The struggle to write interesting, engaging questions for your guests is real. You need to do research, read between the lines of things they’ve said in the past, pay close attention to their music, lyrics, and the overall aesthetic of their art. You need to spend some time in worlds that they are creating.
People may wonder why I only speak to artists that I’m a fan of. The reasons seem fairly obvious to me, but perhaps they may not be to others. I think it’s unfair to interview people whose art you are unfamiliar with. I’m not here to fill column inches, cash a paycheque or do what my editor wants me to do (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It is, in my opinion, somewhat disrespectful to chat with someone about what they do without at least being aware of how they operate or what they produce. To do this, sometimes it means listening a bit more closely to artists I like but whose music I haven’t spent a lot of time with, or maybe it means reading their work a little more closely and sometimes...