Damian's Advice on Interviewing People.

So a few days ago a friend of mine asked me for advice about doing interviews. She wanted to interview one of her favorite Musicians coming through her area and wanted my advice about how to do an interview. Thinking about it, I have no clue if i answered her questions, but this is the advice i came up with for her.


Hopefully it all makes sense as I've only eaten is toast and I probably had too much coffee... you be the judge. Let me know if any of you have any more questions, respond in the comments or email me at: damian(dot)burford(at)gmail(dot)com.

Maybe I'll respond with more from our exercises and what not.

So interviews, eh?

Well I really have no formal training outside of intro to Journalism class i took in high school and a the High School Tv Station I worked for, for one semester in school, back in Louisiana.

I simply read, and read, and read, and read interviews. Interviews with anyone and everyone. I always gravitated more towards reading interviews. Why? Who knows. I enjoy good conversations, maybe that's why. Maybe its because I was/am a weird little kid who instead of imaginary friends, I would sit around and interview my future rockstar self and I learned inevitably how to ask the questions for the answers i wanted to get.

My biggest piece of advice is to READ interviews. Find what you like, and what you don't like.

Me I HATE email interviews with Question- Answer. Question - Answer. Anyone can do that. Anyone can come up with questions... How do you make it flow? How do you make it entertaining? I of course have failed at this a number of times, but still, its what i try to do.

To prep for an interview I sit down and i try to read and read and read about the subject. I'll read pages and pages and pages of interviews, articles, reviews, videos, ect and as I'm reading other questions come up. I write them down. I also look for questions NOT getting asked.

I look at it this way. There are hundreds of interviews with musicians, artists, ect online. Anyone can do an interview with The Gaslight anthem and ask about Bruce Springsteen and his influence, and the problem is, it seems that that is what EVERY ONE is doing. Every single article is about that. Can you find another route? Another Spin? What questions are NOT being asked of these guys? What's going to make your interview different than the hundreds of other circulating the internet.

I've found that if i am a HUGE fan of a band/musician, the worse the interview, usually if i am detatched and unaware of the interviewie, I generally feel more free to ask questions, and in the same regard if i obsess over a band, I know everything, so it leaves me BLANK and not sure what to ask and the interviews are usually stale.

So usually the more detached I am, the better it goes, because its mostly FRESH for me. still new to the brain. So it kind of goes against everything i said before. haha. I did an interview with a the band, THE ERGS. It wasn't planned, but i met the guys before the show and I fell in love with them, and then they played and i knew i had to do it. I had to interview these guys. Little did i know then that they would go on to be the flag carriers of the new Pop-punk movement, I just really liked them and what they were doing. So i took what i knew from reading their myspace page and checking out their blogs, and from watching their set and jotted down a few questions, I think 10, and with the help of a few beers (It seems i do better the looser i am. same with dates. haha) and did a GREAT interview. The last time i saw them they talked about how it was one of the best interviews they had ever done. So there you go.

But it is not just you. Its also them. The more receptive the interviewee is to being interviewed, the better the interview. So i found that talking to the interviewee before the show, and chatting it up, letting them get a feel for you and vise versa can help. Small talk, bullshitting, showing you know who they are and their past works, and to a lesser extent, kissing their ass a little, will help immensely getting them to open up.

But its really all just trial an error. I look back at my first couple of years of interviews and they're ok. Not great. I see where i should have asked this question, or done this or done that. All you can really do is DO IT.

And the more fun the better, but its not just on you, its on them.

So how about an exercise? Interview Me.

This interview i did with Damian Willcox of Dorkboy Comics was done at the last minute via Email. You wouldn't know it by its tone, i had been emailing this guy back in forth for months before i did this "interview." We were "friends" so i could anticipate his answers and i tried to make the questions FLOW from one another to illustrate a conversation that wasn't really happening. check it out:

http://s599.photobucket.com/albums/tt78/dammitdamian/mh2/?action=view¤t=mostlyharmless2-11.jpg

http://s599.photobucket.com/albums/tt78/dammitdamian/mh2/?action=view¤t=mostlyharmless2-12.jpg

http://s599.photobucket.com/albums/tt78/dammitdamian/mh2/?action=view¤t=mostlyharmless2-13.jpg

So why not break your cherry interviewing me in this way. We know each other and we have a nice friendly smart ass rapor. Lets go with that. Ask me a few questions, i don't care about what. I'll write you back in about a year or two and haha we'll work on some stuff. If you're not interested in that? That's ok too. It was just an idea.