WEBVTT - Cameron Crowe 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.680 The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:17.159 Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Quest Loft Show. What 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:22.239 can I Say? In nineteen seventy two, at the ripe 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:27.680 age of fifteen, our guest today took my dream job. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.040 But being as though I was just a year old 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:37.080 and unable to read, or write or form sentences or thoughts, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.159 I'm willing to forgive him this one time only thank you. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.080 But I will say during this period he will have 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:48.200 conducted career defining both for him and the artist, career 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:52.600 defining interviews at Rolling Stone Magazine with the likes of 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:58.840 Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton, John Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.800 led Zapplin, The Eagles, Fleetwood, Mac, The Who, and. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.120 So on and so on and so forth. 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.640 As a filmmaker, I mean, he's pretty much, I believe, 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.399 given us the definitive movies of our day, be it 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:18.160 A Fast Times of Richmond, High Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.679 Vanilla Sky, and for Almost Famous, of which he is 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.679 an Academy Award recipient for Best Screenplay. I mean, the 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.040 list goes on and oning. He's currently right now working 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.120 on a film based on the life of Joni Mitchell. 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:38.680 Right now, he is promoting his memoir of his time 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:44.400 as a music critic called The Uncool. Please please welcome 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.640 to the Quest Left Show QLs. Cameron Crow, how you 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:49.280 doing right now? 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.320 I'm good. I'm psyched to be talking with you again. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.040 It's one of my favorite things. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.520 Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate this. So I 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.400 had a situation last week. I was hanging with John Mayer, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:07.320 and I believe that there's the idea of questlove, and 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.200 then I also believe there's the actual quest love. So 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.639 one of the most disappointing true quirks about me, kind 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:21.280 of in a Larry David way, is that I normally 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:26.440 don't talk shop with my peers. Of course, on social 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.200 media and books and films everywhere. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.360 My entire career is a. 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.960 Giant platform for me to spew out my unsolicited thoughts 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:37.160 about music. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.760 But I noticed that I. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.160 Tend to back off and talking about music. However, being 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.200 as though this is our second conversation with each other. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.799 He gave me the honor of doing a live Q 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.040 and A with you some time ago, and when I 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.680 walked away, I was like, wow, Like okay, So maybe 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.160 I have to rewrite that narrative and say that I 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.280 enjoy talking shop with other musicians. 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.480 It's just that sometimes, for instance. 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.040 Like I was at a party like three weeks ago, 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.079 and then someone just came up to me and said. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:13.560 Coust love real quick. 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.320 The most important line that Curtis Mayfield's Ever, you know, yeah, Ever. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.480 Said, and I'm like eating shrimp. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:27.000 I'm like, and I know that's my fault because I've 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:32.239 led people to believe that I'm open to all music discussion. 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.200 But in this particular case. 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.160 I would imagine had I been born a decade and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.480 a half earlier, I would have probably wound up on 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.960 your path or at some sort of level to that. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.080 So it's the crime of you knowing so many different 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.400 corners of culture. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:50.760 You know. 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.120 It's like, yeah, they'll ask you about music. They probably 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.360 checked out what the gifts you were giving during COVID, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.760 which was very music centric. But you're like a film 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:07.120 guy beyond many, if not most, So your knowledge of 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.720 film is so particular. And also why it's I don't know, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:12.160 there are many avenues to take. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.760 Well, I'll ask you because I'm using no format today, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.520 no notes or whatever, so I'll just we're just having 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.240 a conversation. Yeah, yeah, How did you know that you 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:23.720 were a film guy? 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.800 Because I loved film always as a kid. They my 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:30.080 mom and sometimes my mom and dad would sneak me 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.200 into R rated movies just because Mike Nichols. I should 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.279 know about Mike Nichols. Stuff like that, you know, David 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.839 Lean and all kinds of stuff. It just seemed like 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.680 no man's land in terms of a dream, Like I 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.960 never went to film school obviously, maybe not obviously, but 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.839 I never thought that that was accessible to a guy 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.840 from San Diego who wasn't connected in it any way. 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.720 But for some reason I had no problem walking into 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.400 a dressing room and asking a band that I loved, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.800 like the questions that I wanted answers to. Maybe it's 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:08.200 because rock was a little less huge then and film 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.520 was always huge and still is huge. But once I 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.919 got a taste of it, you know, it's like it is. 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.760 It's a rush like no other. And particularly when you 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:19.760 show something that's been in your head for a long 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.520 time and you've written it, you've edited it, you know 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.360 this well when you finally put it in front of people, 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.799 and the shit that they pick up on it's sometimes 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.000 it's the smallest thing and they're all over it. That's 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.440 a thrill. It's a different kind of thrill than writing 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.040 rock writing particularly, But I don't know. It's like collect 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:45.320 as many experiences as you can was kind of my thing. 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.719 How long was it the lead up of you getting 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.200 the green light to do Fast Times? What was the 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.279 seed that was Plannet that said, you know what, after 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.160 this last article I turn in, Yeah, I'm going to 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.159 pursue film. Did you have any impostor syndrome or any 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:03.640 of those things? Like can I do this? 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.040 I started asking for film assignments from Rolling Stone towards 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.240 the end of like a big run that I had 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:15.680 from fifteen to twenty two. I started asking for film stories. 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.960 Richard Dreyfus was the first one that I did. And 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:24.719 Dreyfus fantastic and so different from the musicians, you know, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:30.080 like just wondrously narcissistic and fun like he was at 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.520 the peak of his kind of like Close Encounters phase 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.000 and everything Jaws to Close Encounters, like Biggest Star going right, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.160 And he he said, you know, if I do the 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.520 Rolling Stone interview, I'd like to do it differently, Like 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.880 what if you ask a lot of people who've worked 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.360 with me what they think of me, and then bring 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:50.120 that back to me. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:52.000 He wanted an oral history. 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.200 Yeah, but he was like, bring me the oral history 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.120 of what people have said about me, and I'll respond 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:00.760 to it, which was wild. And so I talked to 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:02.680 a whole bunch of people about Richard Dreyfuss and did 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.320 this interview where I basically threw stuff to him about 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.200 things people were about him, good or bad, and he 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:14.280 was fucking ferocious about it. It was amazing. And the 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.040 next assignment I got that was film centric was Sissy 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:24.240 Spasic and that lit a fire because for daughter, it 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.000 was it was before coal miner's daughter. She had done 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:33.360 Carrie and bad Lands and Three Women with Altman and 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.960 you'll love this. So they say, Annie Leebowitz is going 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.000 to come with you to Equipment Texas. You can see 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.120 Sissy Equipment Texas where she's visiting her hometown and her mother. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.080 And so I get there with Annie, who was, you know, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.440 a titan of photography. So that was a big deal 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.880 to be hanging with Annie in Texas and we show 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.600 up to see Sissy and Sissy goes. I got to 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.640 ask you to come with me. I got a little 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.360 adventure I have to go on. They're trying to get 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.760 me to play Loretta Lynn in this movie called Coal 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.600 Miner's Daughter, and I just I can't do it. You know, 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.000 I'm not gonna do it. It's just it doesn't feel 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.040 right to me. But can you come with me to 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.440 I think New Orleans maybe, And we're gonna go to 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.880 a Loretta Lynn concert. And it's gonna be a little 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:20.480 rough for me because I'm gonna have to, you know, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.880 turn her down, but we'll go. We'll get one to 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.920 go with me. And so we all went to Loretta 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.360 show and Amir, I gotta tell you, Sissy boards the 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:36.720 bus where Loretta is with her husband du brings Annie 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.320 and me with her. I think Loretta Lynn closed Sissy's 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.880 basic in about twelve minutes. She was so classic and 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.360 big and a big character and so warm. And then 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.640 she goes on stage and starts doing this show and 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:56.880 Cissy is like already putting the performance together, and so 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:58.719 she left committing to the part that. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.319 Night started back out of it and. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:07.600 So excited and that rhythm of how it worked, and 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.760 it was so hands on with material and discussing characters 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.719 and all that stuff. The fuse was lit. And then 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.040 I found somebody who I knew who was a rock manager, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:19.839 Art Linson. I don't know if you ever met him. 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.920 He managed Nils Lofgren and Nils's group Grin and the 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.920 label was called Spin Dizzy that Art ran, so I 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.000 knew Art and Art started to be a presence in 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:35.840 the movie business producing Jonathan Demi and they Universal like 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.000 kind of picked up an option on Fast Times the 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.800 book and gave it to like their resident rock ish guy. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.440 Art and Art loved the book and said, you know what, 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:47.960 I'm going to teach you how to write a screenplay. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.160 You're the cheapest person we could find to do this, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.160 and if we make it cheaply, we might be able 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.239 to sneak this movie through. And that was Fast Times. Wow, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.680 I know. So it really was all because of rock 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.960 journalism in a way that Art said, I'm gonna teach you. 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:10.280 I will say that Coal Miner's daughters probably it made 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:11.160 an impression on me. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.079 Like I didn't hear of Loretta Lynne. 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.960 But since that moment that I became very familiar with 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.920 her and her music and all that stuff, and so 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:24.320 to hear that you were there at the impetus of 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.640 it then, I mean, you know, she was still at 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.480 the height of Kerry and all that stuff. But when 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.120 you saw the end result like to make an impression 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.280 on you as far as music films are concerned or 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:36.400 big time. 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.640 I loved it and I thought Sissy deserved the Academy Award. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.000 She's amazing in it. She's not pushing, she's not trying, 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:49.120 she just is it. And I went back and checked 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.280 that movie out not too long ago, just kind of 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:56.440 wanting to look at the so called BIOPI biopic and 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.800 that was definitely top five and Buddy Holly story and stuff, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.640 but check it out. Check out Coal Miner's Daughter Sometime. 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:11.080 It is the slowest, easiest wade into telling the story. 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:16.040 It just is character. It's time and place, which you 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.760 crush in the Sly Lives. Time and place is like 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.360 so important. And I saw it and I was just like, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.440 you know, the whole drive to have, like, my Josh, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.600 here's the person that you're gonna see the life of. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.000 It's like, man, you don't need it with the right pace. 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.199 It's like an invisible gas that just pulls you in. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:40.439 And that's Coal Miner's. 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:41.719 Daughter for you. 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:48.280 Though, with biopics and personally, I always thought there's a 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.120 danger and telling the soup to nuts story of a 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:54.840 life where it's hard to really cover it all. And 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.199 I always thought that, man, why doesn't someone just talk 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:04.840 about a very very specific time period, Like when they 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.880 were first talking about the James Brown biopic, I said, man, 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.560 you could probably get the essence of who James Brown 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.960 is if you talk about April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.200 which I would thinks this is on the fourth, It 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.240 might be the fifth of the day after, but this 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.000 is right after Martin Luther King has assassinated James Brown. 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.880 Fans know that there was a concert schedule in Boston, Massachusetts, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.679 and every city in America is in civil unrest and 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:40.560 there's riots everywhere, and the mayor of Boston's like, mister Brown, 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:45.640 if you give us permission to broadcast this on television, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.719 I think this will keep people in the house and watching. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.920 You instead of destroying Boston. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.959 And sure enough, James Brown say Boston because there were 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.400 no riots that night, because everyone was in watching and 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.880 you know, he yeah, his concerns too, Like wait a minute, 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.679 so I got to give a twice as long performance. 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.240 You're broadcasting me, you're not paying me extra money, like 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.360 he's the business part of James Brown's at work, Like 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:17.560 I know, like what's in this for me? Like I'm 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:22.840 giving the the cow for free. But I always thought, man, 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:27.760 if you told the story, like very specific stories instead 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.720 of the entire biopick. 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:34.800 Right when it's a history lesson, you lose me. If 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:42.400 it's characters that are not cut out human type, people 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.199 that say things, you know, that are completely dealing with 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.679 the Wikipedia issues of the artists, it's like, you lose me. 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:52.200 I don't know. You can do soup to nuts if 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:54.319 you have a reason to do soup to nuts. As 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.760 soon as they tell you soup to nuts can't be done, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.480 someone will pull it off. But yeah, most of the 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.840 time you at that sweet spot because it's filled with 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.719 story and you don't need to You're right, I mean, 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.360 James Brown in Boston, you get it all. You get 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.800 the music, you get time and place, you get it all. 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.960 I guess it's case by case. Citizen Kane is Soup 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.880 to Nuts? Is it a biopic? Kind of? But it 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.200 tells us a greater story than sit down. I'm going 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.360 to tell you about a life with Cepia toned glimpses 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:29.720 of my childhood, you know. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.680 But that's also like a first of its kind, so 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.360 I could imagine I wanted to know, like if that 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.520 were to come out in the mid Ausin, it would 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.600 have just been the office, you know. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:57.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean that's funny. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.160 Are you telling the entire story of Joni Mitchell? Is 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.440 this a very specific part of her life that you're 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:07.160 focusing on. 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.920 It's chunks, it's not one slice, it's a couple, it's 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:15.240 some slices, and it's in a context that I think 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.680 it holds together for a bigger story. To be slightly vague, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.440 but there's a way to tell her story, which is 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.560 why I called up her place and just said, like, 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.160 I have a take on this. You know, whenever you're 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.760 interested in anything like this, just come to me and 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:33.400 well I'll pitch it out and see what you think. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.240 And they're like, now get over here. 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.560 How easy was it to convince her? Because right now, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:47.760 the most frustrating, frustrating part of this whole process that 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.960 I'm in right now is conveying to my subjects or 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:58.720 my dream subjects. Yeah, the urgency of time running on 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.080 the clock right now. And for a lot of people 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:08.440 sharing their story, rappers especially, you know, this means that oh, 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:10.920 the second I start looking in the rear view mirror 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.440 that now, that means my career is over. This is 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.560 not just with film, like trying to get rappers to 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.880 do memoirs to keep a track a thing. It's almost 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.080 like there's this rule like if I look back, then 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.400 I'm dead already, which I don't believe in just what 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.200 I've learned and Slide and the Earth Wind and Fire 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:36.960 doc is memory fades, you know for a lot of these. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.160 Things, yes, and turns into anecdotes with cute little punchlines. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.320 Right and there's the whole kind of revisionist history thing, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.800 like your version of how it happened. And it's such 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:54.000 a dangerous spot. And I can't convey to people enough 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:59.880 the importance of pictures, writing things down, saving posters. 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.040 Yes, you can taste it when you have that stuff 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.639 from the day and it's souvenir from the day. It's important. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.919 So this wasn't a hard pitch to convince her, like 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:11.439 now's the time to tell your story. 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.439 No, because there are a lot of people that had 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.560 been coming before me with really bad ideas, and so 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.240 I had the benefit of their failures in probably not 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.680 knowing her well enough. So if a few of them, 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.040 I think came in not really knowing her history. It's 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:30.120 like the Barry Gordy thing. You know, if you send 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.480 me a letter and it's b A R R y. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.000 You didn't take the time to know how my name 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.919 was spelled, and I can't take the time to know 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:41.240 what you want from me. Goodbye? You know, I love that. 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.439 This is what's interesting. Tell me if you've run across this. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:50.160 Success creates eight different viewpoints and people raising their hands 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:51.760 and say it was me, it was me, it was me, 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.239 it was me, And the memory does morph into a 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.960 different thing, and it's everybody kind of disagrees because they're 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.600 trying to take credit for a success a failed project. 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:08.480 The memories are perfect because they're all about who to 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.760 blame for it. Memories are dead on you know, there's 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.879 not it's not Rashamon. It's like they pretty much figure 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.720 that it's one person and one decision, and they're really 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.560 clear about it. So success breeds all the conflicting accounts 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.440 unless you have the stuff from the day, like. 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.080 Do you know when you're being talked to by someone 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.840 well trained media that says the right things and whatnot, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:38.280 and like, how do you know. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:39.679 You're getting the right story? 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.960 And was your young age a part of the dismantling 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.239 or the putting my guard down and revealing to you 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.000 because you know you're getting major stories out of these 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.680 acts and you know who otherwise would probably be guarded 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:55.520 with anyone else. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:19:00.320 I never had the feeling that, like, oh, oh, it's 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.440 a plus that I'm fifteen or sixteen. I was always 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:06.840 kind of like hoping I didn't get asked how old 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.760 I was, and hoping that I could seem adult like 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:16.919 but not in a precocious way. Nobody really busted me 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.520 on my age, no once, but to me, I had 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:23.800 no choice in it. I just had to do it. 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:28.840 I just couldn't not do it. I loved some of 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.640 the stories that I'd read. I loved Ben Fong Torres 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.040 doing these interviews with Marvin Gay, with David Crosby, and 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.560 Joan Winner's interview with John Lennon. It's like, Wow, this 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:46.240 is really revealing and confessional, and that made me want 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.080 to collect stories like that, Like I just wanted to 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.040 be the person who could say the right thing and 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.359 get people to talk like Dick Cavin on TV was one. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:54.920 Of my favorite. 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:57.800 So I didn't have a choice. I just did it. 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.920 And it wasn't until later that I kind of hit 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.320 a wall and took on so many assignments that I 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.080 just felt like I was starting to take a long 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.760 time to turn stories in. I started Chuck Young at 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.000 Rolling Stone started doing these stories that I would have 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:18.760 done really well in a first person way that was 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.679 kind of gregarious and amazing, and he wrote about the 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.959 sex pistols, and I just felt like, I'm washed up, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:31.280 you know, And that was when I went home and 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.320 decided to start writing this story that ended up being 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.120 Fast Times at Ridgemal hint. 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.680 At the age of twenty, you already felt that you 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.439 were a veteran, A washed up veteran. 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.320 Yeah. When I first came to Rolling Stone, there were 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:47.919 people that were at the end of their run, and 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.359 I remember what it looked like, I remember what it 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.640 sounded like. I remember there was one guy who had 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.400 written epic stories, and the thing that they whispered about 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.280 him behind his back was he's so fucked up on 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.280 writer's block now he can't be in a room with 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.119 a typewriter. He starts melting down with anxiety. I'm like, 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:13.280 that'll never be me. And then I never became that guy. 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.560 But I started to just freeze up about deadlines, which 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.560 was very scary, and so it was time to kind 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.200 of move on. I know, the exact moment had happened. 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.400 There were two things that happened in one day. There 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.280 was a Neil Young cover story, and I'd gone on 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.800 the bus with Neil Young and Joel Bernstein my Palle, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:37.199 the photographer. We had toured with Neil and it was 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.880 great stuff. I mean, he canceled a three album set 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.760 that had already been printed up and pressed and stuff. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.639 And the Warner Brothers guys came out and said, you 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.160 can't cancel decade and He's like, I can't. I got 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:53.399 new music that I'm doing with Emmy Lou Harris and stuff, 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:55.719 and it's just I've moved on. These guys are like 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.119 it's gonna cost us half a million dollars. He's like, 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.000 I can't help it, man. You know, it was like 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.760 it was the greatest story. And Elliott Roberts called up, 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:07.920 his manager called me up and said, you know what, 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:10.679 Neil doesn't want the story to come out. He's not 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:12.840 gonna pose for the cover. And Neil, he just got 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:15.679 into it. He does, He's moved on. It's like moved on. 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.280 It was ten days ago. You know. No, no, he's 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:20.040 a different guy. 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.359 Now wait, can you give it backstory? So this is 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:24.160 what year is this? 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:28.040 It's seventy seven. I know it's exactly seventy seven. For 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.280 a couple different reasons. He had fallen in love with 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.600 the Sweet Home Alabama, the Leonard skinnerd song that was 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.280 kind of a call out supposedly, so it was anyway, amir, 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.960 it was a great story. He liked it, he loved it. 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.960 He gave me a cassette to give to them because 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:51.000 I had written about them of three songs, Powderfinger, Captain Kennedy, 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.639 and I forget the third one, but he gave me 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:55.840 a cassette, which I gave to Leonard Skinnyard. 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:57.480 What was their response? 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.159 Fuck? Yeah was their response? They love to Neil, it 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:03.880 was it was like, I don't know, it's like one 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.560 of those kind of Jobiz feuds that was wasn't really true. 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.080 It was just it wasn't kids with Lamar. 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.119 I get it, Okay, it wasn't it wasn't like secretly 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:15.960 crushing out on each other. So I had that story 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:18.520 and it was kind of like I knew I was 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.840 gonna make that deadline and it would be good, and 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:26.000 though I'd been missing deadlines lately at Rolling Stone. So anyway, Elliott, 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.359 the manager calls me up and says, cancel the story. 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.879 Neil wants it canceled, won't post with the cover, doesn't 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:36.000 approve anything. It's canceled. And I'm like, I'm gonna get fired. 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.120 I'm gonna lose everything. I'm gonna lose everything in Elliott Roberts, 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.160 classic funny guy. He had a line that I will 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:44.560