I’ve been conducting a lot of musician interviews for my Substack lately, and I’ve discovered something. Firstly, I discovered that interviews are easier to do. While I learned on the job how to flow with the artist while creating value and content for the listener, the transition wasn’t inevitable.
I worked hard and studied for it like a test. However, it’s not doing research on the artist that makes the interviews pop; it’s studying other interviewers.
When you pose the right questions and let the interviewee rip, the interview could become a watershed cultural moment for the audience. The right quote or section of an interview could change people’s perception of streaming, the movement toward independence vs. signing the deal, or simply making a living wage as a full-time musician.
Studying interviewers like Bobby Bones, Cheryl Waters, and Nadeska allowed me to pick up strategies they were using to get the most out of the artist and provide the listener with great insights into their lives.
This piece is for my fellow interviewers or anyone aspiring to start a YouTube page, podcast, or streaming channel. In all of those scenarios, you’ll have to talk with people and most likely interview them. I broke the piece into the following sections:
Interview Tips: In this section, I share 7 tips to improve your interview abilities to get the most out of the artist and bring value to your listeners.
Where Should You Begin?: In this section, I provide three ways you can get started on the tips above.
Create Conversations That Resonate With People: In this summary section, I reaffirm the goal of your interviews and the mindset you should adopt to perform at your highest level.
Interviewing Tips
Tip #1 — Demonstrate Subtle Yet Active Listening Cues
Why you should do it: Active listening will take you a long way in interviewing an artist in person. Not only are you showing nonverbally that you care about what the person is saying, but you are also helping yourself keep up with the progressive developments in the subject’s storytelling. Maybe there are key parts to a story the artist is explaining — in those cases, active listening will allow you to react with eyebrow-raising or “you don’t say?” phrases which will indicate in your brain that something important was mentioned and to mentally keep note of it.
Example: Gabe P. is a veteran in the radio space and is a wonderful interviewer. His channel, On The Radar, is a magnificent platform for young artists looking to grow their base and show their talents to larger audiences. In his sit down with Memphis’s very own Slimeroni Gabe instantly makes her feel comfortable, relaxed, and open with open body language and great eye contact.
They are on the same coach, so Gabe’s positioning is crucial, and he nails it. He’s paying attention to her but is not too close. Every time Slimeroni answers a question Gabe is physically responding or giving verbal cues, indicating that he’s fully engaged in the content of her response.
When she says something they agree on he’ll fist bump her, and when she is ready she gives eye contact back and smiles, proud that she is being heard. He doesn’t over do it and never cuts her off but instead provides her the air to be heard.
Tip #2 — Give Directions, But Let The Artist Drive The Conversation.
Why you should do it: Please prepare, prepare, prepare for your interview. Nothing is worse than watching an interview where the interviewer has done little to no research about the artist. When this unfortunate situation happens, the questions are basic, and the listener actually gets very little value from the exchange.
Therefore, give yourself a thinly layered sketch of how you want the interview to go. You may write down themes you wish to cover or explicitly write out the questions you want to ask. Once you’re in person with the artist, you need to let go of the control of the interview and let the artist answer the questions in the best way possible. If the artist goes too far in an odd direction, you can use your notes to direct them back to the main road to reach your destination within the allotted interview time.
Example: Tom Power has one of the sharpest minds in music broadcasting. His attention to detail is also evident in the content and type of questions he brings to the conversation. Tom Power provides the canvas in this fantastic interview, and rising pop star Gracie Abrams fills in the blanks. As an artist reaching a new tier in her career, Abrams is full of newfound enthusiasm and gratitude throughout the conversation.
For each interval, she enthusiastically answered the questions and provided more than enough detail. By the end of the interview, she was practically floating with glee. In his signature witty and low-volume talking style, Power grounded Abrams in deeply rooted questions about her upbringing, motivation to make original songs, and ability to overcome her fear of live performing. All Abrams did was speak the reality of her experiences, and the interview flowed naturally from there on out.
Tip #3 — Have Distinct Goals For The Interview
How To Do It: I don’t think enough interviewers do this. Each interview should have a very specific purpose. That purpose should actually be described in the description or introduction of the interview. From there, the interview should work towards that goal, giving the listener precise insights into a particular part of the artist. These interviews are especially fruitful and provide listeners with real food for thought and moments from the artist they can’t get anywhere else.
Example: I’m going to be selfish for a little bit and discuss a personal interview I did that addresses this tip. This is mostly because it’s easier to discuss my goals than trying to find an interviewer’s goals before they conduct an artist interview.
There was a specific period in Briana Marela’s career that I was fixated on. It was between 2020 and the present that her music drastically changed. Replacing standard pop structures for experimental music, Briana was venturing into new territory with little public explanation. In my interview with Briana I wanted to unpack the details of this time period. Not only did we accomplish this goal but we had a fantastic conversation about her earlier work and insights into her time at Jagjaguwar and early days in Seattle. She was incredibly open, and I was beyond grateful.
Tip #4 — Connect With The Artist On A More Personal Level
Why you should do it: Artists are people, too. Even though they create this art that could sometimes make them seem extraterrestrial or superhuman, they live under the same sun as the rest of us and deal with everyday human struggles. Therefore, it is crucial to make them feel like just a person during the interview. Find something they said and make a connection, something simple, like a doctor’s visit they mentioned or a splinter they noted in a story.
Making those types of human connections will naturally bring their guard down and put the two of you on an equal playing field. If the artists see themselves as holier than thou and place themselves on a pedestal, you can adjust this tip for the moment. Overall, you still want to treat them with dignity and respect.
Example: Theo Vonn has the consciousness and vulnerability to speak and connect with people of many professions and backgrounds. In this beautifully unexpected interview with pop giant Ed Sheeran, Vonn continuously finds common ground. Through his usual far-left-field humor and self-effacement, he breaks down any barriers between himself and Sheeran despite them growing up in vastly different cultures.
For instance, Vonn connected with Sheeran when the singer talked about how time freezes for touring musicians on the road and how that experience alters their ability to hit the usual life achievements. In response, Vonn described how those hardships affected his life, especially when his show started to blow up astronomically. From texts with friends to dates with women, Vonn, like Sheeran, found himself unexpectedly in a completely different place than his friends and family when it was time to slow things down.
Tip #5 — Ask Questions That Have Nothing To Do With Music
Why you should do it: Not everything you discuss will be directly related to music, and that’s good. These additional discussion topics will make the conversation feel more grounded and real. Addressing an interview this way will also make the artist seem more down-to-earth and relatable. The non-music-related questions can still be related to the music adjacently, but they don’t need to be obvious.
For instance, if the artist talks about the inspiration for their album and mentions a Pacific Island trip they went on, you can ask more about how that trip was, why they decided to go, and some of their favorite moments. Even though some of their answers will steer the interview away from the exact motivation for the album, the little details the musician decides to share will help readers see the whole artist.
Example: What I admired the most about this Apple Music interview with Lil Yachty and James Blake was how it was focused on their friendship and chemistry. Zane Lowe is to thank for that. We all knew both artists were highly talented and somewhat underappreciated commercially, but few expected them to enjoy each other’s company enough to sit down and make an entire album. The bromance is real, and Zane Lowe’s refreshing and calculated questions got to the heart of their mutual respect.
The art is being discussed, but the non-art-related questions are what’s driving the conversation and helping the audience recognize the motivation behind the unexpected collaboration. Interviewing one musician is complex, and interviewing two who are constantly in the news and have a lot to address in addition to their new album demonstrates the masterclass skills Zane Lowe presents in this interview.
Tip #6 — Compliment, But Don’t Saturate The Interview With Them.
Why You Should Do It: This is tough for many interviews. I know it is for me. When you speak with an artist, especially one whose work you particularly like, it will feel natural and honest to shower them with compliments.
Get those thoughts out of your head before you even decide to sit down with the artist.
A few notes of appreciation are entirely okay, but unnecessary compliments will only make you seem less serious in an interview. The goal is to be a fair and reasonable discussion partner. Everyone has a bias and preference when it comes to music taste, and it’s good to acknowledge them but do your best to rein in overly saturated kind words. You can try and limit yourself to compliments or simply acknowledge their answers instead of giving your take on them.
Example: Brian “B.Dot” Miller is not a flatterer. In fact, the New York-based hip-hop journalist is more stern, stoic, and straightforward. He rarely compliments ever, and when he does decide to compliment the artist, the praise is measured and fair. In this mental health-based one with Russ at Barnes and Noble for his new book, It Was You All Along, B. Dot praised Russ for certain career moments but didn’t lather him in unnecessary applause.
In this interview, the audience does far more brown-nosing than B. Dot. Fortunately, this allowed B. Dot to keep Russ focused on the task at hand: covering the topics of his best-selling book and providing the audience with advice they can take home and apply to their own lives.
Tip #7 — Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Follow-up Questions In The Moment.
Why You Should Do It: Like a tremendous extemporaneous speech, enriching interviews contain authentic real-time moments. Not all of your questions should be written out. You should expect to create some of your questions as a natural response to their answers. Take risks and go into directions and side stories you never even prepared for or expected to happen. Get excited about the unknown territory you will cover in the interview.
Brilliance and magic will emerge from those moments, and that’s where your true interview dialogue skills will shine. You may also, and this is the true gift, get something new — a fact, a story, a layer of their personality that no other interviewer has been able to get. Prepare for the unpreparable and trust your ability to unpack fantastic musical topics with the artist in real-time.
Example: Jake Shield is a famous TikTok star turned podcast host who has made significant strides in music content. His interviews are wonderfully personal and fun while still getting to the artist’s heart. With Charli XCX, he immediately made her comfortable (I think the chaise sofas helped) and asked excellent follow-up questions.
He got Charlie to reveal more details about her history in the music industry and the music on Brat than I’ve heard her share. Shield’s interpersonal skills are top-notch, so he makes it look easy. Kudos for the work he did there.
Where Should You Begin?
If you are reading this and you’re an interviewer or an aspiring podcaster, you may wonder how to apply this realistically. Below are some suggestions for where you should begin in your interviewer journey:
Suggestion #1 — Start
The most basic and probably the most intuitive strategy is to just start. Worry about progress later because you can’t learn and build from it if you have no foundation. Once I started doing interviews, I started learning where I needed to improve and how I could make them more valuable for the listener.
Suggestion #2 — Adopt The Mindset That You’re Getting Incrementally Better Each Time
If each interview is a bit better, you’re on the right path. Don’t expect every interview to be a home run or that, after a year, you’ll be Zane Lowe. These types of things take time, and as you focus on the slight improvement steps, you can rest assured that it will be okay.
Suggestion #3 — Continue To Learn From Yourself And Ask Others For Support
Ask your readers what they thought about the interview. Ask your friends and family to watch your interview for a few minutes with your goal in mind, including how you want the interview to look and sound. You should consistently develop a live plan to improve the interview over time. Asking for this kind of advice could be daunting, but consider it a positive for the following interview rather than a negative for past ones.
Create Conversations That Resonate With People
In this piece, we discussed the best strategies for getting your artist to speak openly about themselves and their journey during an interview. These tips should also allow your interview to contain insights and value for your listeners. In the best interviews, the conversation provides new perspectives about life and valuable tips for overcoming specific challenges and hardships. Everyone has a story, and if you interview an artist, you can help them explain it in a way that resonates with people.
We accomplish this goal through the following recommended strategies:
Tip #1 — Demonstrate Subtle Yet Active Listening Cues
Tip #2 — Give Directions, But Let The Artist Drive The Conversation.
Tip #3 — Have Distinct Goals For The Interview
Tip #4 — Connect With The Artist On A More Personal Level
Tip #5 — Ask Questions That Have Nothing To Do With Music
Tip #6 — Compliment, But Don’t Saturate The Interview With Them.
Tip #7 — Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Follow-up Questions In The Moment.
While it’s easy to read and accept the above strategies, it’s far more challenging to apply them. In this piece, we also dove into how you should apply the interview tips through the three best practices below:
Suggestion #1 — Start
Suggestion #2 — Adopt The Mindset That You’re Getting Incrementally Better Each Time
Suggestion #3 — Continue To Learn From Yourself And Ask Others For Support
Ultimately, you want to create conversations that benefit those listening to your podcast or show. With these interviews, you can inform people about events, entertain them, or bring exceptional value into their lives that could change their behavior for the better. If this pressure and responsibility didn’t excite and motivate you before, I hope after today it does. :)
Thank you for reading! If you would like to continue supporting independent journalism and content like this consider becoming a paid subscriber to my newsletter today. :)