Strauss - Everyone Loves You When Youre Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness

Everyone loves you
when youre dead.

journeys into fame and madness

ALSO BY NEIL STRAUSS

Emergency

Rules of the Game

The Game

The Dirt
WITH MTLEY CRE

How to Make Love Like a Porn Star
WITH JENNA JAMESON

The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
WITH MARILYN MANSON

Dont Try This at Home
WITH DAVE NAVARRO

How to Make Money Like a Porn Star
WITH BERNARD CHANG

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Copyright Stately Plump Buck Mulligan, LLC, 2011

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First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers, 2011
First published in Great Britain by Canongate Books Ltd., 2011
This edition published in Australia by The Text Publishing Company, 2011

Jacket designed by W.H. Chong
Page design by TJ River and Jen Montgomery at Meat and Potatoes
Illustrations by Sin Superman; ad design by Bernard Chang (with Gonzalo Montesdeoca) and Meat and Potatoes

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Primary print ISBN: 9781921758430
Ebook ISBN: 9781921834639

In memory of Johnny Cash, Curtis Mayfield, Alex Chilton,Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ike Turner, Lucia Pamela,Ernie K-Doe, Antoinette K-Doe, Arthur Lee, Mark Linkous,Timothy Leary, Jimmy Martin, John Hartford, Otha Turner,Rick James, Raymond Scott, Patrick Miller, Josh Clayton-Felt,Chet Atkins, Rick Wright, Ali Farka Tour, Roger Troutman,and Bo Diddley, all of whom died between the time ofbeing interviewed and the publication of this book.
And for all those who are going to die afterward.

As through this world Ive wandered,
Ive seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie, Pretty Boy Floyd

Contents

EVERYONE LOVES YOU

(WHEN YOURE DEAD)

[A COMEDY IN TEN ACTS]

[ PRE
AMBLE ]

Ive shot guns with Ludacris, been kidnapped by Courtney Love, made Lady Gaga cry, shopped for Pampers with Snoop Dogg, gone drinking with Bruce Springsteen, tried to prevent Mtley Cre from getting arrested, received Scientology lessons from Tom Cruise, flown in a helicopter with Madonna, been taught to read minds by the CIA, soaked in a hot tub with Marilyn Manson, been told off by Prince, and tucked Christina Aguilera into bed.

This is my job.

Since I was eighteen, Ive been under orders from magazines and newspapers to step into the lives of musicians, actors, and artists, and somehow find out who they really are underneath the mask they present to the public.

Yet for two decades, Ive been doing it wrong. Newspapers and magazines are service industries, catering to the daily or monthly needs of a public that wants to be told whats new, what they should know about it, and what they should think about it. And in catering to that need, I didnt do justice to reality. Because no matter what happens during an interview, once it ends, a writers loyalty is to the pressure of an immediate deadline, the style and tone of a publication, and the priorities of an editor. And an editors loyalty is to a publisher. And a publishers loyalty is to stockholders and circulation figures and advertising revenue. Somewhere along the way, the subject gets lost.

So to put this book together, I went back to my original interview recordings, notes, and transcripts and selected the best moments from the three-thousand-something articles Ive written over the years. But instead of looking for the pieces that broke news or sold the most magazines or received the best feedback, I searched for the truth or essence behind each person, story, or experience. Often it came from something Id previously ignored: an uncomfortable silence, a small misunderstanding, or a scattered thought that had been compressed into a soundbite. Other times it came from something more dramatic, like an emotional confession, a run-in with the police, or a drug-induced psychosis.*

Although I spent weeks working on some of these stories, what I realized is that most of the time I was waiting for just one moment of truth or authenticity. After all, you can tell a lot about a person or a situation in a minute. But only if you choose the right minute.

Here are 228 of them.

* Note that all quotations in footnotes, except where otherwise indicated, are also from these interviews.

ACT
ONE

[ THE STROKES ]
SCENE 1

When I met Strokes singer Julian Casablancas at 19th Hole, a dive bar near his apartment in Manhattan, he was wearing the same outfit hed worn for the past week: a green work shirt with the words U.S. Garbage Company over the pocket and faded black pants. On his wrist were three fraying colored paper bracelets: one from a Kings of Leon concert a week earlier, another from a Stooges show two weeks ago, and a third from a Vines show who knows when.

As he ordered two beers for himself, he announced with evident pride that hed finally come up with a press answer to the Nigel Godrich question. (The band had hired Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich to work on its latest CD, but then quickly parted ways with him.) When asked what his great soundbite was, Casablancas said he would tell me when we began the interview. The tape deck was dutifully started. And so began... the worst interview ever.

JULIAN CASABLANCAS: Im drinking myself back into the game.

Ive noticed that people tend to think youre drinking and out of it. But the truthis that youre ultra-aware of everything going on and everyones motivation
CASABLANCAS: Thats your opinion.

And whats yours?
CASABLANCAS: I dont see myself that way. If you see it that way, cool, thanks.

So how do you see it?
CASABLANCAS: