Nardwuar

Nardwuar, when I think about how long you’ve been doing interviews, it underscores how important mythology is for any subculture. As much as you’re a journalist, it really makes you a folk hero in a sense. Is that fair?

Nardwuar: I really appreciate that. I try to find people who know a lot and get their stories. When I was growing up, I was president of the student council, and I didn’t know what music to have at our dances. So, I’d ask the students what music they wanted to hear. Thankfully, at our school, there were a lot of mods and punks who would request local bands. A lot of them were bands that had broken up–legendary bands like the Young Canadians or Subhumans from Canada. The old bands, the new bands from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada—the history’s always been important to me.

How did you develop your style and approach to interviewing?

Through CITR-FM radio, the campus community radio station in Vancouver, Canada. I'm still a member. I do my show every couple of months. It took me a year to get a show. At first, I was happy to hang out, listen to music…look at the posters on the wall. Then I got a show and thought, “I’ll be a DJ!” So, I got a whole bunch of records and tried to play them. The show was a complete mess. Because it was so much work to keep playing records on the turntables, you know, I thought instead, I’d play a song, interview a band, then play another song. As far as my interview style, at CITR, the listeners had no patience. I’d be interviewing a band and people would call in and be like, “This is boring! Play a song! Ask a good question!"

To this day, I live in fear that someone will “call in” and say what I’m doing is boring, so I try to find the extra information. It also comes from working at CITR campus radio in general. It’s different than mainstream media. You know, what’s the point of vomiting back the same stuff you’re going to hear somewhere else? You want to provide a different aspect, so that’s kind of what shaped me.

Because you have a very distinct style and delivery, it can cause people to try to almost outplay you in an interview. They can get adversarial. How do you stay dug into your script?

Well, just simply: I have questions to ask. I want to ask all my questions. I’ve done research, I’ve read the books, and once the questions have been asked, the interview is over. I don’t want to bail on the interview as it’s going on. I’m so focused on the task and I’m always nervous. The minute you’re not nervous is the minute you should quit. The people watching or listening aren’t there in person, so they can be like, “You talked to that person, and you didn’t ask them this question?” I don’t want to get that sort of abuse afterwards, so I have to ask everything I can. That’s what pulls me through it. I have lots to ask.

Some of the musicians and personalities you interviewed early in your career were very private, but you’re able to get them to open up. Now people are broadcasting so much more about themselves–where they shop, what they eat, how they’re doing mentally. Do you see a generational difference in your interviews?

The number one goal for me is to get people to talk. And I find with young people today, they're extremely knowledgeable. I can show them a record to get them to talk, and they’ll give me a paragraph answer about that band–basically a Wikipedia explanation. And I learn something too! Maybe it’s a band I missed. They teach me a lot. I love getting educated. They know so much!

Your Nike SB Dunk is all about pattern. I was thinking about how tartan or plaid is such a signifier: punk rock, ska, grunge. Only a certain type of person is going to wear plaid pants. It’s very loaded, but what made you choose that specific tartan?

I modeled the Nardwuar SB Dunk after my hat. In earlier interviews, I used to wear a skull cap: a woolen toque. You can see me wearing that in my interview with Kurt Cobain. Unfortunately, [in a different interview] some guy didn’t like that toque and took it off my head, chucked it across the room and stole it." He didn’t like that I was asking him questions about other bands, so he reacted that way and the interview was over. But I never got that toque back. I loved that toque, but I remembered my mom went to Scotland in 1990 and brought me back this hat. So it kind of goes back to him. I hate him, but he’s responsible–kind of–for the shoe. It wouldn’t have been tartan, it would have been blue!

How did the conversations with Nike SB start?

There was actually a tartan Nike TN years ago that someone sent to me. So I approached Nike and said, “Hey, just put my face over the shoe you already have and bang, we got the Nardwuar shoe!” I thought I was going to win them over, but I didn’t get much of a reaction. Ten or 12 years later, I got an email from Nike SB out of the blue, bringing up the idea of doing a collaboration. Finally, a Nardwuar shoe? After all these years? Hell yeah.

What are you what are your favorite details on the shoe?

The pom-pom is one of my favorite details. Just the fact that there’s a pom-pom on a Dunk. It was hard to get the pattern down and look the same. It’s amazing that it matches so well. It’s detachable, too.

I’m just so honored that it’s me. A Nike skateboard shoe! In my band, the Evaporators, I skated pretty much zero; however, the members in my band–Scott Livingstone and John Collins–were totally into skating. One of the first skateparks in Canada—maybe the first–was the Ingelwood Skatepark, right near where they lived. It opened in 1977, but they covered it up—they buried it—in 1984. They covered up the skatepark! Now there’s a movement to unearth the skatepark. Now I have a skate shoe to wear to the park if they ever dig it out.

There’s also a famous handrail that I believe Guy Mariano skated, right? Many famous people. I’m talking the truth, right? The CIBC Rail. It’s up from another place called the “New Spot” in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

That’s the beauty of punk rock and skating. You have these landmarks that mean so much to us that are just objects or addresses to a civilian, but if you know the history, they have an aura.

The history is amazing. I believe the CIBC rail at Bentall Centre, if you look at it now, it’s not really silver anymore. It has those “anti-skateboarding” things on it. I guess that’s a badge of honor! It’s kind of cool that we’re [Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada] in these videos and people come up here to see and skate those spots.