Journalist/Broadcaster/Author
Here is the conundrum: how does anyone write coherently about a band that has heretofore been mythologized and almost embalmed in prose that’s more parable than purple? If the band is Manchester’s Joy Division, and if you are that band’s chubby mid-50s, former bass player Peter Hook, then the answer is crystal-clear. “The interesting … Read more Interview: Peter Hook
So here we are: just after midnight, October 25th, 2011, in Katy Perry’s dressing room at Belfast’s Odyssey. She is still dressed in her sparkly pink stage costume, has just completed a shake’n’hug’n’meet’n’greet with several troops of her fans, and welcomes us in with a whoop and a holler of “It’s my birthday! Glass of … Read more Interview: Katy Perry
It is no small irony to Irish, Oscar-winning singer/songwriter/performer Glen Hansard that, on occasion, major success comes to those who, quite like himself, he admits, would rather whittle wood and talk to themselves in ramshackle sheds miles away from anywhere. It’s an even bigger irony when the type of success many might think they’d … Read more Interview: Glen Hansard
Much as we’re loathe to appeal to the baser instincts of people who like to stereotype their pop and rock stars, it behoves us to report that I am talking to Rufus Wainwright in a pink tent. The tent is so faaaaabulous, gaaaarish and incredibly piiiiiinnnnkk that even Rufus seems initially taken aback by it. … Read more Interview: Rufus Wainwright
With a back-story that he will totally blank questions about, a bagful of lyric books and a rapid-fire delivery, Salford poet John Cooper Clarke has, against the odds, survived to tell many a tale. He’s a happy-go-lucky guy, he says, a bit grumpy on an occasional basis, but mostly just a thin man with a … Read more Interview: John Cooper Clarke
It’s happened before and it will, no doubt, happen again: take a bunch of teenagers from a small town grammar school, put musical instruments into their hands, dress them in the la-di-da clothes of the day and wait until they sell over one million copies of their debut album. “You occasionally get the feeling … Read more Interview: Two Door Cinema Club
“If you can’t ask yourself the tough questions as a priest – does God really exist? Are all the Christian ways to get to God blind paths, and so on – then you have no business being one. In a lot of ways, preachers, ministers, priests in any religion, are not allowed to say those … Read more Interview: Jack White
We are twenty minutes into a right old natter, and Tottenham’s Aretha Franklin is wrinkling up her nose. “I’m so sorry, but the dog has farted.” Louis Armstrong, Adele Adkins’ petite, tubular dachshund (aka Sausage), is soiling the atmosphere of XL Records’ headquarters in London’s Ladbroke Grove, but the apology is shot through with a … Read more Interview: Adele