actually do the interview, do your research. Do you have questions about specific albums or instruments? Start compiling them and then do Google searches. Have your questions been asked and answered before? If so, consider scrapping them and looking for the holes and gaps that haven’t been asked before. Do a Google image search and a YouTube search: perhaps you’ll see moments in your subject’s life that haven’t been talked about a lot before and that are ripe for discussion. And, if you’re going to be pressed for time during the interview (and you usually are), it may be more interesting to focus on just one facet of their career or era than to try to get a whole career overview going in ten minutes.
Have the questions you want to ask committed to memory, even if you’re going to be writing them down as a back up (always a good idea). Good, confident interviewers get the quotes they need but also put their subject at ease… it’s a conversation as much as it is an interview.
If you’re going to do the interview in-person, get a good digital recorder. Good doesn’t need to be expensive, mind you. There are some great deals on simple one and two-track digital recorders from Tascam, Zoom, Olympus and others out there that start at under a hundred dollars. You’ll want something with decent internal mics and something that will let you move the audio files to your computer. Yes, some old-school journalists use shorthand and just write out answers, but high-quality, digitally-recorded quotes are like gold… you can repurpose them in podcasts, as video narration, etc. And, unlike a piece of paper with scribbles, you’ll have a permanent archive of your interview that you can go back to if there are any questions.
No matter what device you use, learn how to use it before you’re anywhere near your subject. Learn its quirks, its battery life, the best places to put your subject in relation to the mic, etc. This is all important. Yes, you can also just shoot a video interview, too… the important thing is to be able to set up your recorder as soon as possible with as little fidgeting as possible, and then walk away and be able to conduct your interview. Around here, I use the Zoom H4n (shown). It’s frankly overkill for most interviews and it can really eat through batteries if I’m using an external mic (which isn’t that often) but I know it’s quirks and I haven’t shelled out the big bucks yet for my next recorder (likely to be a beautiful Sound Devices 552).
If you’re going to do the interview via phone, I recommend using Skype (even if you join it just for the month when you’re doing the interview) and getting a software plug-in like Audio Hijack Pro to record the Skype call. A Skype-to-landline phone conversation sounds a lot better than most landline-to-landline conversations unless you have pricey radio station-grade recording equipment. All you need is a decent connection to the internet, a headset and you’re in business. It’s okay if the subject doesn’t use Skype and calls in from their home/cell line but if they have Skype, all the better.
OK, it’s interview time. Be prompt and on-time and professional. Don’t fawn over your subject, don’t tell them how much a certain album or concert meant to you. They’ve heard it all before. They’ll learn, you hope, over the course of the interview just how much of an aficionado you are by all the smart questions you’re asking. It may be helpful to verbally outline, before you get too far into it, what you hope to be talking to him/her about, just to prepare them. Explain the stuff that you hope to cover. And when you think they’ve finished responding to a question, pause a few seconds to see if they elaborate on what they just said. Sometimes these are your best quotes.
Even if you hate the latest project of your subject, show them some respect and ask about it. An artist’s latest project is most likely the one closest to their heart… they’ve been slaving over it. Again, just do your best to get unique quotes that aren’t already printed all over the internet and in every magazine under the sun.
Go at a good pace; don’t get bogged down in minutia unless your interview is about minutia. Never waste a subject’s time with stuff that you can’t imagine using in the actual, soon-to-be-published interview. Their time is precious and they’re helping you out with this thing. Help them out back. When you have what you need, thank them for their time and leave.
After you have a few interviews under your belt, you’ll get a finer sense of pacing and timing. Some questions are just dead ends (perhaps the subject doesn’t want to talk about it or has forgotten) and you learn to move on. Sometimes things need to be elaborated upon and it takes a gentle nudging to get your great quotes. Every subject is different. Heck, sometimes the same subject is different depending on the time of day and what they had for lunch!
When you’re conducting an interview, assume that you won’t get to do a follow-up interview. Even if you’ve been running into Eric Clapton at the local laundromat for the last few weeks, there is no telling that he’ll be back next week with his dirty socks. Assume every interview is your one shot to get your quality content. If you’re granted fifteen minutes, make the most of those fifteen minutes. You’ll be glad later that you did. Artists can be difficult to pin down once…twice can be nearly impossible!
When you’re done, you’re done. Try to take a snapshot of the moment if you have a camera (it’ll look great on your blog) and move on.
Transcribing: here’s everyone’s least favorite part of interviewing, getting the quotes typed up. You can do this manually by listening back to the tracks or you can outsource this to a transcriber. You’ll of course want to double-check any spellings and names that could be confusing, as well as dates (your subject’s memory may be a bit foggy about certain things…always helps to double-check things).
Last but not least, you have to finish the thing and do something with it. I can’t overstate this one enough. As a lot, writers (and even wannabe writers), can be real procrastinators. So publish that interview you did, even if that means just posting it online for the world to see for free. We look forward to seeing it.