Interview: Willy DeVille Part One

This interview is split into two part for your ease of digestion. Part Two

I want to tell you about an amazing experience that I had on Saturday, May 13, 2006; I had a two-hour phone conversation with Willy DeVille. It was one of those things arranged by a publicist to be an interview. You know how they're supposed to go, me, the interviewer, asks him, the interviewee, questions about music, life etc, and he gives me answers to same.

Then I go and type them out as a question and answer session and everybody is happy. At least that's how it's gone for me in the past when I've done this sort of thing. It became pretty clear right from the start, however, that this wasn't going to be a typical interview.

I had spent the last day downloading and figuring out how to set up and work a piece of software that would have allowed me to use my modem to record phone conversations. It was going to involve me using an extension other than the one running through the computer, so I had arranged for my wife to run the software while I talked to Willy on another phone.

Since she was going to have to co-ordinate the recording we decided she should answer the phone get his permission to record and explain what it was going to involve. For some reason I wasn't overly surprised when he requested that we didn't record our conversation because he felt it would take too much away from the moment.

He compared it to colour photography vs. black and white and how he preferred black and white because of the simplicity of the moment. Taking away from the moment too much would be lost. So he said to my wife: "so let's keep it black and white okay?"

Thinking about it afterward, and thinking of how our conversation went, I can see what he meant. If we had been conscious of being recorded we would have let that influence us in certain ways, and it would have affected any spontaneity our conversation would have had. We would have restricted ourselves to whatever typical information you normally hear in one of these interviews.

Occasionally I would remember to ask him a question and we would try and get back into an interview format, but we were soon off on to something else, or he'd answer in a way that was non-standard. Mainly we just talked about experiences we had in common, things that neither of us probably would tell others about and so I'm not going to talking about any of that stuff here.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion, both published by Ulysses Press. He has had his work published in print and online all over the world including the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and www.Qantara.de. …

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