Punk singer Nardwuar the Human Serviette once asked Mikhail Gorbachev which world leader has the biggest pants. Beck fans still send him hate-mail after Beck said his experience with Nardwuar in an interview in 1994 was unpleasant. In his quest for interviews for his long-running college radio show on Vancouver's CiTR, he's been roughed up by Quiet Riot, as well as Sebastian Bach from Skid Row, who stole his toque. Now the guerrilla journalist comes to Edmonton with his garage-punk band the Evaporators, and he finds himself on the other end of the microphone.
Me: Who are you?
Nardwuar: I am Nardwuar the Human Serviette, a 33-year-old, teenage zit-rock loser from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and also singer for the rock and roll band the Evaporators who are coming to Edmonton, Alberta to the Spruce Avenue Hall on Friday, August 17, 1999+2.
Me: I bet there are a lot of disgruntled celebrities who'd love to have this opportunity for payback right now, to have you on the phone like this. Who would want that opportunity for revenge the most, and who would you least like to speak with again?
Narwuar: I think everybody has got their revenge on me, who wanted revenge on me. For instance the rock and roll band Quiet Riot. They kind of roughed me up and destroyed a tape I was using to interview them with. The rock and roll band Skid Row: Sebastian Bach, he took my toque. So anybody that kinda gets mad at me kinda gets revenge.
Beck, I upset Beck years ago. He never got revenge physically, but he got revenge through saying how much I upset him, and even to this day, even though I did this interview in 1994 with Beck, to this day, Beck fans e-mail me and say how much they hate me.
Me: Why are you a human serviette?
Nardwuar: Probably just to serve the youth to help mop up the information. In fact, everything I've said probably has been said before.
Me: Now I hear you most often are after these mainstream pop icons like Beck, or Tommy Lee, or Courtney Love, or Iggy Pop or somebody like that. Yet you play in a punk band. Nardwuar, are you a punk?
Nardwuar: I would like to think I am. Although somebody said, 'How can you be in a punk band if you're over the age of 30?" Well um uh, I guess I'm trynna change things. And as for those kind of commercially, major-labelly-type people that I talk to, it's just kind of fun. Like you're at your college radio station where I do a show (CiTR Radio at UBC). And somebody will say "Hey, do you wanna go talk to Ratt" or "Hey, do you wanna go talk to Warrant" or "Do you wanna do an interview with Iggy Pop" -it just seems so ridiculous, it's something fun to jump into. So yes, there's not too much of a correlation between those famous star fuckers and punk rock, but it's fun to be able to do it because I'm totally bored.
Me: What is a Nardwuar?
Nardwuar: I guess it's just a dumb, stupid name like Sting or Sinbad. Originally when I made up the name, it was with a whole bunch of friends around me, and we used to use the name when we saw old people for some reason. We'd yell at some senior citizens, "You're Nardwuars, you're Nardwuars!" But then I got to University and I got a radio show, and I needed a name, and what name did I take? Nardwuar! So I kinda like stole this name. It was like communal, that me and my buddies all shared and put it towards my radio show.
Me: Where is this all taking you, like the interviews and the music and all that, where do you see yourself in five years?
Nardwuar: Well, I'd like to think it's taking me to the top of the rock heap, but I don't think it has been. I think it's just been taking me on a journey to meet lots of cool and interesting people. And actually it kind of saved my life. 'Cause a few years ago, I ended up in the hospital, and I was pretty scared, and then suddenly all these people that I interviewed over the years and people I knew and friends sent sent all these cards, and it totally cheered me up. So where is it taking me? Well, I think it's saved my life. Anything else is actually extra gravy. I don't care where I'll be in five years; I'm alive now!
When you're in a hospital, you're usually pretty scared, and I didn't have time to be scared because everyone was sending me cards. Even like David Lee Roth's manager sent me a card, and a couple days later I got a card from David Lee Roth. I don't even know the guy, but somebody knew that I was a big Van Halen fan. So I just feel happy now. I'm on borrowed time, that's what I feel like.
Me: Nardwuar, a lot of people who have hairy backs are unaware they have hairy backs. Do you have a hairy back?
Nardwuar: Yes I do; I'm sorry about inflicting that on you as well. Somebody did try to light me on fire actually at a in Portland, Oregon, so that's a hazard of having back hair.
Me: As well as fronting the Evaporators, you seem to be affiliated with the Goblins. Are you officially in the Goblins?
Nardwuar: Oh, ahum, well, ah, I won't say I really know the Goblins too well, they're ah, well, I think I know the guy called Thee Goblin who plays organ, and they're a very mysterious masked duo, very very simplistic.
Me: And they happen to use the same instruments as you.
Nardwuar: Sorry?
Me: They use the same instruments as you.
Nardwuar: Yes. The same instruments. And sometimes they're even joined by members of the Evaporators, who help out with, I mean, sorry, with other members of another band that happens to be around the venue that night to join the Goblins, and then they turn into the Skablins. There's also been the Gothblins, and the Disgoblins, and hopefully someday we're gonna be able to do Fat Boy Goblins and GobBizkit.
Me: Do you think, Nardwuar, that most of the musicians you interview know of your musical dexterity?
Nardwuar: I don't think so. I think probably they're totally unaware of what is going on. Although I was lucky enough to, we played a gig last week with the rock and roll band Mudhoney, and they actually asked us to open for them. Actually, Sleater Kinney asked us to open for them on New Year's Eve a few years ago, and Sloan took us on that tour of Alberta a couple years ago. And Sloan was a band that I'd interviewed in 1991, and they walked out on me-they hated me-and yet seven years later, in 1998, they were asking for the Evaporators to open for them. It took seven years to win them over, but I finally did.
Me: Do you think when you interview someone, does your own personality come across, and does it ever drown out the person you're interviewing?
Nardwuar: I don't really know what that really means, exactly. I guess sometimes I try as hard as I can to get the information across, so if nobody's saying anything, I hate dead air, so I just speak more and more and more. So maybe sometimes it might sound like I'm talking a lot, but I'm not trying to put my own personality into it.
However I do try as hard as I can to get little interesting factoids out there. For instance, when I interviewed that band Skid Row, to the interview I brought a girl that had actually at one time become intimate, became, uh, had, uh, whatever that word is-fucking-um, with, um, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, and I brought her to the interview as like a prop, like "Hey Sebastian, remember this girl from Saskatoon?" I unfortunately never got to that point in the interview, because he grabbed the video camera and took the tape out, smashed the tape against the wall, threatened to beat me up for fun.
Me: Your interview with Ross Rebagliati, the snowboarder who had his Olympic medal taken away because of a positive drug test was printed in the Seattle Weekly, but it caused a complaint from a publicist about your lack of professionalism. Correct?
Nardwuar: Yes. This is really bizarre, because every interview I do, I try to end with "Doot doodle oot doo." This Ross interview was pretty much fairly boring. However, at the very end, it took him a little while to go "doot doo." The publicist phones back to me and says "What were you doing talking to Ross Rebagliati, you made him sing a song!"
One interesting aspect about dealing with "Doot doodle oot doo doot doo" is Rob Zombie. When I interviewed him, I went "Doot doodle oot doo," and he just left the room, and he left the speaker on, and I just "Doot doodle oot doo… doot doodle oot doo" for about half an hour.
Me: What's your real name?
Nardwuar: Let's perhaps leave that to a mystery. However, if people want to research me, check on the net for an English social critic that lived between years of 1819 and 1900. This social critic, on his wedding night, saw his wife's pubic hair, became disgusted by his wife's pubic hair, became a compulsive masturbator and died a virgin. This is who I am named after.
Me: Doot doodle oot doo.
Nardwuar: Oh! Doot doo.
