Girl Reporter

So, I came across this video when I was doing research for my You Am I interview the other day. It made me laugh. It made me cringe. It was like looking into one of those distorted mirrors at a fairground: ugly, but familiar.

It’s of a mock interview that Tim Rogers, pretending to be an interviewer for Underoath magazine, does with members of the band. (There are a number of them, but here’s a sample: Symon Parnell (Tim Rogers) from Underoath mag interviews Rusty Hopkinson.)

It was painful to watch. I thought, are we really like this? The embarrassing name drop (“do you know so-and-so, he met you at a bar once”), the glazed look when thinking of the next question, the feigned casual arrogance.

As a music journalist who has been interviewing bands for years (my first was for street press with Spiderbait, the year they won the Hottest 100), I’ve had interviews that have gone brilliantly and others that have sputtered along.

You always try to make a connection. You always try to arm yourself with interesting questions so nobody’s bored. But the truth is you can’t be a massive fan of everyone you interview; nor do you have time to listen to everyone’s back catalogue. If you are a massive fan, sometimes you do get a little star struck. And you do ask personal questions because people want to know stuff they can’t get through the music. You’re the connection between the listener/reader and the artist. You’re the conversation that the listener/reader would love to have with their favourite artist in a bar. There’s no point getting an ego about it. Really, you’re the bar stool!

My interview with Rusty Hopkinson, the rad drummer from You Am I, was a lot of fun. And, frankly, sometimes it’s fun to speak to other members of the band who aren’t jaded by the whole interview experience and haven’t been asked the same questions 1,000 times.

You Am I are currently touring and the interview appears in today’s edition of U on Sunday in The Sunday Mail. We talked about a range of things from band personalities to how people consume music today: he’s an avid vinyl collector and has more than 3,000 records – one he was so excited to get he even lost his passport over it.

I did ask him about the Underoath mag video (which came out a few years ago during promotion of their Dilettantes album) but that made the cutting room floor, so I am posting it here for you today.

Also in today’s U on Sunday mag are Tim and Katy, a couple who met at clowning school in Paris and run The Game, a choose-your-own-adventure style interactive experience at Woodford, and Scott Breton, Brisbane’s own Leonardo da Vinci, who has just won a $50,000 art prize, which will see him touring the galleries and schools of Europe.

In the meantime, here is the conversation between Rusty and myself about the Underoath videos.

I have to say I really loved the videos that you guys did for the Underoath magazine interviews.

Rusty: That was really hilarious.

That was painful as a journalist to watch.

Rusty: We weren’t really worried, but there was conjecture that we could really be shooting ourselves in the foot as far as any journalist ever speaking to us again. But at the same time, what we found was that people actually loved it. There were lots of journos who would come up and go, ‘That’s based on me, isn’t it?’ and they’d want it to be based on them.

They wanted it?

Well, I think it’s because some people just have that view that they’re probably nerdier than they actually are. I think people tend to see themselves exaggerated in life sometimes and some people were like, ‘Wow, you’ve based it on me, haven’t you?’ And I’d say, ‘Well, no, not really’. It’s the composite of a lot of people but it’s just a bit of fun. This is more just poking fun at the sort of pretentious nature that some people have towards music. People like to be trainspotters and like to correct people about facts, often they’re wrong. We’re all like that ourselves. You just don’t really want to talk to me about certain eras of music because you just don’t have the time to waste hearing me babble on. But even though we’re certainly making fun of those fans, we love people like that because what people need is that enthusiasm even if they’re wrong or even if they’re the most boring people you’ve ever met, the fact that you find people that are quite obsessive like that is kind of endearing.

I think half those journalists are nervous half the time, especially if they’re quite young.

Rusty: Yeah. We just try to make sure that we’re in places where we can get them drunk and loosen them up.

Tim did a really good job as an actor. Is he a bit of a joker?

Rusty: Yeah, he’s a great actor. He’s done a bit of acting. He’s done some really good theatre. He’s a very multi-talented person and he just took that idea and ran with it. He came up with the character and we just walked into the studio where we were mixing our record and there he was. Once we stopped laughing, we got down to it and it was just a lot of fun.

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There are actually a number of videos: one with each band member, including Tim, and one with the whole band together. They are super funny and worth having a giggle to. If not an ARIA this time, Tim Rogers should get an award for his Oscar-worthy performance.

They’re like the musical equivalent of the sign of Gemini, a yin-yang, his-‘n’-hers, boy-meets-girl phenomenon. They were born the same year; his mum’s a model, hers a fashion critic; he’s outgoing, she’s a little shy. They met at a pizza restaurant in Boston. And their music blends seamlessly.

I was lucky enough to see Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield on stage at the Zoo in Brisbane last night. They looked exactly the same, if a little older; he a little fatter, she a little skinnier. (Fortunately, my eyes are getting a little older too, which makes for good airbrushing.) He kept looking towards the sky; she kept looking at the floor. And of course, they sounded rockin’, going through all their classics from My Drug Buddy to My Sister.

Ahead of the gig, I got to interview them for U on Sunday magazine. It was an amusing and candid interview – they spoke openly about their estrangement, their insecurities and who owed whom money, until they asked me not to ask so many personal questions and focus more on the music! Which I did, of course.

Here’s the interview in full.

So where are you both right now?

Juliana Hatfield: I’m in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Evan Dando: I’m in L.A.

It’s great you’re coming to Australia. Will you be catching up with the guys from Smudge and Godstar?

ED: Absolutely. I will be. Our support band is actually Tom Morgan from Smudge and his wife, Leticia. I think Juliana hasn’t been back here since the ’90s. I was here in 2010.

JH: It’s been a long time for me.

How much do you guys keep in touch? Or can you tell me a little about how the reunion came about?

JH: We got together to do some shows a couple of years ago and we’ve been in touch since then, but I think before that there was a long period of time when we weren’t really much in touch, right?

ED: Yes, something about a mess up with a slight debt. It was just the kind of thing that happens sometimes between friends that can cause friction, and it wasn’t handled very well by me possibly. But we reconciled.

JH: We were estranged for a while and then we fixed our problems and made up.

What got you back together?

JH: I think a friendship hasn’t been tested until someone screws the other one. No, I’m kidding. Neither of us would do that to each other, but I think that when a friendship is tested it…

ED: Gets stronger.

JH: Yes, and then you make up and you’re better friends in the end.

Did you pay back the debt?

JH: It wasn’t even about the debt.

ED: Yeah, it was 60 bucks.

JH: It wasn’t about money.

ED: There was a token of that. There was the dollar sign symbol involved somehow. There was a bunch of messy behaviour back in the day but it’s all over.

JH: It’s all fine now

So how long had it been?

JH: It was probably like a 10-year period when we weren’t talking. Is that right, Evan?

ED: Yeah, I guess because you didn’t make it to my wedding so I didn’t see you then and I didn’t really see you much when I was married, for those early years, because I was pretty busy being married and I was just doing stuff with my wife. Did you even meet Elizabeth?

JH: Oh yeah, I saw her here and there at shows, I think.

ED: We haven’t really engaged our friendship since–we just started back a couple of years ago really hanging out again. It’s great.

So what can you say about each other? How much has each of you changed or stayed the same?

JH: I think we’ve both kind of always been the same, that’s sort of how I see it.

ED: Yeah, me too.

JH: We grow, we get older but neither of us has had any radical personality or looks changes. We’re kind of the same people.

ED: We try to get a little wiser as we go along but we haven’t changed much.

So have you picked up any life’s lessons along the way?

ED: Certainly, yeah. None that I can really describe in a quick sound bite but I definitely have learned a thing or two.

JH: I’m still learning how to be more patient. I still get a little anxious and sometimes Evan’s on the receiving end of my anxieties but I’m trying to calm down, slow down, and be more patient.

ED: Actually I’m am anxious person, too…

JH: I know, I get that, I feel that, and it affects me. I’m very sensitive to Evan’s moods and I myself am moody too so it’s complicated sometimes.

I think a lot of people can relate to that.

JH: Yeah, we’re sensitive. That’s a good thing, for the most part.

In what ways are you two similar and in what ways are you different from each other?

ED: Oh well, I’ve had a lot of problems with drugs in my life. That’s one thing that Juliana hasn’t had, I know.

JH: Yeah, I never had that problem.

ED: We both really like sports and we’re both kind of from the same sort of European stock I think.

JH: Yeah. Evan’s better with people than I am. He can make friends with people more easily than I can. Like for example, Evan knows a bunch of people in Australia and I don’t know anybody.

Would you like to know more people or do you not like meeting too many people all at once?

JH: I guess I don’t really like meeting too many people. It’s kind of overwhelming for me. I think I’m a little autistic.

ED: I’m quite a hermit myself. Certainly I can be crazy sometimes but I like being alone – a lot.

JH: Yeah, you’re pretty well-rounded. I like that about you. You’re not one thing, you’re many things.

ED: I was going to say a little less personal, more about the music, please.

Oh really? OK!

ED: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.

Fair enough. Tell me about the kind of feedback that you’ve had from your shows.

ED: It’s been really good. It seems like we haven’t been using electric guitars so all the feedback’s been accidental so far. (Laughter) We’re going to bring electrics this time.

JH: So we’ll be able to make more feedback if we want to.

ED: I’m just really looking forward to playing down there with Juliana. I think Juliana’s a great singer and a great guitar player and I like playing with her, it’s really fun.

So are you singing on each other’s songs?

JH: Yeah, we’re blending, we’re singing on each other’s songs, playing on each other’s songs. We’re just kind of making a duo of everything.

ED: I try to make sure it’s 50/50 but a lot of times it’s more of my songs that come out.

JH: I just think they work better.

ED: That’s not true, Jules.

JH: I think more people want to hear more of your songs. That’s how I feel. That’s how I interpret the audience.

So what can you say about each other as songwriters?

JH: Evan’s a much better songwriter than I am. I really think so.

ED: Exactly. Juliana is a much better songwriter than I am.

JH: A little more poetic, I  think.

ED: She kills me. She kills me.

JH: He’s more poetic. I’m too personal in my songs, I think, and too earnest. He’s funnier.

Do you have a favorite of each other’s songs?

JH: I can’t choose one favorite. That’s too hard to name one.

ED: Yeah. I really like Choose Drugs by Juliana.

JH: Oh, you do?

ED: Yes, I love, love the song My Darling and I really like Live on Tomorrow. Is that what it’s called?

JH: Yep. All right if we’re naming names, I really like—There are too many I can’t name favourites!