Rock Author Jim Sullivan Takes You Backstage and Beyond
Rock author Jim Sullivan – a 2023 inductee into the New England Music Hall of Fame – spent 26 years writing for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for countless national publications. He has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, many of them multiple times.
In 2023, Trouser Press Books published two volumes of his music writing, Backstage and Beyond, which contained some of his best conversations with rock artists.
Those two books have now been combined into one eBook with eleven new chapters. The 71 chapters feature an eclectic collection of artists, spanning generations and styles, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Ian Hunter, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Nico, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Jethro Tull, Ginger Baker, Ringo Starr, Warren Zevon, Pete Townshend, Puff Daddy and so many more.
https://youtu.be/cUcE030aL8w
Rock Author Jim Sullivan Interview Excerpts
The Most Challenging Interview
Let’s say Johnny Rotten, certainly John Lydin at various points. We did get on well, but he has a persona and it can be abrasive and ascerbic. So there was sort of getting over a hump, certainly to be able to converse with him.
That was in the early days. I think later we established ourselves pretty well and that was fine.
Morrissey would be one as well. Not an easy man to talk to and both antagonistic and defensive at times.
Puff Daddy
I thought maybe he would be a little difficult to get through the veneer at first. He was. It was an interesting assignment. I spent the day with him as he went from radio station to radio station in Boston doing his shtick, which is the same shtick at every station, which is repeat the name of the album a hundred times and his spiel.
But what I did was I rode in the van or the window, whatever it was, with his entourage. And he turned it on and off. I mean, when he was on camera or on air, and when he was off, silence.
And my job in some ways was to kind of penetrate the silence and get things from him that were not just
radioable quotes, you know, and radioable selling points. I did, I think, to some extent.
There’s some tough stuff in there. I mean, we know where Puff Daddy’s at now with things that have been alleged. Pretty serious stuff. There are hints of that in my chapter too. He was under some fire for various, again, potential alleged crimes then too. And we get into that.
It’s kind of an outlier chapter in a way. I don’t deal a lot with hip hop, but this was just so fascinating. In a way, I just felt I had to include it. And I’m glad I did.
Warren Zevon
I think, with him and Ray Davies of the Kinks, I think we’re the two deepest, longest relationships I had,
interviews stretched over a number of years.
And with Zevon, you’re right. And I talked to a number of people who were his friends and collaborators,
The writer Carl Haise, for instance, who had a very good take on the latter part of Warren’s life, which was not too pretty at all. I saw him in many different phases.
First time I saw him, he was performing and drunk at the Berkeley Performance Center in Boston.
And the next time I met him a couple of years later, I reminded him of that performance. He didn’t remember it. And I said, we met backstage briefly and went, yeah, I was drunk, you know, I don’t know.
And so I met him in mostly pretty much his recovery phase.
He was extremely candid, extremely bright, and funny, and very good analysis of his own work and others.
Actually, one of the funniest bits is just this really quick exchange we had. We were having lunch at Muso and Frank in LA and, you know, sat down to order and I ordered a beer.
And then after ordering the beer, I realized, oh, Jesus, he’s a recovering alcoholic. Maybe you’re not supposed to drink alcohol in front of the recovering alcoholic.
And I said, oh, geez, Warren, should I not have done that? He goes, yeah, Jim, you ordering a beer is really gonna make me start drinking.
MORE ALL MIXED UP – Interviews and Playlists
