When You’re Not Excited, You’re Not a Fan: An Interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette

Interviewed by Less Lee Moore

Because the United States tends to dominate the entertainment industry, frequently one will hear entertainers referred to as another “version” of a well-known American pop culture icon. That’s what makes Vancouver’s Nardwuar the Human Serviette so special. There is no American equivalent. He is unabashedly Canadian.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette
Photo © William Jans

If you haven’t yet heard of Nardwuar, you are in for a real treat. He’s a walking, talking encyclopedia of pop culture knowledge, particularly punk music, and particularly the music scene in Vancouver, BC. He’s in The Evaporators and Thee Goblins, two irrepressible and entertaining bands; he writes for several publications; and as a result, he has interviewed hundreds of personalities, from Alice Cooper to Zolar X, including Annie Sprinkle, Bob Dobbs, Cynthia Plaster Caster, Dan Quayle, Elijah Wood. . . I’ll stop now and let you check out the rest on his website.

He’s a gonzo journalist in the truest sense of the term: someone whose insatiable curiosity and sincere love of popular culture transcends and defies expectations and definitions.

I was honored to interview Nardwuar for this month’s Popshifter.

Popshifter: First, would you like to give a little synopsis of who you are and what you do?

Nardwuar: I am Nardwuar the Human Serviette from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I’m a punk rock journalist. I do freelance work for MuchMusic, I do my radio show on CITR-FM 102, Cable 102 every Friday afternoon, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. PST, also available at the CITR website. You can listen live. I also contribute to various fanzines such as Chart Magazine in Canada, Razorcake out of Los Angeles, and Roctober out of Chicago. Plus, I play in a band called The Evaporators. I sing and scream and also play keyboards. I also participate in a mysterious combo known as Thee Goblins. And! I also operate Nardwuar.com, which is a dumping ground for all my interviews and all The Evaporators and Goblins stuff. . . so if none of this makes any sense, you can click on that link and find out all about me!

Popshifter: Cool, thank you! You’ve done a lot of stuff with bands that you obviously like, and bands that you like and have researched. Would you consider yourself a fan first and then a journalist? Or do you consider yourself a journalist first?

Nardwuar: I do my radio show every Friday so there’s always somebody to interview. I really have no time to be a journalist and no time to be a fan, I just have time to be me, (laughs) Nardwuar the Human Serviette! I get so excited at the chance to do an interview! So I guess it’s just being excited. . . I guess it’s fandom, right? I consider myself a fan, but I just get so excited I don’t have time to think about anything, it’s like, “Ohmigod! I’m gonna do an interview!” I get to meet somebody.

Popshifter: (laughs) Yeah, I agree. It definitely comes through. I’ve felt that way, too. I had a paper fanzine years ago and that was more about the excitement of getting to meet people I admired than anything else.

Nardwuar: I really am a fan, and thank you for pointing that out, Less, because if you’re not a fan, then you shouldn’t do it. It’s fun to be able to do an interview, but if you’re not into doing an interview, why bother doing the interview? Like the minute you get bored is the minute you should quit. And usually you’re bored when you’re not excited. And when you’re not excited, then you’re not a fan! So you should quit when you’re getting bored and I haven’t gotten bored yet. I’m still excited.

Popshifter: You said you consider yourself a punk rock journalist. Do you also consider yourself a “gonzo” journalist, like Hunter S. Thompson?

Nardwuar: He’s not really so much my influence, like I’ll pray to his altar and all that, and totally worship him—

Popshifter: (laughs)

Nardwuar: But it’s more different types of journalists that have come from CITR radio in the sense that I’ll be doing my radio show and I’ll be interviewing somebody like, say Timothy Leary (and that interview is available on my Welcome To My Castle! DVD).

Popshifter: And I watched it!

Click to read more from Nardwuar on. . .

Inspirations and approaches to interviews
Music journalists and the early days
Can Rock and Chris Murphy of Sloan
Beck (Hansen) and Bach (Sebastian)
Digging into history and school dances
Redd Kross and Bill Bartell
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part one
Nardwuar’s fave fanzines, part two

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