Interview with Neil Kulkarni
I'm going to start with a ego-booster, Rocksbackpages wrote a biography page about you, and they described you as 'hugely influential on a whole generation of new critics'. How did you become 'hugely influential'?
I don't think I've been influential, I changed a few peoples heads about hip hop music and about how seriously it should be taken. What I have done is helped other writers get work and get their voice through. I remember a lad called Stevie Chick who used to write me letters at melody maker and I loved his writing and I just said 'look Stevie just phone up and say i'd like to try to write' and he did and he now has loads of books out and he's had a great career and that makes me feel massively proud.
Your breakthrough came after sending Melody Maker a letter moaning about their writing, did you expect them to come back saying write for us then? Did you expect this career to come out of that?
No, thats like an 8 year old kid writing to NASA and them coming back to them saying 'do you wanna go on the next moon mission?'. I've got a sense of unreality about everything, even here now! I'm still floating on air about that. I think I deserved it, the letter was a good letter and made some points that were relevant and also made them in an articulate way. In that sense they weren't like 'oh let's get him on the books, he'll be here for 25 years doing it', they were just like 'give him a go see what its like'. Things were casual like that, in that way you could get hired that way, that would never happen in a million years now.
Would you still have pursued writing if they hadn't asked you to?
'I don't think I would now, I must admit I did send the letter off in the hopes that it'd get printed, certainly not with any dreams that it would. The day before I admitted defeat, I wrote a C.V with nothing on it because i'd done nothing! I stayed at home reading, writing and hanging out with my mates. The day before I was going round Coventry town centre handing my C.V into like clerical jobs, I had no ambition, apart from perhaps to be a writer, so when that happened I was floating on air, I don't think I've really come down since to be honest.
Whats your favourite type of article to write?
Interviews, not only because of the pain of transcribing but I'm shy. I'm kind of getting not bad at it after 25 years, there are features that I've done that have given me an immense sense of pride when they're written. The writing I don't have a problem with but the process of actually sitting with somebody and interviewing them, I'm getting nervous just thinking about it now. The thing love writing the most is album reviews because with album reviews its you, the music and the black page and thats it! You're telling your truth. The other thing I love about album reviews is that you can have a laugh and you can be funny, you can put gags in especially if its a bad album. And if its a great album you can attempt, to get closer to this magical fucking puzzle that is music. One of the most gloriously satisfying things I've written in years was a review of the first stone roses album where I just felt I could puncture this pompous balloon of a record and give it it proper thing. And also its lovely if you've got an artists that you're passionate about and love and thats new and you don't feel is getting the claim that they deserve, its lovely to just be able to press it into other peoples minds like you've got to listen to this!
You said you don't like interviews but, who gave you the best interview you've ever done?
Marilyn Manson, Berlin in 1997. I was reading a lot of interviews with him at the time which seemed to focus on the most pointless aspects of his music. I wasn't a massive fan of his music to be honest with you but I thought he's actually quite smart and he needs to be interviewed in a smart way. We ended up talking about Nietzsche and philosophy and all kinds of stuff. He was probably the smartest pop star I've ever spoken to! And then we got to the gig and his roadie comes up to me and gives me 20 backstage passes says go find girls, ones with big tits you know, cause thats what he likes. It was just like, you know, fucking hell you're a rockstar you tosser. I ended up finishing the interview in an ambulance cause he'd cut himself open, it was a crazy weekend over all. It was more when the feature finally appeared it was a piece that I remain fiercely proud of.
Changing the subject, your most read blogpost of this year was about crisps? Do you wish it was one about music or do you not really mind?
I'm really proud of the way i've written about crisps because I've written about them seriously. When I go down the crisps isle and I see space raiders on one side and normal crisps on one side and all these posh crisps on the other side I do start thinking about class, I was able to put in quite a lot of venomous stuff about gentrification. Crisps to me like anything else reveal the times we live in- I can't believe I just said that but they do! There are important messages in that piece about diversity and inclusion and the way that the middle class are spoiling everything. I fully expected a crisps piece to be popular because when I was doing it as a daily status update on Facebook they were getting hundreds of likes and hundreds of comments, It was about this country right now, right here.
I don't think I've been influential, I changed a few peoples heads about hip hop music and about how seriously it should be taken. What I have done is helped other writers get work and get their voice through. I remember a lad called Stevie Chick who used to write me letters at melody maker and I loved his writing and I just said 'look Stevie just phone up and say i'd like to try to write' and he did and he now has loads of books out and he's had a great career and that makes me feel massively proud.
Your breakthrough came after sending Melody Maker a letter moaning about their writing, did you expect them to come back saying write for us then? Did you expect this career to come out of that?
No, thats like an 8 year old kid writing to NASA and them coming back to them saying 'do you wanna go on the next moon mission?'. I've got a sense of unreality about everything, even here now! I'm still floating on air about that. I think I deserved it, the letter was a good letter and made some points that were relevant and also made them in an articulate way. In that sense they weren't like 'oh let's get him on the books, he'll be here for 25 years doing it', they were just like 'give him a go see what its like'. Things were casual like that, in that way you could get hired that way, that would never happen in a million years now.
Would you still have pursued writing if they hadn't asked you to?
'I don't think I would now, I must admit I did send the letter off in the hopes that it'd get printed, certainly not with any dreams that it would. The day before I admitted defeat, I wrote a C.V with nothing on it because i'd done nothing! I stayed at home reading, writing and hanging out with my mates. The day before I was going round Coventry town centre handing my C.V into like clerical jobs, I had no ambition, apart from perhaps to be a writer, so when that happened I was floating on air, I don't think I've really come down since to be honest.
Whats your favourite type of article to write?
Interviews, not only because of the pain of transcribing but I'm shy. I'm kind of getting not bad at it after 25 years, there are features that I've done that have given me an immense sense of pride when they're written. The writing I don't have a problem with but the process of actually sitting with somebody and interviewing them, I'm getting nervous just thinking about it now. The thing love writing the most is album reviews because with album reviews its you, the music and the black page and thats it! You're telling your truth. The other thing I love about album reviews is that you can have a laugh and you can be funny, you can put gags in especially if its a bad album. And if its a great album you can attempt, to get closer to this magical fucking puzzle that is music. One of the most gloriously satisfying things I've written in years was a review of the first stone roses album where I just felt I could puncture this pompous balloon of a record and give it it proper thing. And also its lovely if you've got an artists that you're passionate about and love and thats new and you don't feel is getting the claim that they deserve, its lovely to just be able to press it into other peoples minds like you've got to listen to this!
You said you don't like interviews but, who gave you the best interview you've ever done?
Marilyn Manson, Berlin in 1997. I was reading a lot of interviews with him at the time which seemed to focus on the most pointless aspects of his music. I wasn't a massive fan of his music to be honest with you but I thought he's actually quite smart and he needs to be interviewed in a smart way. We ended up talking about Nietzsche and philosophy and all kinds of stuff. He was probably the smartest pop star I've ever spoken to! And then we got to the gig and his roadie comes up to me and gives me 20 backstage passes says go find girls, ones with big tits you know, cause thats what he likes. It was just like, you know, fucking hell you're a rockstar you tosser. I ended up finishing the interview in an ambulance cause he'd cut himself open, it was a crazy weekend over all. It was more when the feature finally appeared it was a piece that I remain fiercely proud of.
Changing the subject, your most read blogpost of this year was about crisps? Do you wish it was one about music or do you not really mind?
I'm really proud of the way i've written about crisps because I've written about them seriously. When I go down the crisps isle and I see space raiders on one side and normal crisps on one side and all these posh crisps on the other side I do start thinking about class, I was able to put in quite a lot of venomous stuff about gentrification. Crisps to me like anything else reveal the times we live in- I can't believe I just said that but they do! There are important messages in that piece about diversity and inclusion and the way that the middle class are spoiling everything. I fully expected a crisps piece to be popular because when I was doing it as a daily status update on Facebook they were getting hundreds of likes and hundreds of comments, It was about this country right now, right here.
Comments
Post a Comment