From the assistant editor Britt Mann
Grant Smithies once asked Lou Reed the ultimate personal question. The author of today’s cover story (page 10) managed to get one of music’s most cantankerous figures on the phone, and the latter accused Grant of being uninterested in his 19th solo album. What Grant actually wanted to know, according to Reed, was his below-belt measurements. So Grant called Reed’s bluff, and asked him. Reed cracked up, Grant remembers, and the rest of the interview was a success. ‘‘He still had that snarky undertone, but he just didn’t like being bored.’’
Grant lives in Nelson, where he runs a record shop two days a week, in between writing about famous artists as he has done since the early 90s (his work’s appeared in everything from Cuisine to Rolling Stone Italy). Grant has interviewed Kiwi pop enigma Aldous Harding approximately three times since her self-titled debut album was released in 2014. Enough to know not to ask her what her song lyrics mean – a common pitfall. In fact, she told Grant: ‘‘Talking about my music is the part of this job I’m the least interested in doing.’’
If you’ve once inquired after the Velvet Underground frontman’s genitals, you’re probably not too fazed by this. Instead, you ask where your interviewee is when they’re on the phone (in Harding’s case, surrounded by lino-cuts). You ask about their other interests (in Alice Cooper’s case, golf). You forgo a list of pre-written questions in favour of listening carefully to their answers, and as Grant puts it, ‘‘finding an interesting alleyway to go sideways’’. And, you resist launching straight into another question. ‘‘It’s usually the thing after the answer that’s the interesting thing,’’ Grant tells me. ‘‘If you let a bit of silence hang in the air for a while, they’ll come in with something else that they think about. The second thing will be the gold.’’
La Tribe studded sandals
We gave a collective shudder last week when one of the interviewees in our "Couples" series explained that an early clanger in the relationship was her boyfriend’s Roman sandals with socks. Sandals, like no other shoe, can go horribly wrong. Or, as with these baby pink numbers with a hint of punk, they can contribute to your sense of world domination. Page 17.