The joy of interviews

And reading and watching and listening to them over and over again

Plane doodles while listening to an Andre 3000 interview on NPR

Hey y’all,

Last Friday, Andre 3000 released New Blue Sun, his first new album in 17 years. While I’ve been enjoying the music, I’ve also been enjoying the blitz of interviews he’s given to publicize the album.

You see, I love artist interviews. When I find an artist who gives a good interview, I try to read as many of their interviews as I can. (I think this habit started when I was really young and I would go to the grocery store with my mom and read all the little teeny bopper and music magazines on the rack with every Green Day interview I could find.)

So it wasn’t enough for me to just listen to Andre 3000’s NPR interview. I needed to watch his GQ interview. And his interview with The Guardian. And so forth. (I even went back and listened to his interview with Rick Rubin in 2019.)

You might think this gets really repetitive. And it does! There’s a lot of repetition and overlap between interviews. But repetition and overlap is exactly what I’m looking and listening for. I like to take note of the things that artists say over and over again. I think these repetitions reveal something. Sometimes they become mini master classes. Little lessons they give me that I memorize and internalize.

My doodles while watching Andre 3000’s GQ cover story

For example, I read every interview with the filmmaker Werner Herzog that I come across. Herzog has things he says over and over again. A few off the top of my head: