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The Catalyst interviews 2024: Quote unquote

The long-form interview is part of every career journalist’s portfolio. With regard to arts and entertainment journalism, the writer will in time compose short stories, long stories, lists of hits, lists of flops, lists of “best bets,” year-end stories, weekend preview stories, event previews, event reviews, artist profiles, company profiles, straight news, pure features and … long-form interviews.
Looking back at 2024, it was a better-than-average year for lengthy musician Q&A interviews in the St. Pete Catalyst. We publish them in this format when the musician (or, in some cases, the actor or the comedian) is a particularly big-name artist. In all instances, the interviews were conducted and published in advance of a bay area performance.
Here’s a curated list of our 15 favorite long-form Catalyst interviews for the year (nearly) gone by.
Eddie Izzard. Great Britain’s sharpest comedian is now a trans woman called Suzy, which hasn’t changed the pointed barbs of her humor one iota. In fact, Izzard’s standup comedy, surreal of themes and precise of words, may be funnier now than ever. It was a rare visit to Tampa Bay from this internationally acclaimed entertainer. “My standup is really Monty Python when I go into the sketch work, but the narrator that I’ve developed is something that I studied American standups doing. And thought that’s what I wanted. And apparently I’m now good at standup, but I really could not do it to save my life when I started.” (Oct. 19)
Jewel. America’s Pop Poet Laureate was candid about her struggles with family, and finances, and mental health, not to mention the ups and downs of a career stretched like a string between commercial success and artistic integrity (they don’t always go hand in hand). Ironically, after the interview was published, Hurricane Helene forced cancellation of the concert. So Jewel did not appear here. “I think anybody that’s really suffered feels connected to the world in a different way. And, that suffering feels like the most real and important thing in life is learning how not to suffer. It troubled me, when I moved out at 15, that there was no way to learn about it. I was raised in an abusive household, raised in dysfunction, and I inherited that dysfunction. It’s like being taught a language; I would grow up speaking that language, just like I grew up speaking English.” (Sept. 21)
Lindsey Stirling. The innovative composer, solo violinist, dancer and video-creator (her YouTube channel alone has 14.1 million subscribers, and nearly four billion views) talked about self-mobilizing a career in the music business when no one else wanted to know. “I started writing my own music for the very first time. I started to experiment and try playing all different types of music to find out what I actually liked. Because as a classical violinist, you don’t even get to choose what to play. Or how to play it. For me, it really came to life in a whole new way when suddenly I got to be creative with it.” (July 23)
Steve Hackett. The revered British prog rock guitarist talked about tapping, a form of electric guitar performance that he is credited with creating, plus his longtime love for blues and jazz – and, of course, Genesis, the band he took to dizzying new heights in the ‘70s with the albums Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and A Trick of the Tail. “I’m proud of what the band achieved, and I’m even more proud of the fact that I heard just recently that John Lennon said – in the era of 1972/73 – that he thought that Genesis were true sons of the Beatles. And that can’t be bought.” (Feb. 26)
Matisyahu. His has been one of the most unusual success stories in hip hop; the former Matthew Miller is an ever-creative singer/songwriter and record-maker who began his performance career dressed in traditional Hasidic garb. Rapping and beatboxing, with religious themes, were his calling card. We talked about the dramatic evolution in his reggae-inspired music over the last 19 or 20 years. “If you go to take a snapshot of me when I’m 14 years old, you could say I kinda look like a hippie, dreadlocks, sandals and patchworks pants, but hanging out with my friends I’m listening to hip hop music. And on my own time, I’m mainly listening to reggae music. And going to shows like Phish concerts.” (Jan. 30)
Kathy Griffin. We spoke with the comedian, actor and author in the middle of her first tour in six years. She had been vilified – and lost a lot of work – back in 2017 for publishing a photo of herself holding what looked like the bloody, decapitated head of the then-current American president. “I lost about 75 percent of my friends. I was in the middle of a 50-city tour; the second 25 cities got canceled because of bomb threats and death threats to me that were so intense that every theater just pulled the show. I wasn’t able to travel. I wasn’t able to make a living. It’s never happened in the history of comedy.” May 15)
Midge Ure. Rock ‘n’ roll royalty came to visit – the former frontman of England’s electro-pop pioneers Ultravox co-wrote “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” co-organized Live Aid, and was the musical director for the Prince’s Trust concerts in London for many years. Ure was subsequently made a member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. Ultravox, strangely, never scored big-time in America. “When we hit getting to the level of playing Avery Fisher Hall in New York, or whatever, 2,000-capacity venues, the next logical step for Ultravox would be to open up for someone much bigger, in front of a larger audience. You can’t do that if you do a five-hour soundcheck. So we stalemated at that point and watched Depeche Mode and the Cure and everyone else come storming in and steal our crown.” (Sept. 7)
Steve Lukather. Another string-man of considerable renown, Lukather has a studio resume as long as that of Tony Levin (can you say Michael Jackson’s Thriller?), he’s also a founding member of Toto, an incredible singer/songwriter (he’s the lead vocalist on “Rosanna,” of the band’s biggest hits) – and, not least, one of the funniest dudes on the planet. AND he’s a 12-year veteran of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done, outside of Toto. First off, to be close friends with Ringo, 12 years in? I cherish that. I love this man. He lives eight minutes from me. We hang out, we talk. It never gets old to get a FaceTime from Ringo, you know? He’s a brother of mine now. I can’t believe I’m saying that.” (May 1).
Tony Levin. He might not be a household name, but Levin is not only king of the prog bass players, he’s appeared on albums by David Bowie, Warren Zevon, John Lennon (Levin was in the Double Fantasy band), Pink Floyd, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Richard Thompson, Joan Armatrading, Seal, Alice Cooper, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, Sarah McLachlan and many others (more than 1,000 albums and counting). Best known as part of Robert Fripp’s King Crimson from the early ‘80s to … well, today, Levin was in St. Pete with his trio Stick Men, for which he played the Chapman Stick, a unique instrument that has both guitar and bass strings. “So suddenly I had the option of playing guitar and bass at the same time. What appealed to me was that it has a different sound, a different attack – very percussive and a huge range. The strings are tuned different. And in the progressive rock setting that I live in a lot of the time, anything that help push me outside of my normal, comfortable zone on the bass, is helpful to me.” (March 4)
Raul Malo. The longtime frontman for the Mavericks has a voice that echoes Roy Orbison and even Elvis Presley to add to the beloved band’s pure country music. The Cuba-born, Miami-raised musician was candid and forthright in our interview, opening up about his ongoing battle with intestinal cancer and the band’s reputation as cult favorites (a polite way of saying they’ve yet to land a major hit). “Inevitably, Uber drivers will drop me off at a studio, or pick me up at a tour bus or a venue or whatever, and they’ll ask me, what do you do? And I’ll say well, I’m the most famous person you’ve never heard of. I say, I’ll give you my name, I’ll tell you the band that I perform with. You’ve never heard of us. But I’ll get out of the car, and you’ll Google it, and you’ll be like “Holy shit, that guy was just in my car!” And sure enough, that’s exactly what always happens. So that’s my fame. I’m the Americana cult hero.” (Nov. 12)
Tommy Stinson. Singer/songwriter Stinson, beloved bassist for rock ‘n’ roll’s rough and ragged underdogs, The Replacements, played a solo show at the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club. In our rambling interview, he mused on his brief stints in Guns N Roses and Soul Asylum, the thrill he gets from performing in unusual venues (like the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club) and, mostly, on the Replacements ruining their own careers by staying drunk, disorderly and irresponsible. “I do look back with a certain amount of pride, for sure, and not one regret. We did what we knew best how to do, as far as we could do it and as long as we could do it. And with all of our, uhh, social graces and everything else in tow – or lack thereof, really – we did what we set out to do and from there, whatever else is gonna happen, happens.” (Jan. 8)
Chris Difford. One-half of the extraordinary songwriting team behind Squeeze, the legendary British pop/rock band, Difford is well-spoken, humble and incredibly witty, all of which has been apparent in his lyrics for the now 50-year-old group (see “Pulling Mussels From the Shell,” “Cool For Cats,” “Up the Junction,” “Tempted,” “Vicky Verky,” “Another Nail For My Heart” and dozens more). “I’ve always been semi-conscious as a writer! I don’t really know. It’s just the nature of my characteristics as a human being, I suppose. I’m kind of complicated, like a lot of people, and I suppose it comes out in some of the lyrics. It baffles me, but I enjoy not knowing where some of the ideas come from. I think it’s really important, for me anyway, not to over-complicate a lyrical image.” (Sept. 16)
Howard Jones. A major figure in the synth- and style-driven pop movement that enveloped English music in the post-punk mid ‘80s, Jones had a great run in his country’s Top Ten with “New Song,” “What is Love,” “Things Can Only Get Better” and a handful of others. “No One is to Blame” was a big hit in America, too. “I think that’s why I’m still here, because I love doing this. I love playing in front of people and inspiring them, and encouraging them and giving them a good time for a couple of hours a night. Anything else that comes with it is transient, but those are the real benefits. It’s being able to touch people with the music, to get them excited and to give them a good time. That’s the real stuff.” (Nov. 6).
Chris Thile. The master mandolinist, composer and singer had a typically hectic year in 2024, but to hear him tell it, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Thile was on the road in the spring with a reunited Nickel Creek, the bluegrass trio he’d been part of since childhood. He’d gone on to become one of the most respected and admired musicians in all of Americana, through his ambitious Punch Brothers Band and throw-ins with the like of Bela Fleck, David Grisman, Sarah Jarosz, Billy Strings and Norah Jones, and had even hosted A Prairie Home Companion for a few years. “I would caution people against looking at the amount of notes in a chord, or the amount of chords that exist in a song. That’s one way to measure the ambition of a given piece of music – but by no means the only. You know, how many time signatures per square minute of music? These are various ways to measure ambition or complexity. But listen to Gillian Welch’s The Harrow and the Harvest and you’ll hear a whole other way that you could measure subtlety, complexity, nuance.” (Feb. 22)
Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken. From Season 2 of American Idol, the winner and the runner-up both went on to successful solo careers. But they remained friends and in 2024, went on the road together. Said Aiken: “No one else except for the 10 people who were finalists with us know what we went through. I became really close with Kelly Clarkson when we toured together the next year – in large part because, at that point, no one else besides Ruben and Kelly, and Justin Guarini, knew what it was like to spend an entire season on a TV show like that. And have your lives changed overnight, almost. Because we all went through the fire together, we have that bond.” Said Studdard: “We intentionally avoid singing songs that are on our albums, just because we wanted this to be The Ruben & Clay Show, not The Ruben Show and then, when Clay comes on, it’s The Clay Show. And what better way to do it than sing material that is based in the people that were a part of our American Idol journey.” (Jan. 23)
