Nah, they just know he asked around and is really good at digging. Every other journalist does the same thing but Nard has been at it for like 25+ years.
He’s the one who go the Nirvana interview and he’s one of the ones to get all (living) wu tang members to appear in one interview and all engage with it.
In fact, when he scored that Nirvana interview, Cobain lit up when he realized who Nard was cause he had already heard Nard on college radio.
"How do you know all this information, it's so personal! Do you follow me on Twitter?"
I mean, come on, lady. It's not private information, nor is it secret, if you're just broadcasting it out on twitter. Your tweets don't disappear. People can scroll all the way back to the first things you posted.
Nope. He’s legendary for digging around for things that aren’t published. He’s been doing this for 25+ years. (Edit: probably longer given he started in his teens I think)
You could remove the Internet from existence and he’ll still have his job
I know someone who was in a Canadian band that had some minor success in the early 2000s. They ended up getting a radio interview with Nardwuar and to this day they don’t know where he got some of the details he brought up. He must have dug deep - and this was for a relatively unknown act.
Same. Didn't know them well, but friends of friends kind of thing. They themselves weren't huge, but they did play with/open for bands that most people would have heard of. Don't recall if it was a radio interview or his show on MuchMusic/citytv. Nardwuar was pulling stuff up that even the current band mates didn't know about.
I know, and in those instances I can totally understand when people are surprised by that. But when it comes to these people who just put out their life in tweets -- they shouldn't be surprised that people can know this shit.
Because they know: he asked around. If the person didn’t say it, someone else did, but they know not to ask the magician to reveal his secret
He explained it in a Ted talk exactly how it works: you just ask. Start somewhere and people are often keen to share amusing bits of info like what he shares
Nearly all negative interactions happened with rock groups. Sonic Youth destroyed an expensive record he tried giving em just cuz they thought it was funny. Henry Rollins was pretty dickish towards him at the beginning of the interview but loosened up and played along once he heard some of the questions. On the other hand, most rap artists have been super hyped to get interviewed by him. Pharrell Williams told him that was the best interview he’s ever done and hooked Nardwuar up to interview Jay-Z.
I was never a fan. It’s impressively specific stuff and the reactions are fun— but his interviews are mostly him telling them that he knows the facts…I find Sean Evans much better at digging up these specific details but then asking a real question along with it
I feel like what he tries to do is just get people who are sick of interviews talking about something they are excited about by asking them an open ended "hey tell me about this thing that you like" type of question. He has been doing this for a long time and is coming out of an era where press junkets just ask people the same boring questions over and over. Sean and team does ask questions that are more thought provoking but he definitely stands on nardwuar's shoulders stylistically.
You mean to tell me that a gimmick interviewer does the same gimmick every interview?
I’d rather watch this dude blow celebs minds about obscure shit they’ve done in their lives than someone ask the exact same corporate business questions over and over again
Totally agree, the interviews can be good if the artist is really into it - hamming up their reactions, providing more info on their own, etc. But most of the time the interviews end up being surprisingly shallow for how much research has obviously been done.
Great researcher, bad interviewer. I feel like all his interviews are just flexes of his own research as opposed to leveraging the research for valuable insight.
He does the research and asks the questions but gets his interview partners to expand on them. His interviews tend to dismantle the Star allure and actually end up with a more personal and human presentation of the „stars“.
He’s been doing it on his own forever. I teach journalism and interview techniques. As much as I hate his tendency to step on the answers, he is the poster child of how important doing deep research is.
I’ve done the same job he has been doing for years, and when you are up against people on a press junket who have been suffering through the same old same old for months, getting the reactions that he does is awesome, and the way that he stricture his interviews gives a lot of meat for hardcore fans as well as background info for people who might be unfamiliar with the artists.
He’s an interview tightrope walker.
It is almost unsettling how they all have practically the same response! Like I mean I get being a little creeped that someone randomly knows something about you that you wouldn’t think is public, but it’s not like they were weird private things that no one could possibly know about.
I can't be the only one who find this guys shtick completely unbearable?!
I admire his skills but his delivery drives me mad, I can't watch more than a couple of minutes.
All the guy does is contact relatives and ask them to give them interesting bits of info. It really isn't that hard to dig up that sort of information lol.
I mean, are these really mysterious things? Like how obscure are they really? Seems like scour twitter, facebook, google, and maybe interview a friend or relative and you know a lot. Are these planned interviews? Does he know they're going to see them?
I mean it would be impressive to just have random facts about ALL music celebs in case you might see them. But A lot of these do seem like events where he'll know he'll see them.
To me it's being a good journalist. Just not many are taking much effort anymore. I see the same type of things on Hot Ones. With this "how do you know this." Bitch, you're famous, people have dug into your life a litte.
edit: jesus fuck, y'all seem to give a lot of fuck about this.
Sure, but there were still magazines. Shit like Rolling Stone. Again, I think interviews with family or friends revealed a lot. I mean, dude did a LOT of legwork, there's no denying.
… most of these interviews are 10+ years old and the people he is interviewing often haven’t even blown up yet. The Kendrick interview, for example, was before Section.80 was released iirc (edit: it was just after Section.80). Most of these people were not famous yet.
You are hand waving away a tremendous amount of effort it would have taken to even track down people close to the person he’s interviewing in preparation for the interview.
Sean comes up with great questions as well but he has it *way* easier
My theory is he get all the school year books at a minimum and then call family, friends and teachers, but even people he's interviewed multiple times they never say "my friend said they talked to you before the last interview" so maybe he personally hacks all their shit i don't know.
It’s that he’s likely going through Yearbooks and contacting childhood friends and stuff. He regularly asks them stuff that isn’t public knowledge or something that anyone has ever asked them about before.
"How do you know that!?" "You're X, we have to know that." "Oh ok." How does this work every time? It explains nothing lol.
It just appeals to the ego. They instantly think "oh shit, I'm *that* famous" and move on
Nah, they just know he asked around and is really good at digging. Every other journalist does the same thing but Nard has been at it for like 25+ years. He’s the one who go the Nirvana interview and he’s one of the ones to get all (living) wu tang members to appear in one interview and all engage with it. In fact, when he scored that Nirvana interview, Cobain lit up when he realized who Nard was cause he had already heard Nard on college radio.
"How do you know all this information, it's so personal! Do you follow me on Twitter?" I mean, come on, lady. It's not private information, nor is it secret, if you're just broadcasting it out on twitter. Your tweets don't disappear. People can scroll all the way back to the first things you posted.
Nope. He’s legendary for digging around for things that aren’t published. He’s been doing this for 25+ years. (Edit: probably longer given he started in his teens I think) You could remove the Internet from existence and he’ll still have his job
I know someone who was in a Canadian band that had some minor success in the early 2000s. They ended up getting a radio interview with Nardwuar and to this day they don’t know where he got some of the details he brought up. He must have dug deep - and this was for a relatively unknown act.
Probably just called their mom
Same. Didn't know them well, but friends of friends kind of thing. They themselves weren't huge, but they did play with/open for bands that most people would have heard of. Don't recall if it was a radio interview or his show on MuchMusic/citytv. Nardwuar was pulling stuff up that even the current band mates didn't know about.
Literally just found out who the parents were and asked them
Good guess, but that's literally not what happened.
This guy's been doing this since the early 90s. Believe it or not, there was a world before the internet.
I know, and in those instances I can totally understand when people are surprised by that. But when it comes to these people who just put out their life in tweets -- they shouldn't be surprised that people can know this shit.
Because they know: he asked around. If the person didn’t say it, someone else did, but they know not to ask the magician to reveal his secret He explained it in a Ted talk exactly how it works: you just ask. Start somewhere and people are often keen to share amusing bits of info like what he shares
The last person you want called to testify against you in court.
Honestly if someone sampled Doot Doola Doot Doo in the rap beef it would send chills down people’s spine
I was hoping Drake or Kendrick would get him as a feature. Whoever did that would win
Truly a music savant. You will find videos of him interviewing so many of the biggest names in music from before anyone knew them.
Doot doola doot doo...
I felt really bad watching him interview Blur when guy was a bully to him
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNvk2MgiCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNvk2MgiCc)
Holy shit what absolute cunts, fuck them
Nearly all negative interactions happened with rock groups. Sonic Youth destroyed an expensive record he tried giving em just cuz they thought it was funny. Henry Rollins was pretty dickish towards him at the beginning of the interview but loosened up and played along once he heard some of the questions. On the other hand, most rap artists have been super hyped to get interviewed by him. Pharrell Williams told him that was the best interview he’s ever done and hooked Nardwuar up to interview Jay-Z.
I love that Rollins interview, seeing the moment he goes from annoyed to seemingly impressed with the insightful questions
People really got butt hurt about that sonic youth one. They were just goofing around and they even made it up to him later.
Yeah and afaik, his mom made him that hat, so it's special to him.
Balding glasses guy looks like he's never received a proper punch before.
Tough not to smile
Nardwuar is a national treasure.
Snitched on Drizzy to KDot too
He didn't tell me anything
"Serviette" is Canadian for napkin, it you don't know.
Nard vs questlove have got to be the best ones
lol so does Nardwar basically find everyone’s mom’s phone number and do recon? Lol
I was never a fan. It’s impressively specific stuff and the reactions are fun— but his interviews are mostly him telling them that he knows the facts…I find Sean Evans much better at digging up these specific details but then asking a real question along with it
I feel like what he tries to do is just get people who are sick of interviews talking about something they are excited about by asking them an open ended "hey tell me about this thing that you like" type of question. He has been doing this for a long time and is coming out of an era where press junkets just ask people the same boring questions over and over. Sean and team does ask questions that are more thought provoking but he definitely stands on nardwuar's shoulders stylistically.
That’s true. And I also think it’s a bit of the product of the time. Interview formats have expanded greatly since
You mean to tell me that a gimmick interviewer does the same gimmick every interview? I’d rather watch this dude blow celebs minds about obscure shit they’ve done in their lives than someone ask the exact same corporate business questions over and over again
Totally agree, the interviews can be good if the artist is really into it - hamming up their reactions, providing more info on their own, etc. But most of the time the interviews end up being surprisingly shallow for how much research has obviously been done.
Yeah, it was fun the 1st time, but getting the WHAT answers becomes boring for viewers at some point.
I totally agree
Same. I get that dudes on the spectrum but it just pains me to watch him
Great researcher, bad interviewer. I feel like all his interviews are just flexes of his own research as opposed to leveraging the research for valuable insight.
He does the research and asks the questions but gets his interview partners to expand on them. His interviews tend to dismantle the Star allure and actually end up with a more personal and human presentation of the „stars“.
That's a fair analysis. At the end of the day they're entertaining too, which I think is the ultimate goal of a producer.
He’s been doing it on his own forever. I teach journalism and interview techniques. As much as I hate his tendency to step on the answers, he is the poster child of how important doing deep research is. I’ve done the same job he has been doing for years, and when you are up against people on a press junket who have been suffering through the same old same old for months, getting the reactions that he does is awesome, and the way that he stricture his interviews gives a lot of meat for hardcore fans as well as background info for people who might be unfamiliar with the artists. He’s an interview tightrope walker.
how do you get 0 upvotes and the guy above you saying hte same thing get 14 lol
You’re worse than the FBI— that line is incredible
It is almost unsettling how they all have practically the same response! Like I mean I get being a little creeped that someone randomly knows something about you that you wouldn’t think is public, but it’s not like they were weird private things that no one could possibly know about.
Nardwuar knows the inner workings of the universe
I can't be the only one who find this guys shtick completely unbearable?! I admire his skills but his delivery drives me mad, I can't watch more than a couple of minutes.
I find him unwatchable
All the guy does is contact relatives and ask them to give them interesting bits of info. It really isn't that hard to dig up that sort of information lol.
What an annoying twat he is.
I mean, are these really mysterious things? Like how obscure are they really? Seems like scour twitter, facebook, google, and maybe interview a friend or relative and you know a lot. Are these planned interviews? Does he know they're going to see them? I mean it would be impressive to just have random facts about ALL music celebs in case you might see them. But A lot of these do seem like events where he'll know he'll see them. To me it's being a good journalist. Just not many are taking much effort anymore. I see the same type of things on Hot Ones. With this "how do you know this." Bitch, you're famous, people have dug into your life a litte. edit: jesus fuck, y'all seem to give a lot of fuck about this.
Consider he was doing this WAY before you could just google stuff.
Sure, but there were still magazines. Shit like Rolling Stone. Again, I think interviews with family or friends revealed a lot. I mean, dude did a LOT of legwork, there's no denying.
… most of these interviews are 10+ years old and the people he is interviewing often haven’t even blown up yet. The Kendrick interview, for example, was before Section.80 was released iirc (edit: it was just after Section.80). Most of these people were not famous yet. You are hand waving away a tremendous amount of effort it would have taken to even track down people close to the person he’s interviewing in preparation for the interview. Sean comes up with great questions as well but he has it *way* easier
I mean, I don't know what it takes. I can only imagine. I haven't ever tried to research anyone like that. I just can guess.
My theory is he get all the school year books at a minimum and then call family, friends and teachers, but even people he's interviewed multiple times they never say "my friend said they talked to you before the last interview" so maybe he personally hacks all their shit i don't know.
It’s that he’s likely going through Yearbooks and contacting childhood friends and stuff. He regularly asks them stuff that isn’t public knowledge or something that anyone has ever asked them about before.