QUESTIONS & JAANSWERS
Dear Jaan, I’m trying to break into a career in music journalism, and of course I know your famous line: “Rock stars are not my friends.” But I’m not buying it. You’ve been in that world for decades, surely you’ve hit it off with someone, right?
QUESTIONS & JAANSWERS
Dear Jaan,
I’m trying to break into a career in music journalism, and of course I know your famous line: “Rock stars are not my friends.” But I’m not buying it. You’ve been in that world for decades, surely you’ve hit it off with someone, right? How do you straddle that line if there’s a real connection between you and someone you’re writing about?
Sincerely,
Nosy in Newark
Dear Nosy,
It’s not that I don’t like artists.
I do. I got into this line of work because I’m a fan. But when I started covering bands, the goal wasn’t to hang out with rock stars, or have steamy backstage sex with them, or make them my pals. No, I wanted to understand them, to get inside their heads and extract what makes them who they are. Like a forensic pathologist training an imaginary scalpel on a living being.