At one point during the following interview, conducted for a profile of the Mars Volta that appears in the January 24 Westword, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, the band’s vocalist, lyricist and frontman, casually mentions his “old habits” with “drug use.” After perusing the entire Q&A, readers will understand precisely what he means,…
The January 17 Westword profile of Lupe Fiasco was based on a wide-ranging conversation – and the following Q&A preserves every word. The man born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco begins by discussing the three characters he created for his latest CD, The Cool, noting along the way that they represent pieces…
Over the holidays, when Jon Solomon spoke with Ingrid Michaelson, she said she was looking forward to finally getting some rest. The singer has been caught up in whirlwind of activity ever since her song “Breakable” was used on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Three more of her songs were…
Alex Church of Sea Wolf, who’s profiled in the January 10 Westword, is a critic’s favorite for a couple of very good reasons: His music is consistently intelligent, and so are his conversations, as he demonstrates in the following Q&A. Church chats about the time he spent at the acclaimed…
Oklahoma-based Cross Canadian Ragweed, which stops by the Grizzly Rose on Friday, January 4 (see the appropriate Now Hear This item for more details), is an anomaly: a big-selling country band that can’t get played on country radio because its music supposedly isn’t country enough. CCR’s frontman, Cody Canada, takes…
Although Vincent Gallo has a reputation of being a bit of a hot head at times, during a recent chat with Westword, he was more than gracious as he discussed his current tour, clarified how he and the other three members of RRIICCEE don’t necessarily improvise so much as they…
Jim Malec’s December 13 Rough Mixes piece focusing on Suzy Bogguss was based on the following interview in which the CMA Horizon Award winner also discussed everything from jewelry making to her shifting musical styles over the years to her thoughts on why radio programmers haven’t really embraced her music…
Although the Hate Fuck Trio was one of the most popular and enjoyable Denver bands of the ´90s, the combo led by twisted siblings Sam and Jon DeStefano faded from the scene early into the new millennium. Now, the boys are back, sort of, and their explanations for their absence…
Yeah, everyone has a story – but most of them aren’t nearly as interesting as Craig Pfunder’s. In the Q&A below, the singer/guitarist for VHS or Beta, a band spotlighted in the December 6 Westword, shares plenty of details about his fascinating background, noting that, as an adoptee from Korea,…
With a Chino Moreno interview, readers get two for the price of one. In the Q&A below, Moreno talks extensively about his side project, Team Sleep (an act profiled in the November 29 Westword), and draws the curtain back on his best known band, the Deftones, who are in the…
The Evanescence profile in the November 22 edition of Westword stems from the following Q&A, a conversation with group leader Amy Lee that’s lively and notably frank. Lee begins by talking about the group’s current tour, including a side trip into Mexico, where aficionados are at their most rabid, before…
Eryc Eyl’s November 22 profile on Buck 65 was based on the following interview with the high-profile indie rapper. In it, Buck 65, also known as Rich Terfry, discusses — with very little prompting — his love for Colorado, his new disc, Situation, and his intensely personal artistic process…
Mighty few American performers are able to communicate with foreign journalists who use a language different from their own – so credit French DJ David Guetta, the subject of a November 15 Westword profile, for speaking English (and doing so intelligently) while discussing his burgeoning career to date in the…
The November 8 Rough Mixes piece on Rakim was taken from the following Q&A. James Mayo spoke with the legendary framer just prior to his performance at Las Vegas’ Vegoose festival about his new record, his aborted project with Dr. Dre and some of the rhyming techniques he’s utilized to…
Preparing for an interview is generally a prerequisite for an enlightening and wide-ranging conversation – except in this case. My chat with Frames and Swell Season-performer-turned-Once co-star Glen Hansard, who’s at the center of a November 8 Westword profile, happened on the spur of the moment; I received a call…
The mini-profile of Northern State that appears in the November 1 issue of Westword springs from the following maxi-Q&A with Julie Potash, one of three MCs in the sprightly hip-hop act. It’s her second interview with the paper, but the first one to actually appear in print; a previous article…
Nick Hutchinson recently had the chance to chat with legendary bluegrass purveyor Pete Wernick about his influences, how he got his nickname and the difference between playing with Hot Rize and with Flexigrass. We ran a few highlights from their conversation in the November 1 issue, and here, in the…
Public Enemy’s Chuck D is among the greatest innovators in hip-hop, and unlike so many of his peers, who’ve either disappeared from the scene or have transitioned into other sectors of the entertainment universe, such as acting or reality TV, he’s still spitting rhymes with something approximating his original fury…
The following Q&A with keyboardist Marco Benevento, who’s at the heart of an October 25 Westword preview of area appearances by the Benevento Russo Duo, was a family affair. The phone conversation began as Benevento was checking on his infant daughter, Ruby, who’d just gone down for a nap. He…
Hardcore is one of the purest forms of expression in music. More visceral than cerebral, the music is simple, direct and explosive. There’s no pretense or subtext — nothing to analyze. And, refeshingly, its practioners and enthusiasts are generally as straight-forward and no-nonsense as the music, which means they’re unaffected…
Don’t be frightened. Bassist DJ Wilson of Scary Kids Scaring Kids doesn’t come across as particularly terrifying in either the profile of the band published in the October 18 Westword or the full Q&A, reproduced below. Wilson begins by talking about his hometown of Gilbert, Arizona, before transitioning into his…
The October 11 profile of Dallas Taylor, lead singer of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster (seen above in a graphic photo from the new Sons’ CD II), was drawn from the following interview. It’s a freewheeling and revealing look at a man who believes that bloody tales of mayhem…
