BONUS Archive Deep Dive - Tough Talks
Marc:This is, we're going to talk because you had to listen to me after I talked to Connie Chung go like, I don't know, man, that, you know, that wasn't easy.
Marc:I'm a little aggravated about it.
Guest:Well, so it's interesting.
Guest:You talk to me that way.
Guest:I would say it's not common, but it's maybe one out of every 30 or 40 interviews.
Guest:You say like, I don't know.
Guest:Now, sometimes that's just because the person is uneasy on the mics, on conversation.
Guest:Or they don't know how to talk.
Guest:Yeah, that's the way you've put it.
Guest:And like, you know, there's certain types of people where that happens more frequently.
Guest:Musicians are kind of a crapshoot a lot of times.
Guest:Some actors.
Guest:At the beginning, anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, then there are people that, you know, are almost a guarantee that they're going to be good talkers.
Marc:Well, sure.
Marc:And I think as time went on, we were able to kind of vet that.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You could look around and see what they've done and just figure it out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the Connie Chung interview for you was a different kind of difficult, I think.
Guest:And there's a few episodes that I think have fallen under that category.
Guest:There are like three that spring to mind for me.
Guest:And they're all three kind of different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the sense that you called me afterwards and were like...
Guest:That was hard.
Guest:And I don't know how it's going to sound.
Guest:I don't know what's going to come out.
Guest:And it was not hard because the person was not forthcoming or you just had to strain with them.
Guest:Or it wasn't Gallagher who stormed out.
Guest:Or it wasn't Ben Kingsley who was being disrespectful to you or whatever.
Guest:It was...
Guest:Your style not jibing with a person and how they operate.
Guest:And it's interesting because the ones that came to mind, and I'm interested if you have other ones, in addition to this Connie Chung was Larry King, which was episode 446.
Guest:Another news anchor.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And an older person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Harry Dean Stanton.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Which was episode 464.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:It was so close to Larry King.
Guest:You did those right around the same time.
Guest:And Courtney Love.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Episode 1395, which is entirely different as to why that was hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I guess the place to start with you is...
Guest:I think people might find it interesting, is like those type of interviews, what is going through your mind as you're doing them?
Guest:Are you thinking this is a tank, this stinks, and it's not going to work?
Guest:Or are you working to make it work?
Marc:I always work to make it work.
Marc:I mean, you know, because there's some part of this...
Marc:this gig and this thing I'm doing where like, we're going to sit here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not unlike, not unlike therapy in the sense that, you know, if you go to therapy, a lot of times you don't have anything to talk about.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And the therapist is going to be like, okay, well we can sit here.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't see this as therapy, but I do see it as like, you know, I'm going to fill an hour.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And my experience tells me that something will give.
Marc:And if it doesn't, then that is an accurate representation about how this person presents themselves or how they are.
Marc:And either way is fine.
Marc:But, you know, I'm going to keep going because it's my experience that.
Marc:You know, 30 minutes into 40 minutes in, something could give away.
Marc:Something could give way to something totally different.
Marc:Happens a lot.
Marc:All the time.
Marc:And I've learned that with Larry.
Marc:It was just different.
Marc:You know, and also like it might be news personalities, given Larry and Connie are both.
Marc:You know, they're fundamentally that that job is a very curt job.
Marc:It doesn't require any kind of niceties.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Niceties or even, you know, lengthy engagement.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Or, or sacrificing or, or putting forth any of yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, Larry, it became a, he's a character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just by virtue of that.
Marc:But Larry was difficult because, you know, I was at his house.
Marc:I had the time wrong.
Marc:I showed up late.
Marc:He was mad.
Marc:He didn't know what it was.
Marc:And, and at the beginning, it was in my recollection, it was a pain in the ass because he didn't want to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he was mad at me for being late.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I remember being there and there's a discomfort to that where you're sitting across from somebody and
Marc:Who doesn't know you, doesn't like you, is mad at you about it, you know, probably thinking like, why did I do this?
Marc:But I just like and I feel that I feel like, all right, well, you know, I can't disappear.
Marc:Yeah, I can't say maybe this isn't going to happen.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I just give them the room.
Marc:To eventually I'll just keep going.
Marc:And I think I get more gracious when I get that uncomfortable in a certain way.
Marc:I know with Connie, like, you know, she was just busting my balls about not having done the work like she thought the work should be done.
Marc:And I took those hits, but I also pushed back a little, gave her a little, made her realize, like, look, you know, this is your time.
Guest:And eventually she, you know, got charming.
Guest:But I do think for someone just listening to that interview, what was interesting in the reveal of it was like your homework was perfectly adequate for your style.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:The way you do it works.
Guest:And I wrote to you when I was done editing that, and I was like, you should get kudos for this because you made this very listenable.
Guest:You made it enjoyable.
Guest:You didn't lose yourself in what could have been an insult.
Guest:This is not something you did wrong.
Guest:It's all 100% understandable.
Guest:But you had to keep it together when Ben Kingsley was in here.
Guest:You had to basically be like...
Guest:I just need to let this happen and not lose my shit.
Marc:Yeah, because he was going to fill the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was just going to be completely on his terms.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And devoid of engagement with me.
Guest:But your sense with Connie, I took away from it, was you were like, you know, whatever she's doing here, like pushing back at me, I'm just going to do my thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you did it.
Guest:And you did it with, you know, graciously.
Guest:You didn't like, you know...
Guest:tell her like she you didn't say anything to her that would have put her off in fact you did the opposite you did eventually i think kind of you know ingratiate yourself and charm her yeah and you know it wound up in a place where what you were saying at the end of the interview was exactly right yeah that it's like well i think i got something out of this that the person you're going to do a moderated thing with tonight where you're just going to steamroll the person and tell your story i think i got more than them
Guest:OK, I didn't hear that thing.
Guest:I didn't go to that forum that she had, but I would guarantee that's true.
Guest:I'm sure she didn't do accents.
Guest:Or she did.
Marc:She only did it because you told her she wasn't going to.
Marc:Well, she got kind of, you know, she was trying to be fun.
Marc:You know, I think that what happened with her is I think from the beginning, because she was stonewalling me really in her way, because, I mean, that's the nature of her job as an interviewer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's how she would talk about the things on the wall and poker face and stuff.
Marc:But she was trying to do that thing that a lot of people do is like turn the tables on me.
Marc:I'm like, all right, I'll do this for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then with all you didn't read the book thing.
Marc:I'm like, OK, so what do you want to do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There was my mind.
Marc:My mind is like, yeah, I mean, I read enough of the book and you've got a whole life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you could sit there and say, well, it's in the book.
Marc:Well, it's in the book.
Marc:But tell me a fucking story.
Guest:Well, the funny thing is.
Guest:And I know she wasn't interviewing you, but she was trying to present it like, well, I did some homework on you.
Guest:But she had gaps about you.
Guest:Like, you know, she thought you grew up in New Jersey because she saw somewhere that said you're born in New Jersey or whatever.
Guest:And she didn't know about your marriages or anything.
Guest:And it's like, again, I'm not saying she had to know everything.
Guest:She was not interviewing you.
Guest:But she was just trying to get a...
Guest:Pulse.
Guest:Which is what you do.
Guest:Like, that's what you do with a 500-page book.
Guest:It wasn't that long.
Guest:Or whatever.
Guest:But you're not going to sit and read the whole thing if you know this is a person who can tell their story.
Guest:I will get enough that I can push them along to that way.
Guest:But I don't need to know every detail of it.
Marc:Yeah, because it becomes a drag.
Marc:I mean, like, some guy emailed me.
Marc:It's like, well, she was right.
Marc:I'm like, no, she wasn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and he said, you know, if it's a book, a movie, a film or music, I'm like, I'll watch a movie.
Marc:I'll watch a TV show.
Marc:I'll listen to a record.
Marc:But when you read a book, what you realize, you know, first of all, I'll only do it if I don't know how the person talks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And if the life is so expansive and it has implications in a broader way, you know, I'll maybe read a little more.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But then you're doing what journalists do.
Marc:And what I always heard when we did Air America is that, you know, you should know the answer to the question.
Marc:Which stinks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When you're trying to do this one hour format that we're doing, there's no worse thing than if here's your options.
Guest:If Connie Chung is going to tell someone that her father was a spy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And her mother, you know, left the country.
Guest:That wasn't in the book.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And got an abortion doing so in that.
Guest:And the reaction by the person she's telling is, really?
Guest:Tell me more about that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is better, that reaction or the person going like, oh, yeah, well, I know you said that on this page.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, well, now tell me about what happened after, because that's interesting.
Guest:What happened after to your dad?
Marc:It's like what Stern does.
Marc:It's sort of like, so when you audition at SNL, it didn't go well.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's like, I've never done that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And when I do it, I notice it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's leading and it's not, you know, all you're looking for there is these buttons.
Marc:And what I've learned over time, too, is that when somebody writes a book who's not a writer, they get help.
Marc:And as amazing as the story is in the book, you're not going to get that same story.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I've brought this up before to people that the example that I use for you doing this so well was...
Guest:was David Spade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you had a good talk with him.
Guest:It's a really funny episode, actually.
Guest:You know, you started talking to him about Farley, and he kind of, you know, rarely, I don't know about it, now that he has his own show, maybe he talks about Farley a lot, but he did not speak about Farley a lot.
Guest:It was very painful for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:There was this kind of famous backlash at him for not going to the funeral.
Guest:And you were talking about things, and now you guys were about maybe 45 minutes, an hour in, and you brought up Farley, and you're talking about it, and you're like, I guess that was really sad then to be at the funeral.
Guest:and he was like, oh, I didn't go.
Guest:And you were like, oh, really?
Guest:And he was like, yeah, and it was a whole big thing.
Guest:And then he tells you his side of the story, right?
Guest:And I remember listening to that at the time, and I was like, oh, that was smart of Mark to not let on about the Farley funeral.
Guest:Got him there.
Guest:And I talked to you afterwards, and I was like, yeah, that was a good job.
Guest:And you were like, oh, I didn't know that, right?
Yeah.
Guest:That was so much better.
Guest:Like it would if you had said to him, well, what about the backlash you got for not going to his funeral?
Guest:And he would have been like, I don't know.
Guest:That's just people can think what they want to think or whatever.
Guest:You know, it's like but instead he didn't feel like you were boxing him in.
Guest:You didn't come to it with any prejudice.
Guest:You were just saying like a funeral.
Guest:It was probably rough.
Guest:Oh, I didn't go to it.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like and then he saw that genuinely from you and was like, yeah, let me tell you my side.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's that's the beauty of not doing that kind of research.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it happens a lot with me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, and sometimes, you know, people are like, how could you not know that?
Marc:I'm like, well, I didn't want to know it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know, and why didn't you talk about that?
Marc:Because I didn't know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, fuck it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, there have been times where, you know, interviews have been difficult.
Marc:And, you know, there have been times where if it's about a book like with Kim Gordon.
Marc:Like if I didn't read most of that book, I don't know what the hell I would have done with her.
Marc:But, you know, I read enough.
Marc:But also I because I knew she was not a big talker.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But, you know, things happen organically.
Marc:You know, I can know all the things in the book.
Marc:And sometimes, like even with Eric Roberts, you know, there were some stories that I would have liked him to tell.
Marc:But it doesn't fucking matter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, we're not, you know, we're not breaking news here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and I always knew from the get go, you know, the sort of journalistic approach of who, what, where and why is not really what I'm doing.
Marc:What we're doing is creating almost an audio portrait of a person in a moment of time.
Guest:Well, and you said it to Connie that you were like, all I'm hoping for here is a connection.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's all I'm hoping for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm not trying to get the facts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that I don't know how that went in her head, but I think there was something that it feels to me in my recollection of it, which is not always great, that, you know, when we talked about Maury, that was the breaking point.
Marc:You are not the father.
Yeah.
Guest:There was something about, I can't remember why she said it, but she said something about, I would have dumped that out on I-95.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And you were like, that would have been a far place to go because that's on the East Coast.
Marc:And it was kind of a gotcha thing.
Guest:And once you said that, it did loosen her up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because she had fucked up.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So there was a vulnerability moment.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And we seized on it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, because she was trying to, that's it.
Marc:She's like, well, you know, it's a control thing.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So once she fucked up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And she, you know what I mean?
Marc:It was kind of, there was that window.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Of like, it's okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:It's funny moments.
Guest:And why you were able to then bust her balls later when she was like, have you ever been married?
Guest:And you were like, yeah, twice.
Guest:What, you didn't do your homework?
Marc:I felt comfortable enough to do that with her.
Marc:She was fine with it at that point, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think she had to figure out what the show was.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's two things with her and Larry that really, you know, that's two examples.
Marc:And Larry turned out to be fine once I, like, I just stay in the saddle.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And eventually when we got to, you know, him in Florida and Jackie Gleason and that stuff, you know, they may be stories he told, but, you know, he was, you know, he had let go of his anger and he wanted to tell those stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think Dean was a whole other situation.
Guest:That's where I was going with this next.
Guest:It's like when that's an example of someone who is like looking to give you nothing.
Marc:Well, the thing was, is like, I don't know.
Marc:It was it was cocky on my part because I watched that documentary.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And and and and this is a woman who spent years with this guy, the director, the director.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he didn't talk in that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But some part of me was like, nah, get him.
Marc:No, you're not going to get that guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I get up there, and right away, you know, I put him off somehow with a cigarette.
Marc:And I remember it.
Marc:Like, you know, I made some comment like, well, you're still at it, hon.
Marc:And he felt it as judgment.
Marc:And I realized at that point that, like, he didn't give a fuck about me.
Marc:He didn't know the show.
Marc:You know, he had done this as a way to promote the doc.
Marc:Well, someone talked him into it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He didn't want to fucking have me there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And so I was like, that was one of the rare things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I was there 40 minutes and I die.
Marc:I'm out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then we, you know, by, you know, adding the director to a separate interview kind of worked out.
Marc:But then somebody emailed me and because I complained about it publicly because I felt a little embarrassed in the intro.
Marc:And someone wrote to me, he said, dude, what were you expecting?
Marc:He's an old man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the way my grandfather is.
Marc:What'd you think would happen?
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And I'm like, I thought he'd tell me about the movie.
Guest:Well, it's interesting.
Guest:You've learned over the years to, you know, not necessarily, you know, put your reaction, emotional reaction to an interview into the preface of the, you know, in the introduction, because you don't want to bias the listener.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:They
Marc:have a different experience.
Marc:Even with Connie, I mildly did.
Marc:I just said it was difficult.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I mean, it was wise.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:We left that in and it was wise, I thought, to keep it to that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You just said this got off to a rocky start.
Guest:But we got going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You didn't say to them what you said to me about how tricky the whole thing was.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think that's wise.
Marc:Well, there's been a lot of moments that were, you know, like the one moment that stands out in my mind was John Cale
Marc:You know, who, you know, sometimes I interview people and I know that they're hugely important to certain people and they've done a lot of things.
Marc:And I may not know all those things, but I usually try to get up to speed on them so I can wrap my brain around the whole thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was like it was like it was a very decisive moment for me as an interviewer.
Marc:To tell him.
Marc:Well, I said, no, not to tell him, but how am I going to come back from that moment?
Marc:I see.
Marc:That, you know, he just, you know, I gave you what you wanted.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So now let's, you know, let's talk about my new record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I said I didn't get it.
Marc:And there was this moment of intense frustration.
Marc:anger i could see it on his face and in that moment i just said well how did you do it differently yeah and then he would he went with it yeah but it was it was it could have gone either way sure and it turned out to be great because he'd explained the process of it right you know and it had to do with that japanese suicide forest and it was all kinds of stuff but it was like one of those moments where i'm like what the fuck am i gonna do now yeah yeah is he gonna walk out of here angry and i don't know how he felt about that interview but it didn't matter
Marc:Because like, you know, I salvaged a thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that is, you know, it may have been a mistake on my part, I think, in the big picture that despite whatever their past work was or my engagement with it, I will listen or watch the new stuff.
Guest:Yeah, I think that was, you know, in the earlier years, too, when our booking was looser.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes it was like just something came into you and it would get agreed to.
Guest:And then all of a sudden that day the interview is happening.
Guest:We've got no prep on it.
Guest:It wasn't anything.
Guest:You know, we run the ship.
Guest:quite differently now.
Guest:You get a list of homework that you have to do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, usually I'm confident, like, uh, you know, like I, it used to be just like, I would find usually when I'm in the shower before the interview, like one little portal that I can see through to their whole life.
Guest:I love when that happens for you.
Guest:Like even like, uh, sometimes you're out in the world and you were, you were, I remember before you interviewed David Byrne, you were out in a store and the Beach Boys were playing and you were like, I think this is my way into David Byrne, the Beach Boys.
Guest:And it wound up being the way in.
Guest:Like, you were correct.
Marc:I was across the street.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Getting a coffee or something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that happens all the time because, you know, that's the way to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, and then I got pretty adept at, you know, watching whatever was new and realizing a lot of times it wasn't going to be great.
Marc:And then you sort of get it out of the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, sometimes I've been cagey.
Marc:But, like, I remember Nick Cave.
Marc:That was a bad moment right at the beginning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:With him, that was a very difficult interview for me.
Guest:But, you know, people that's just like with Harry Dean, people who heard that are like, you got a great interview out of him because he doesn't like doing these.
Guest:And this was him back then.
Guest:I mean, he's become a kind of a different guy.
Marc:A softer guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, like, I called him a cowboy, you know, because of his approach to being singular.
Marc:And a cowboy means, you know, gay.
Guest:Is that true?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:I've never heard that.
Marc:In Australia, apparently cowboy has gay implications.
Marc:So he got prickly and I didn't even know why.
Marc:And then like, you know, I was like, you know how to pedal back.
Marc:Neil Young, same thing.
Marc:That was not fucking easy, dude.
Guest:Oh, well, that's that definitely was not easy.
Guest:But you won that one over big time.
Marc:I got him laughing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wanted to fuck around.
Guest:That's his thing, right?
Guest:Like he wants to be like.
Marc:He doesn't like interviews.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So he's going to like play little games.
Marc:He was doing math problems.
Marc:Well, the biggest issue was is that like I have these old amps and I knew he used a similar amp and I thought like this will do it.
Marc:But also there was an interesting thing in my house with him.
Marc:When he saw the way I lived, I could tell he was like, this guy, you know, is okay.
Guest:Yeah, it's just he, which, you know, was one of the kind of magic bullets of the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was in the old house.
Guest:Yeah, it was one bathroom.
Guest:You had to walk through your house to get to the garage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so everyone saw your life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They saw the cat shit.
Guest:They saw everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that was always kind of important.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, you know, I said, you know, yeah, you probably recognize these amps.
Marc:He's like, no.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, no.
Marc:That's what Kingsley did to you, too.
Marc:Remember that?
Marc:About Jessica.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When that happens, I'm like, all right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You had a story that you knew that she had told you.
Marc:I thought it'd be like, oh, we'll open the door here.
Guest:And he was like, no.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Didn't happen.
Guest:Which it did.
Guest:We found out proof later.
Guest:She sent us the emails.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that made me so mad.
Marc:It's one of the few places in my life where, you know, I know that being, you know, gracious and just, you know, pushing forward.
Marc:I guess I do it in other things, too.
Marc:But like with Neil.
Marc:You know, he was one of those interviews, too, where it's like, you know, there are nerds that, you know, are nooks and crannies of everything in his life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, I don't care about that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, where are we at now?
Marc:And then he's taking Pilates classes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he gets candid about his kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Gets candid about all this stuff.
Marc:Like, a door opened.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, it was over nicotine lozenges and doing the math and, like, him getting, like... And just rolling with him.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then it was just like, you know, he was...
Marc:All there.
Guest:How does it feel that he, Bruce Springsteen, and Keith Richards, Keith Richards to your face, told you you were a fun one, was what he said to you.
Guest:And those other two guys said to other people, that guy was good.
Guest:That was good talk.
Guest:And how does that feel to get that?
Yeah.
Marc:Well, it feels like it was the reward of building my style on and what we built it on, which was that, you know, this show is as much about me as it is about them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that if I'm going to have a conversation, I'm going to insert myself, you know, sometimes too much into this conversation.
Marc:This isn't an interview.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a conversation.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And with both of those guys, I guess with Neil, he had gone home and Dan Rather was there waiting to interview him.
Marc:And you have a friend who was working.
Marc:And he said he'd just come from a great interview.
Marc:And Dan goes, why was it great?
Marc:He's like, because he was fearless.
Marc:Yeah, he wasn't afraid to fail.
Marc:He wasn't afraid to fail.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I guess that's good, you know?
Guest:Well, I think what he obviously meant by that was like, you were just going to ask him whatever.
Guest:Like, you weren't sitting there thinking like, oh, I'm going to piss off Neil or I'm going to do that.
Guest:You were just like...
Guest:What about this?
Marc:What about that?
Guest:And he was like, okay, if that's the game you play, I'll play.
Marc:And with Bruce, that was one of the best moments ever is that, you know, he didn't know me.
Marc:He, you were there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, he walks down from the house with his book, like, you know, I'm thinking he's gonna have to read from the book and whatever.
Marc:And it was Christmas time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, uh, uh,
Marc:And like, you know, I opened the interview with that thing where I'm like, so what's going on with the house?
Marc:Like chaos, cooking, gifts, just crazy.
Marc:He's like, correct.
Marc:It's so Jersey.
Marc:And I'm like, I want to talk to that guy the whole time.
Marc:I want to talk to correct guy.
Marc:I don't want to talk to like, well, you know, me and the boys were hanging out in Asbury Park.
Marc:I want to talk to correct guy.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And I really got him to meet me in the middle.
Marc:A hundred percent.
Marc:You know, when I was sort of like comparing my feelings about being on stage, he's like, and I'm like, I just want people to like me.
Marc:He's like, of course.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And we were locked in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was like, it was a monumental interview.
Marc:And the way that got back to me was like, Tal Wilkenfeld.
Marc:Yeah, Tal Wilkenfeld, the bass player, was doing press for a record.
Marc:And she's friends with all these old guys.
Marc:And she plays with them.
Marc:And she was asking Bruce advice about how to do interviews.
Marc:And Bruce told her, like, you just say what you want to say.
Marc:Whatever they ask you, it doesn't matter.
Marc:You say what you want to say.
Marc:And that's how you do that.
Marc:And she goes, yeah, a friend of mine interviewed me, Mark Maron, and he said, he pushed.
Marc:Correct.
Guest:But that's it.
Guest:You got to push through.
Guest:Now, I mean, you talk about other musicians, and I mentioned this one already.
Guest:Corny Love is a good example.
Guest:There have been others like this, like Fiona Apple, I'm reminded of, is like this.
Guest:But the particular type of difficulty here is a person who is, it's not that they're not talking.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They're just, you're not able to corral them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, it's frustrating because it becomes a little disturbing.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:Do you think you're exploiting some kind of mental illness?
Marc:No, not quite that.
Marc:There's two different ways to not engage.
Marc:One of them is to steamroll, and one of them is to just not say anything.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And the steamrolling thing is hard because my instinct is to interject into the conversation, try to guide it a little bit.
Marc:But it's not even that she necessarily had her own agenda, Courtney.
Marc:It was just that she's got this ongoing synaptic firing response of history.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's almost like a personally generated connecting of the dots of the conspiracy of her life, of Kurt's life, of how the public sees her.
Marc:And everyone is involved.
Marc:And she's met everybody.
Marc:And it's just like, you know, you're kind of walking into a hurricane that's already in progress.
Marc:Hurricane Courtney.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, it was good, but ultimately I had a lot of empathy for her because, you know, it's just not easy being her.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, and I thought the interview was fine.
Marc:It was hard, though.
Guest:It was hard for you.
Guest:It was hard for me.
Guest:That was one of those ones that, like, you told me this was really difficult.
Guest:I don't know what you're going to get out of it.
Guest:And I had a hard time editing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Connie Chung, that was not hard to edit.
Guest:It was tightening up, but it was authentically what it was.
Guest:I didn't have to, like, you know, help shape it.
Guest:The Courtney Love one was trouble.
Guest:But I did remember seeing, like, I think we dropped that, like, over the holidays.
Guest:It was, like, December 29th or something when that aired.
Guest:I saw so much reaction from, like, notable people that were like, this one is an all-timer.
Guest:You got to listen to Courtney Love on Marc Maron.
Guest:And I think it's just because...
Guest:Sometimes letting a person do that thing, as long as it becomes intelligible, right?
Guest:Like that's the hard thing for both you and me.
Guest:It's like, is this going to be off-putting for people if it's just a total mess?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you had to keep her on track so that that didn't happen.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Keep her in the rails.
Marc:Well, that's happened before.
Marc:Like, you know, with...
Marc:We got, I think, the interview with David Lee Roth only because I knew, you know, enough about, you know, kind of a sensibility about where he comes from and the nature of his version of entertainment.
Marc:But somehow or another, I was able to keep him on track.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's a great interview.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Perry Farrell, not so much.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that was difficult.
Marc:That was really difficult.
Marc:And he's got his wife in there.
Marc:It was when I was doing it in the house before I set this up.
Marc:And, you know, it was like it was, you know, it was just, you know, there was a lot going on there that, you know, was...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:He had a lot of big ideas about what he was going to be doing and, you know, it was very hard to, you know, he was obfuscating through, you know, kind of this rambling and he was not able to have any self-reflection.
Marc:It was hard.
Guest:Yeah, I wonder, like, sometimes when we do this, like, people who, you know, seem like they're not in their best mind or they're not in the—or they're, you know, some type of mental illness is going to prevent them from having a direct conversation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not on us, but it's really, it's like, should they be doing this at all?
Guest:Like with anybody?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sometimes the answer is no.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But those are the ones that stand out.
Marc:Do you have other ones?
Guest:No, those are really it.
Guest:I mean, I think that's, those kind of are good representations of the kind of category of difficulty.
Marc:Right, but then there's also like, I remember with Roseanne Arquette, she didn't really- No, her sister.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Patricia.
Marc:Patricia.
Marc:She didn't really know me or the show.
Marc:No.
Marc:And she came in there expecting questions.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it was like, okay, well, that was a lesson for me to learn.
Marc:You know, that, you know, how do I work around that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm not even sure where it gave way, but it did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was just sort of like I had to really make her comfortable because a lot of these people are used to interviews and they just, you know, want to get through them.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I feel like it ended up going well because, you know, that one's fine and pleasant.
Marc:But it was a lesson.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like if they're expecting questions, you know, I got to figure out a way around that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do you what do you do?
Marc:What is your way around it?
Marc:Well, I mean, the best way to do it is to, you know, it's always been the style to get those mics going before they know they're on.
Marc:And to start with, you know, how they got here, whether they eat for breakfast maybe, or, you know, what was that thing?
Marc:Or, you know, if we started talking when they're walking from the car to kind of make that kind of happen, to have them already talking and then they're like, are we doing it?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, we're doing it.
Marc:So then that, you know, then they're already off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're off kilter.
Marc:Right.
Marc:In terms of what they expected.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, I've noticed, you know, it's been more in the more recent years or like the latter half of doing this.
Guest:You tend to if you have a personal thing to link to that person, like that's the thing that comes up first.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I do that all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And if that doesn't work, it usually does.
Marc:Usually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, they haven't all been tough.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:And a lot of them were learning experiences.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also got me kind of like, you know, tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I said this to you after the Connie Chung one.
Guest:I said that it kind of serves as a little weird mini proof of concept of the show.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I do think it actually also shows growth.
Guest:Like a lot of your personal growth and, you know, people who listen to like early episodes where you got frustrated or you got or you, you know, did the interview and then slag the person in the in the intro.
Guest:Like, oh, this person was tough with me and whatever, which is like what you said about Nick Cave.
Guest:You weren't slagging him, but you were saying, oh, this was hard and whatever.
Guest:And then people listen to it and they're like, what are you talking about?
Guest:You had to like learn that lesson.
Guest:Learn not to comment unless absolutely necessary.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in this case, you just showed like, you know, and you said we got off to a rocky start.
Guest:But listening to it from that position of a rocky start to the ending where it got to.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like to me, I'm like, oh, that's a success.
Guest:Like this is a this is a kind of proof of success.
Marc:And I've really I usually shut up and I'm usually pretty diplomatic about that.
Marc:But I wasn't going to let Kingsley slide.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:Well, I fielded some calls on that one.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:All right.