Sorry I haven’t written in the past couple of weeks – there are people out sick, there are people with babies, there are people with leprosy or something and the office is basically falling apart at the seams. Awesome.
In fact, it’s the fault of one of the sick people and one of the baby people (one of the people with a baby, not an adult-sized-baby, which would be terrifying) that I had my latest painful interview.
See, when you think of the staff of a magazine – a fairly prominent one, anyway – you’d think that there would be a lot of writers. Not a lot lot, but enough that if two people in the same department weren’t able to work for a few days, that department wouldn’t threaten to crumple into a ball a die a pathetic, disgusting death.
This is not true. For each “department,” it’s at most two people. Well, maybe three, if they have an intern. And the word “department” is used in the loosest sense of the word, because it’s not like each department has their own wing of office, or their own floor. The music department doesn’t have their own studio. The movie writers don’t have a personal movie theatre. You don’t need to make an appointment to talk to senior television editor. You look over your cubicle wall and say, “Hey, Janice, Lost last night was fucked up,” and then she has to stand up to say, “Don’t even get me started on Lost.“
So… two people were gone from the music department this week. One has been gone for about a month and will continue to be gone for quite a while, what with the small human that came out of her vagina a short while ago. The other one has… the flu? Something? It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I had to help pick up the slack.
Specifically, I had to interview Tokio Hotel.
This is a band, I am told.
“They’re super huge in Germany and they’re pretty big here now,” my Carrie Underwood-loving cubicle mate told me. She sent me a YouTube link to one of their videos.
First, it is beyond disturbing that someone who loves Carrie Underwood knows about Tokio Hotel. Second, she then spent a long time convincing me that the lead singer is, in fact, a dude.
“No, it’s not.”
“It is!”
“No.”
“He and the guy with the dreadlocks are twins.”
“That’s a guy?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“…How sure?”
“It’s a GUY.”
“Are you telling me this as a goof so that when I interview them, it’ll turn out that it is a girl and I look like an asshole?”
“It’s a guy.”
“It fucking better be.”
“…You know how I feel about cursing at work.”
This is all made much worse by the fact that I am not a music journalist. I like music and, I think, I have pretty good taste in music, but I find it very difficult to put into words why I like or dislike a particular song or band. I’m more of a “You have to hear the song to really get it” kind of girl.
Actually, scratch that. I can explain pretty well when I hate a band.
My boss knows this.
She sent me to interview Tokio Hotel.
Seriously. This happened.
I was given strict instructions not to upset them, which is really difficult when lead singer guy (just Googled him – Bill, apparently) has hair that DEFIES THE LAWS OF GRAVITY AND COMMON SENSE. I wanted to ask him why – WHY – he would want hair that endangers everyone else’s eyes but I was so entranced by refusal to obey the laws of physics. How the hell does it do that? How long does it take? Is that his actual hair?
Now that I think of it, he might have the hair just so people like me don’t have the presence of mind to ask any hard-hitting questions. Not that I’d be allowed to anyway, but still.
His twin brother is a little shit who took every opportunity to talk about how many chicks he bangs on a regular basis. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to say, “Are they all imaginary?” I think I strained a muscle.
Oh, yeah. Did I mention that our entire conversation was done through a translator? This guy was talking about banging tons of chicks and then WAITED FOR THE TRANSLATOR TO RELAY HIS MESSAGE TO ME. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to miss a gem like that.
Well, actually, I live for gems like that, but the fact that he actually took the time to make sure I had that quote for print was pretty ridiculous.
I got back to work and immediately called the sick music guy at home and told him that I was going to pee in his soup once he got back to work. He laughed, which dissolved into a massive coughing fit, which made me feel a little bit better.
When I got to work the next day, the label had sent over a press kit – which usually we should be getting one or two days before the interview, but whatever – which included a Tokio Hotel photograph. Which my cubicle mate fished out of the garbage and hung up in our cubicle. She finds this hilarious. I think I’m going to have to start hoarding my pee for all the soup I’ll have to put urine into.
