If your subject is a reluctant interview, do everything in your power to get a drink into their hands. Alcohol liberates the tongue and blurs the time so that your allotted hour slips by unnoticed and stretches into six. Optimally, you should remain sober while your companion gets plastered, so as the evening progresses and your woozy new pal begins to spray your face with a light coating of spittle as he or she talks, surreptitiously switch to a mocktail. Around midnight, make a big show of “feeling dizzy” and wobble off to the bathroom, where you shut yourself in a stall and coolly take notes.
Only once did I deviate from my own advice, during a Lollapalooza tour stop in Atlanta. The bill was especially good that year: the Beastie Boys, the Breeders, L7, A Tribe Called Quest, Smashing Pumpkins, George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. I flew down to interrogate the Breeders’ Kim Deal for Rolling Stone’s special “Women in Rock” issue. I was to ask her the typically weighty questions that were posed to all participants: How has the role of women in rock changed over the last four decades? How are you affected by misogynistic lyrics in rock and hip-hop?
I met her backstage at the venue, where she sat on a battered couch in an oversized T-shirt and stained jeans, joking around with various crew members and musicians. As a former Pixie and member of the Breeders, Deal was one of my heroes. I loved the sound of her sweet, husky voice, and the way she smiled onstage as she played bass as though she was having the best time in the world.
Deal was perfectly friendly, but she was not in the mood to hold forth about being a victim of the patriarchy.
“So,” I said nervously, fumbling with my notebook. “I know that these aren’t the most freewheeling of questions, but maybe we can find a way to have a good time with them.”
Silence.
“Do you feel like there is a glass ceiling in the music industry?” I began.
She groaned. Everyone around her laughed. I tried another question.
“What effect has being a woman had on your music?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do I have to answer this now?”
I considered. “I guess not,” I said.
“Good,” she said, producing a bottle of vodka and taking a swig. “Let’s go see the Black Crowes. They’re playing on the second stage.” She held out the bottle. I glugged it down, figuring that I could get her to hold forth later, once she’d loosened up. After a few more lingering swigs, she jumped up, exhorting me to follow. We had to plunge into the crowd on our way to the smaller stage. As we waded through, a Gothy gang of teenage girls surrounded us, clamoring for autographs.
“I’m nobody,” I told them. “My signature is worthless.” They looked at me suspiciously, then, suspecting that I was simply being modest, shoved pens and paper at me with greater urgency. Feeling foolish, I signed as Deal smirked nearby. Then she’d had enough. “Come on!” she shouted, and dragged me back into the crowd. The Black Crowes were just tuning up. A few hands appeared out of the solid wall of fans in the audience, offering joints to us. Pot made me paranoid, tired, and hungry (three things I usually was, anyway), but, of course, I puffed away.
A publicist hurried over with beers for us, which stayed magically full, Alice in Wonderland–style, throughout the show. Joints! Beers! Crowes! Vodka! Joints! Beers! Crowes! Whoops, feeling a little dizzy. No, I’m fine, it’s cool. Just going to crouch here for a sec.
“Let’s go see the Beastie Boys,” Deal shouted over the cheering crowd as the Crowes’ set ended. She charged through the mob of fans with me in hot pursuit. She certainly seemed loose. I had to strike.
I paused on a stretch of lawn that ran between the stages, and shouted for her to stop. “Seriously,” I pleaded, pulling out my tape recorder, “can you just answer a few questions? Only a few. Who were your musical heroes?”
“Later!” she said.
“Now!” I slurred. The lawn was lurching dangerously. Storm’s a-brewin’, I reckon! Better bring her into port!
“No!” she shouted, laughing crazily. Suddenly the ground shifted and we were wrestling on the lawn of the Lakewood Amphitheater. What made the scene even more surreal was that as we tumbled on the grass, a tall black man in diapers, a member of the P-Funk All-Stars, ambled past without giving us a second look.
“You will answer my questions!” I hollered, panting. I had no authority whatsoever. I begged, I threatened, I made jokes, but she wasn’t having it. At some point, you just have to let it go.
Then, as the distant strains of the Beasties’ “Sure Shot” started up, she wriggled free and broke for the stage where they were playing, urging me over her shoulder to follow. All doors were open to us as we headed backstage, then slipped off to the side of the stage, the Beasties mere feet from us. She pulled me next to the largest speakers I had ever seen and we danced through their entire electrifying set, to the amusement of a good portion of the audience, who had a full view of our rhythm-free flailing and leaping. This is the best interview I’ve ever done, I rejoiced.
Back in New York, my editor Karen studied my manuscript with a frown. “This is the worst interview you’ve ever done,” she said. “What happened? It looks to me like she answered a handful of questions. Where’s the rest of it?” I explained the saga of my struggle, conveniently leaving out the part about acting like a coal miner with a Friday-night paycheck.
“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to kill this,” Karen said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing there.” Even so, Kim Deal was a Woman Who Rocked. She just preferred to show me, rather than tell me.