Michael Azerrad
Interviewed by Gavin J. Grant

Michael Azerrad's book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 is now available in paperback. Azerrad has been entranced by music since the age of seven. His first rock concert -- which his grandfather took him to -- was Three Dog Night. He went to college in New York City, where he got a degree in Latin. He has written for Rolling Stone, MTV News, and many other magazines. He is also the author of Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana.

BookSense.com: Where did the idea for writing Our Band Could Be Your Life come from?

Michael Azerrad: It came to me when I saw a 10-part documentary on the history of rock music. I had watched the whole thing and was waiting for the segment on punk rock, which is the first rock movement that I directly experienced from the start. And sure enough, they got up to the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, and then they skipped straight from Talking Heads to...Nirvana. Whoa, they skipped a whole decade! What happened to American indie rock bands like Black Flag? Hüsker Dü? The Replacements? Sonic Youth? I was sure I'd somehow blacked out for 10 minutes and missed that part. But of course I hadn't -- they had just totally ignored that incredibly interesting and influential community.

And I thought about how American indie was routinely left out of most rock histories, like it never happened, like something out of George Orwell's 1984. "Someone ought to do something about that," I thought to myself as I kicked back on my comfy couch. And then it occurred to me: "Do it yourself!"

But I knew this was a populous and sprawling community; a thorough profile of its every resident would take the better part of a lifetime. So I took a representational approach, choosing 13 bands that not only illustrated key steps in the way indie rock evolved throughout the '80s, but embodied a particular philosophy, sound, or place, or unleashed a legendary and influential personality upon the world. It's very important to stress that I didn't consider bands strictly in terms of musical worth -- if I had, the bands profiled in Our Band Could Be Your Life would be somewhat different.

Were you a big fan of these bands, or did you just decide someone had to write about them?

I was a big fan of most of those bands, a few others I didn't know much about. I'm not going to tell you which ones!

The thing is, I made a conscious decision not to write about those bands as a fan. A lot of folks are put off by indie rock's cliquishness, and I didn't want to write in a voice that scared off people who didn't already know the subject. I wanted to write with proper journalistic distance because the subject merited it.

What was it like interviewing people about events that occurred 20 years ago? Were the stories consistent, or did they vary from person to person?

Well, first of all, the book does go to as recently as 11 years ago, but I take the point. Time does have a way of distorting memory; it can't be helped. There was a fair amount of the "Rashomon" phenomenon, but nothing of much consequence. (Teetotalers, I quickly found, have much more accurate memories.) And after 15 years of writing about rock music, I have a fairly accurate b.s. detector; I could often gauge people's recollections against contemporary accounts of the same incident, like fanzine articles, other people's recollections and by the yardstick of sheer common sense. Although I strived for absolute factual accuracy, sometimes a historian has to be content with poetic truth -- so who knows, maybe it wasn't a bunch of ashtrays hurled at Beat Happening in Reseda in 1990, maybe it was only one. But to them it seemed like a bunch, and in some ways, that's the important thing.

Who was the hardest to interview -- and, conversely, who was the easiest?

There really wasn't anyone who was difficult to interview -- after all, these people had already agreed to talk, so it wasn't like they were doing anything against their will. But Mike Watt was definitely the easiest to interview. That guy can talk, but the thing is, it's all really interesting and terrifically inspiring. He was the first interview I did for the book, and his energy propelled me the whole length of the project. I can't say enough about that guy.

Do you think you'll write more about these bands, or about the indie underground of that period?

This book was as definitive as I could make it, so I don't plan on writing about the subject again. Besides, I'm interested in a very wide variety of music, and I plan to do something completely different for my next book.

That said, there are plans for a documentary version of Our Band Could Be Your Life and I'll be the writer on that. Nothing's definite yet, though.

Were you ever in a band? If so, did you ever tour?

I've played drums in bands on and off since I was seven years old. And I'm in a band now -- we're called the King of France. You can check out some of our music at our website. We're shopping around for a label right now.

And, yes, I have toured a couple of times: Once with the King of France, and once with the now-defunct Five Chinese Brothers. It was fun and it was miserable, but it was mostly fun. I've also tagged along on tour with Skeleton Key and Nirvana, which were both incredible experiences.

The touring stories are perhaps the most awful and awe-inspiring (especially the Butthole Surfers), from living in cars and vans to getting banned from towns. Do you think music still has that strength?

I've got to wonder about whether a band can still get banned from a town. Lately, it seems that people have their minds on more important things than whether a rock group is doing something shocking.

But one thing's for sure: bands are still living in their vans. And bless them for that.

Do you think keeping it's important for bands and local scenes to keep it small and local (at least at first) so that they can find their own feet?

Well, it can be big and local, too! But yes, it's good to develop a local following for many reasons. The DC scene that Dischord Records and Teenbeat Records helped to foment is a great model for the rest of the country -- there's an artistic and social affinity there that is very supportive and rewarding. On a more strictly musical level, keeping it local allows you to hone your live show (and your lineup) before you take it out of town. And if you develop a strong local following first, it will get you better out-of-town gigs -- and better record deals, too. And it's useful to have a regional identity -- from Liverpool to Seattle, people have always liked to associate bands with the town they come from.

Where do you see the influences today? Do they extend outside of music?

The influence of the American indie scene of the '80s resides in popular bands from Weezer to Slipknot. But there are far more musicians who were inspired -- but not necessarily influenced -- by that scene, and that can extend to anyone from classical players to techno artists. Those people might have imitated the modus operandi of the indie scene in terms of do it yourself venues, labels, periodicals, etc., not to mention all the grassroots networking that was the lifeblood of the indie rock community.

And, yes, the influence does extend beyond music. After that scene made its mark on the mainstream, "indie" was considered something hip and desirable instead of merely marginal -- that's something we take for granted now, but it's important to remember that it wasn't always like that. That idea glamorized everything from independent film to microbrews. And indie's distrust of corporate America couldn't have been more prescient.

Did the bands of the time provide an infrastructure that present-day bands can use to tour and produce and sell CDs?

Absolutely. Those bands blazed a trail that today's musicians are still following. There are plenty of clubs that rose up in the wake of the '80s indie movement that are still in business, and there are many more that are in existence because those original clubs proved it was financially viable. Same goes with recording studios, music distributors, record stores, fanzines, etc.

Do you see any movement in music today that is similar to the indie underground of the 1980s?

Yes, there's a new hardcore scene that's made up largely of very young people that has that grassroots, hey-kids-let's-put-on-a-show quality that the early '80s scene did. They put on gigs wherever they can and spread the word with fliers and websites and e-mail chains, and sure enough the shows are packed without any mainstream media support. It's a beautiful thing.

What are you reading?

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin. Just finished Edna O'Brien's biography of James Joyce.

Do you have a favorite bookshop?

St. Mark's Books in the East Village. I have to be careful about walking in there because I always want to buy everything in the store. It's also one of the very few bookstores left in the city where you feel like intellectual movements are nurtured.

If you worked in a bookshop, what would be on your staff picks shelf?

I must confess I don't read much current literature -- I'm still trying to catch up on the old stuff. So here are 10 essentials:

Up in the Old Hotel -- Joseph Mitchell
Pale Fire -- Vladmimir Nabokov
A Handful of Dust -- Evelyn Waugh
Exercises in Style -- Raymond Queneau
Invisible Cities -- Italo Calvino
The Day of the Locust -- Nathanael West
The Third Policeman -- Flann O'Brien
Between Meals -- A.J. Liebling
The Master and Margarita -- Mikhail Bulgakov
Waiting for Godot -- Samuel Beckett