My First Interview Ends In…..

My first ever interview ended up with me sharing the stage with one of rock’s most iconic characters.

Well, kind of sharing the stage.

My first ever interview wasn’t even with a musician.

When The Cure (not the band, but a cool name for a student political ticket) swept to power in the Monash University student elections I found myself part of a loose alliance of interests left running the student newspaper, Lots Wife. I hadn’t really planned on this I thus I had no real idea what my role would be.

I was obviously interested in music and I tended to spend more time in the record shop than the lecture theatre but the idea of writing about music hadn’t really occurred to me. Somehow I stumbled upon an idea of writing a series of articles about jobs that existed in the music industry when you weren’t a musician.

In retrospect that idea probably had a bit to do with the fact that my only attempt at playing music (lessons on an electronic organ) had ended in absolute failure. I was hopeless.

I thought an interesting place to start with my series (brilliantly entitled And The Beat Goes On) was to interview a music journalist. Call it student irony, if you will.

The unfortunate soul that I thrust myself upon was a Sydney music journalist named Stuart Coupe. I was a regular reader of Stuart’s articles and I was most impressed by the fact that he had been flown to America to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. That seemed like my kinda job. This Stuart Coupe guy must have some serious clout.

I got in touch with Stuart and he agreed to be interviewed – he must have been struck by the turning of the tables that that represented! Either that or I was the first person that had ever asked.

Stuart was going to be in Melbourne that week as a band he managed had scored the support spot on an international tour. The band he managed was Hoodoo Gurus. We arranged that I would come to the venue where the concert was (the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre – better known as the old Olympic Pool). I would find Stuart and once his band had finished soundcheck we would find a quite spot and he would subject himself to my incisive questioning about his career choice.

Sound easy enough.

It started to go wrong when I arrived at the venue (with my little red tape recorder and my detailed list of questions) only to find the doors shut. Fortunately I was a regular in them parts with big connections. My Mum worked part time in the offices of Victorian Athletics which was located in the grandstand of Olympic Park which backed on to the old swimming pool.

Thus I entered the precinct via the athletics track. I was inside the fenced off area but I still wasn’t inside the actual building. There were a lot of doors but none that were open. I tried all of them, until at last I hit paydirt.

I opened the only unlocked door and behind it was….a corridor. What followed was a one man (well… boy) re-enactment of the Cleveland scene from Spinal Tap. I followed any number of dark corridors, long passages, open doors and curtained off areas but I didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere.

I could hear music though, familiar music and it wasn’t Hoodoo Gurus. This actually made me more nervous because I thought I was running late and had probably missed Hoodoo Gurus and thus Stuart. I wasn’t aware of the fact that the support act actually didn’t start soundcheck until after the headliner had finished. Who knew?

Surely I’d find someone soon that I could ask about the whereabouts of the manager of the support band.

Finally I climbed some stairs, opened a door and pushed aside another black curtain.

I found myself about five metres away looking at a man with a guitar strumming the chords to a song I knew very well.

Lou Reed was looking back at me.

I was on stage. Lou Reed was playing Sweet Jayne and he was looking straight at me.

He wasn’t smiling.

Also not smiling was a very large, very black and very intimidating man. He was not smiling and he was approaching me.

“You are not supposed to be here”, he said in a voice that would have struck fear into a much larger and braver man than I.

He was also correct.

As he gently (well as gently as a man with the size and demeanour of a grizzly bear) escorted me back from whence I came I tried to explain that my mission was neither to assassinate the singer nor record his soundcheck on my little red tape player. Fortunately he believed me.

Even more fortunately he believed my story about being a writer from a student newspaper being at the venue to interview the manager of the support band about his other career as a music journalist.

Either he believed me or took pity on me.

He directed me to the foyer, told me to stay put and told me he would find Stuart and direct him my way. I agreed. A gonzo journalist I was not.

Of course the story ends with Stuart appearing, me conducting a genuinely interesting interview and ending up doing probably a thousand more interviews over the course of the next couple of decades.

Stuart remains a good friend and colleague until today. He still writes, manages and has a very cool record label called Laughing Outlaw. I don’t think I’ve ever actually told him this story.

Hoodoo Gurus went on to be one of Australia’s greatest rock bands and they continue to release great new albums as recently as last month. I’ll probably see them again in concert next week.

Of course Lou Reed is still Lou Reed.

And I was on stage with him.