Finding the Mind's Construction in an Interview

On the joy of the interview, plus reflections on my encounters with people like Momus, Pat Kane, Jeffrey Lewis, Franz Ferdinand, Bid, and more.

Apr 30, 2023

An image I created to illustrate the interests of the Mind’s Construction magazine.

Of all journalistic forms—column, longform article, review, etc—my favourite is the interview. It is, at its best, a moment where two people can transcend themselves and reach a new understanding of the world. Most celebrity interviews consist of rote clichés in promotion of a new commodity. Such figures are given media training to ensure the conversation stays on track, never straying into difficult topics. And, if they do slip and say something that could be misinterpreted, a grovelling apology is sure to come rather than telling people to read the comment in context.

The first interviews I read were with footballers in Shoot or Match, though they were more like questionnaires. They would ask something like "What is your favourite music?" and the answer would always be "Luther Vandross" (except when Sex Pistols fan, Stuart Pearce, was interviewed). I also read my sister's Smash Hits magazine interviews and watched Saturday morning kids' shows like Going Live, which had the transgressive freedom of the audience phone-in.

As a teenager, I would buy Melody Maker or NME every week. The interview with the cover star was almost always the main feature of these publications. During the Britpop era, musicians gave such entertaining interviews that these were sometimes released on disc and made it into the charts. There were mythic interviews like when Richey from the Manic Street Preachers carved 4Real onto his arm after a question from Steve Lamacq.

Music journalism was so powerful at this point that just being good at interviews was almost more important than your tunes. I never really got into their music, but I loved Orlando's interviews; I had similar feelings about their tour mates Kenickie. Indeed, both Tim from Orlando and Lauren from Kenickie went on to become interviewers themselves.

As an autodidact, I always found interviews to be the best way to get an overview of the culture. For instance, after learning about Will Self from reading about his exploits on John Major's plane, I read his long interviews with JG Ballard and Martin Amis in Junk Mail and it was these that gave me a window into the literary world. The interviewees would casually mention James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, William Burroughs and all sorts of other writers I didn't know. A conversation is less imposing than an entire novel, it can give you a sense of what the writer is about and whether it is worth engaging with the products of their mind.

My final project for my Media Studies A-level was to produce a fanzine, Rebel Rebel, which had interviews with Urusei Yatsura and David Devant and His Spirit Wife, both of whom I cajoled into speaking with me after gigs at the Princess Charlotte. Alas, this publication hasn't survived. But what has is The Mind's Construction, the magazine that I edited when I lived in London, which I used as an excuse to talk with people I admired. This week, I thought it would be fun to republish these interviews and add some context.

Patrick Wolf

Interviews are a great opportunity for both artists and journalists to mythologise. I had been intrigued by Patrick Wolf’s stories and tried to turn him into the noble savage of my imagination.

This was conducted when Momus was in London to play Colliers Wood Library. I had been obsessed with his LiveJournal and he didn’t disappoint in person.