Journalist obsessed with music, the former pillar of Inrocks JD Beauvallet is also an outstanding interviewer. While a collection of about twenty of his interviews is appearing, we asked him about his working methods and his shocks of encounters.
But how does he do it? How has JD Beauvallet, great pen of rock criticism and former pillar of Inrocks, managed for three decades to draw such treasures from the artists he meets? David Bowie, Björk, Daft Punk, Bono, Lana Del Rey, Thom Yorke, Aphex Twin, AC/DC’s Angus Young, and hundreds of others, gave their mic a long time, baring themselves in exercises rare introspection.
Like few of his peers, this journalist manages to break the jargon, to penetrate the intimacy of his interlocutors who confide as never before, revealing in doing so the cracks that motivated their works. In a book soberly named interview, published these days by Braquage editions, it has brought together around twenty of these delights of interviews. The opportunity to ask this model “smuggler” to reveal some of his manufacturing secrets.
After “Passeur”, your captivating autobiography published in 2021, why publish this collection of interviews?
JD Beauvallet : It may seem very pretentious but for me it is a duty of memory, so that these great interviews symptomatic of a bygone era do not disappear. This kind of long interviews, which were our trademark at Inrocks, are no longer done today. With the Pixies I had nevertheless spent three days in Los Angeles! It saddens me now to see ten-minute interviews sent to a hotel room that are only used for promotion. I have the impression that artists are so afraid of talking bullshit that they prefer not to express themselves anymore.
How did you choose the 21 interviews for this collection?
I re-read a lot of things when making the selection and I favored personal memories. Some interviews like Bowie’s and Björk’s are part of my DNA. Others relate to people less known to the general public but who had an enormous influence, such as George Clinton, Aphex Twin, Genesis P-Orridge or Townes Van Zandt. All are part of my personal little pantheon. The criterion was that the background had to be really important. Because succeeding in getting Bono to speak with such intimacy, such honesty, without the politicking side that he often has… Or Bowie who responds without manipulating the truth, these are real moments of grace when you experience them live.
Precisely, how do you manage to drop the language of wood and to enter so far into the intimacy of the artists? Do you have a method?
The interviews, I approach them like a treasure hunt. I ponder each question as it will allow me to bounce back and gain ground, to open the doors one by one before arriving at the sacred door of the holy of holies. If I ask the question that opens the last door right away, it will be slammed in my face because we don’t open up like that. You have to coax the artist, show him that you have a real intimacy with his work. It’s preparatory work that can take me two or three weeks. But when they finally let me into an intimate area, when the person talks to me like there’s no microphone between us, those are great moments. Moreover, I realized that these are often questions that artists tackled for the first time, that they had never thought about them before and had therefore not yet elaborated a discourse on the subject. However, I think that they are also interested in exploring their gray areas.
Does the interview then become a kind of psychoanalysis?
Yes, but then a psychoanalysis with a total absence of professional training. And that can be quite dangerous… There is the case of Cat Power, who had had a fit of hysteria. During the interview, I felt that there was something about her mom that she had to get out: she wanted to talk to me about it, but she didn’t want to. I insisted and then there was the question of too much and all of a sudden, she rolled on the floor, she broke a chair. It was really very violent. There she said something that really struck me. She said to me: “You brought me here, now you get me out of it”. I realized then that sometimes I go too far. It must be said that I ask artists questions that I would not ask my best friend, or even my wife.
What exactly is this “holy of holies” you dream of reaching?
I seek to reveal the break, the crack, which makes an artist devote himself entirely to music, living only for it and by it, abandoning any idea of career and family. These are dizzying questions. The self-sacrifice of the artists is super impressive. I’ve spent enough time with them, especially on tour, to see how exploited they are, squeezed like lemons. Before being, sometimes even, thrown away when there is no more juice. It involves a degree of sacrifice that’s hard to imagine for someone who only sees the side of the stage and thinks, “They’re lucky, they’re going all over the world.” In reality, fulfilled and happy artists, I have not met masses of them.
Which artist surprised you the most in an interview?
David Bowie, it was a huge surprise. Because I really did not expect him to deliver himself with such an absence of safeguards, of wooden language. And then it’s an interview that I dreamed of since I was a kid. Some artists have surprised me with their intelligence too, like Brian Eno, with his incredible spirit of synthesis. But one of my favorite people to interview is Björk. Because what she says is funny, personal, universal, intimate and very intelligent all at the same time. And she has an opinion on everything. Björk always begins her answers with a long silence and the first time, it’s very destabilizing: you think she didn’t understand your question at all. And then you realize that in fact she is building her answer at a prodigious speed, and that her answer will be funny, that she will go all over the place, that she will go away from the track, and that she will land on her feet on the last three words.
Readers imagine you to be very sure of yourself. But I understand that interviews stress you out a lot, even after decades of practice?
Oh but it’s awful! Whether it’s Bowie or a small group from Manchester who have released three songs on Bandcamp, I have the same nervousness and I prepare interviews with the same meticulousness. I often come out of it empty and then I go back up in stages. In reality, I am very shy by nature, but in an interview I become a different person: I never let go of the goal I have set for myself, where I want to go and what I dream of getting from the person in front. of me. That’s why I always say: an interview is never, ever, a discussion. It has to be formal, constructed. If we fall into the trap of conversation, we stay on the surface.
“Interviews” by JD Beauvallet, preface by Brigitte Giraud (Editions Braquage, €28)