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Quote unquote: The Catalyst Interviews 2023 in review
It’s not exactly a trade secret: Any media outlet’s arts and entertainment section, particularly an outlet that publishes new content daily, should be a combination of feature stories, profiles, news, event advances, reviews (if that’s their thing; we don’t do reviews at the Catalyst) and occasionally the all-important in-depth interview.
The idea is to keep readers surprised (and, hopefully, pleased) with something new – whatever it may be – every day.
At the end of each year, we look back on what we consider our Top 10 celebrity interviews; advance telephone convos with performers who were on their way to the bay area. There were more than two dozen in 2023; here are the favorites chosen by the Catalyst arts editor (that’d be me).
Laura Jane Grace (April 9): The singer/songwriter and founder of Florida’s Against Me! talked about her music, her audience and her transgender journey. “I saw it kind of reaching this point of like I was feeling so stifled, an inability to express anything I was feeling, unless I came out. Where it was going to be more detrimental if I didn’t come out, and I started to explore that side of myself – whether that was like growing my hair longer, and people telling me to cut my hair, or like if I would have put on any kind of makeup, people would have made some kind of derogatory comment, ‘guyliner’ or something like that. It was more important to just be f—in’ honest with people about what I was going through, and who I am. So it kind of felt like it had reached a head.”
Rick Wakeman (March 20): Turns out the British keyboard legend and Yes member, who’s made some of the most serious music of the last half-century, has quite the sense of humor. And he’s painfully straightforward. “I’ve had three heart attacks, I’ve had pleurisy, I’ve had chronic pneumonia twice, I’ve been given 48 hours to live twice over, I had alcohol cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis … you get to a stage where you go ‘Hold on a minute. I really quite like living.’ So you change your lifestyle a bit. I mean, I stopped smoking in 1979, and I stopped drinking in 1985. And I think if I hadn’t have done that, for sure I wouldn’t be talking to you now.”
Lukas Nelson (Oct. 23): Willie Nelson’s son (and sometime Neil Young collaborator) brought his band Promise of the Real to St. Pete. “I did, by my own hand, sever my connection to the teat, if you will, of the family. I’ve been financially independent since I was a young kid out of college. And so there were times when I slept in my car … but it was my choice. I think my parents were proud of me for never coming to them and asking for anything. Moreover, I was more proud of myself to just know that I could make something of myself.”
Bob Crawford of the Avett Brothers (March 15): Brothers Scott and Seth Avett are the marquee names, Joe Kwon is the cellist, and Bob’s the harmony-singing bass player. But they’re all key members of North Carolina’s most major musical congregation. “The Avett Brothers, we’re the kind of operation that … I feel like we’re still under the radar? Twenty-one years we’re under the radar! People that know me, know me, right? I’m Bob. But that’s the exception, that’s not the norm. And I’m the bass player, and I look like Average Guy. I’m not as distinctive as Joe Kwon. Scott and Seth are more high-profile. But it’s just enough for me.”
Margaret Cho (May 15): One of America’s most popular standup comedians was asked what fans who attend her concerts expect to hear. “It’s really what I’m very enthusiastic about talking about. Whether that’s my Asian-ness, which is a major part of my distance; my queerness, which is a big part of my life. My “brand” is like high and low – like high-minded, kind of meaningful topics, but with the most crass perspective. So you have the high-minded, like “We’re trying to make the world better,” but using the most filthy ways of communicating that idea. That’s my idea; that’s my own brand.”
Amanda Shires (Oct. 18): The singer/songwriter, violinist and feminista and activist was asked if the world mostly knew her because of her husband and sometime musical partner, Jason Isbell. “As an artist, I think it’s set up against me because I’m a woman, more than being Jason’s wife. I’m a 41-year-old woman. The way we value women in the world, and working women too, their values are generally based on how old they are or what they look like. All these kinds of things. We haven’t really learned how to support and encourage women’s growth in most businesses.”
Roger Taylor of Duran Duran (June 12): The drummer for Duran Duran – world record sales of 100 million – was once named the 5th most eligible bachelor in Britain. DD was long considered talentless “pretty boys” by the acerbic English media. “Our journey was to get to play to as many people in the world … we didn’t just see ourselves as a domestic British act that you hoped was the darling of the British music press. We were looking to play all over the world and get mass acceptance, I guess. Which we got, and it became very unimportant what was being said about us in the music press. We just kind of bypassed the whole thing.”
Jorma Kaukonen (Oct. 3). We spoke with the rock guitar legend on the eve of a show by Hot Tuna, the band he and fellow Jefferson Airplane alum Jack Casady began in the early 1970s. “There’s a certain not only a zeitgeist, but a mindset, of not just the Airplane but artists in general in San Francisco, it’s going to be difficult to replicate that kind of freedom of creativity. Me and my buddies in the Airplane, we wanted to be successful, professional musicians. It wasn’t like, ‘I’m an artist and I don’t care if I get paid or not.’ We wanted to get paid. We wanted to do all that kind of stuff. But we weren’t part of the music machine.”
Photo property of and copyrighted by Mo Summers
Andy Summers (Dec. 4). Guitarist Summers, along with drummer Stewart Copeland and a bassist/singer called Sting, made history (and millions) as The Police. “We weren’t three natural partners, I don’t think. We had a certain kind of chemistry that worked musically but … I think we were so massive that by the time we got to the fourth album there was a strain there. And by the time we got to the fifth album, I think Sting didn’t want to be in the band any more. He wanted out.”
Graham Nash (Oct. 25): When Nash’s longtime musical partner David Crosby died in January, he and Nash were on the outs and hadn’t spoken in years. However, Nash told us, the ice had begun to thaw. “If Crosby said “Let’s talk, I’ve got these two songs, what do you think?” and the two songs knocked me on my ass, I’m a musician, I’m in. I love good songs, and if David had sent me a couple of songs, or if I’d sent him a couple of songs that he loved, we’d be off making music again.”
Other memorable conversations: Leo Sayer (March 17); Colbie Caillat (June 27); Sheena Easton (June 23); Michael Carbonaro (Nov. 29); John Petrucci of Dream Theater (June 19); Al Stewart (Feb. 22); Barbara Eden (March 27); Clay Cook of Zac Brown Band (Nov. 1); Jim Gaffigan (Jan. 31); Richard Thomas (April 4); Tom Rush (Jan. 28); Terri Nunn of Berlin (July 11); John Lodge of the Moody Blues (March 13); Billy Gilman (Jan. 21).
