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

Popshifter: I did! (laughs) And he said, “Well, don’t thank me yet. You’ve only been married a few years!” He was really nice. I saw them in New Orleans, where I’m from, and they played with Jet. It was before I moved but it was after I’d gotten married and I was waiting for my Canadian residency. He just thought it was really funny. That was a great show. I had never seen them in a smaller place, only at the ACC [Air Canada Centre] in April 2002. So the show in New Orleans was really exciting.

So yeah, I have a lot to thank Sloan for, actually!

Nardwuar: Sloan have brought a lot of people together. They were one of the first bands in Canada to have a message board, with Sloannet. And they helped me, because my friend Brian Weiser, who ran CITR radio. . . I guess this was about ten years ago or more. . . I had signed up to do an interview with Moist. And I wasn’t quite sure what I should do with Moist.

Popshifter: (laughs)

Beck is not a happy camper.
Image from Nardwuar.com

Nardwuar: So Brian put out a call to Sloannet to see if anyone had any questions for me to ask Moist and I got tons and tons of responses from that. So I gotta thank Sloannet for Moist hanging up on me.

Popshifter: (laughs)

Nardwuar: Which was great.

Popshifter: (still laughing) Funny that you mention people hanging up and Chris Murphy walking out on you. After I read your interview with Beck, and how he had later gone on to say that he was really upset that you implied that he was trying to hurt radio and he said you were “vicious”. . . I thought it was so weird that he took everything so out of context or the wrong way. How does it make you feel when people don’t really get your approach or they misconstrue your intentions?

Nardwuar: Well, in that particular instance it really hurt me because what happened was, his record label [Geffen/DGC] then banned me from interviewing anybody on his record label! In fact, when Chris Murphy was on his label, he was asked to do an interview. Actually, Chart Magazine wanted Chris Murphy to interview me for Chart so they put a request to Beck’s label, but the label wouldn’t let Chris Murphy interview me because I had upset Beck.

I’d been at other concerts and been kicked out because I was, quote “the guy that upset Beck.” And then all his bulletin board people started getting on me and hassling me. . . it still haunts me to this day.

Popshifter: Oh my god.

Nardwuar: It’s been haunting me for like ten or twelve years. Because he complained to his manager and his manager claimed that he blew the show that night. And I asked the questions that I ask to everybody, like, “Why should people care?” and all that sort of stuff.

Popshifter: Yeah!

Nardwuar: And I’m just joking around and having fun but I wasn’t trying to be mean to him at all. But it’s interesting how people take stuff that way. But that’s life and some people misunderstand when you’re at the department store trying on clothes or at the record store. There’s always misunderstandings and that’s life and that’s entertainment and if you don’t like it, get out.

However, that particular interview did kind of upset me. But, what was interesting about that was it was also a turning point for me. Because I couldn’t interview the bands on his record label I was forced to turn to other bands that weren’t as popular. And that’s about the time I got involved in the Heavy Metal world! My buddy Mark Kleiner, from the band The Sister Lovers in Vancouver, said, “Nardwuar, you’re always talking about these punk bands? What about some heavy metal stuff? Heavy metal is on the outs these days, like punk is popular!” And I was like, “What? Are you crazy?” Like, no, it’s hilarious! So I started interviewing all these metal band and it was really fun. . . until I interviewed Sebastian Bach of Skid Row.

Nardwuar and Neil Hamburger
Image from Nardwuar’s Gallery

Popshifter: Oh, yes, I read about that!

Nardwuar: And he ended up smashing the interview tape and stealing my toque. And then I was banned from interviewing anybody on his record label!

So I had to reach out and try to find other people to talk to! So then I started venturing into the world of the Timothy Learys and the conspiracy theorists [Robert Anton Wilson] and the porn stars. . . so from all the bad, good stuff happened. However, it was really annoying to have this Beck thing hang over my head. Even a year or two ago, people were saying, “What happened between you and Beck?” Like record label people are still leery about giving me an interview.

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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