By Justin Lee

The following is an email interview with Nick Hornby that took place just a couple weeks after a serendipitous encounter with him on the flight from Cologne to London. It doesn’t, as the headline suggests, allow you to physically step inside the head space of Mr. Hornby in some grandiose Charlie Kaufman-penned vehicle. But it’s certainly the next best thing as he discusses his innate connection with music, the influence music has on his own writing, and why he could never be in a romantic relationship with a Susan Boyle fan.

My Liner Notes: Once they reach their mid ’30s, it seems as though a lot of people get set in their old music tastes and fail to venture out of those confines to explore new music. Why do you think this is, and why hasn’t this happened to people like you and I?

Nick Hornby: Well, the major obstacle is kids. You lose maybe 19/20’s of your free time, and eventually, you lose control of the car stereo. You can’t go wandering about on a Saturday, browsing. You don’t have time to listen to your old music, let alone anything new, and if your friends are having kids too, then nobody is recommending much to you any more. My saving grace was first of all my job, and secondly the internet. Of course, writing is hard work and so on. But I do find myself with the odd, um, free patch during the day. When I first started writing full-time, I befriended the guy who ran our local CD store, and he had very similar tastes to mine, so he introduced me to loads of things. He closed down, like everyone else, but then I started investigating music on the web, and…well, there’s a lot of it, isn’t there? But I’m in an entirely privileged position. If I had an office job, or was still teaching, I’m sure I’d have stopped listening to so much new stuff. I try and keep the friends I have with proper jobs in the loop, by making them CDs, and making them buy stuff.

How has music helped to contribute or influence you in your writing?

NB: Music and writing are inextricably linked. What I hear is what I want to write. It’s pretty much as simple as that – music fuels it all.

What do you listen to when you’re writing? Is there a particular genre, band/artist, or record that provides a more effective soundtrack to facilitate your writing process?

NB: There isn’t one particular thing, and I don’t work while I’m actually writing anyway. I can’t listen to anything with words while I’m working, and just about everything I like has words. But sometimes a piece of music  seems to have something that I’m after, tonally, and I play it a lot during the period that I’m writing. I wanted About A Boy to sound like REM’s “E-Bow The Letter,” for example. I’m not sure it does, or that anyone would be able to notice even if it did. But for some reason it helped me to write the book I wanted to write. And when I was writing A Long Way Down I listened over and over to bootleg versions of Springsteen’s Prove It All Night from the ‘78 tour.

You mentioned in Songbook that your severe lack of musical ability was one of the reasons why you went into writing instead of pursuing music. If you were suddenly blessed with the talent of, say, Dylan, would you wipe out all your past achievements in writing for a chance to pursue a music career?

NB: No, definitely not - unless you let me be 21 again at the same time. It’s a pretty good life, the writer’s life. And I think it’s much easier to sustain a career as a writer. I’m 52, and I have a complicated and expensive family, and the chances are that I’d have been finished as a musician at least a decade ago. And of course nobody knows how to make money out of music now anyway. My musician friends are all trying to switch careers.
 
You once said, “It’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favourite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.” Can you recount a past relationship where your music and film tastes “disagreed violently”, and how did it all end?

NB: Well, the truth is that conversations about tastes in culture become, in the end, conversations about all sorts of other things – like educational background, aspirations, and how much you have invested in the arts anyway. As I get older, I can see that waving these things during courtship around is a way of saying, “Hey, I’m OK – you could settle down with me.” If I listen to, I don’t know, Broken Social Scene, but she prefers Sonic Youth, then we’re not going to fall out. But if I’m into Broken Social Scene and she likes Susan Boyle, then we’re going to have problems. And those problems are going to be found in all sorts of areas, not just in our iTunes. I don’t think I could live with anyone who didn’t care about movies/books/films – and people who like SuBo do so because, actually, they don’t make their cultural life any kind of a priority. And that doesn’t make them bad people – just people I wouldn’t be able to make very happy. The chances are they’d prefer to be with someone who likes mountaineering. Or dogs.

How similar is your wife’s music/film tastes compared to your own?

NB: I think our tastes are very similar. She’s an independent movie producer, so she’s prepared to watch more movies than I am, simply out of professional curiosity. But we listen to more or less exactly the same sort of music. I’m the one who brings it into the house, though. She doesn’t really buy anything, and she chooses from within what I bring home.

What’s one band/artist you’ve introduced her to, and one that she’s introduced to you?

NB: The last thing she introduced me to, I think, was Laura Veirs.
 
One of the most shameful reasons why I am looking forward to eventually becoming a father is that I will be able to have some influence on my future son/daughter’s music tastes. What kind of bands/artists does your own son listen to and how much of a role did you play in shaping his music tastes?

NB: Ha! Well, good luck with that. That’s when you realize just how much music is about peer pressure. I have three sons. The oldest has autism, so he’s a different case – he can’t really choose his own. But the two little ones…They were fine with what I told them to like until they got to school. Then they realized that Dad’s tastes were redundant, because none of their friends had ever heard of anyone I liked. They watch X-Factor, our American Idol, and like just about everyone they see on it, at least in the final rounds. I have been able to play them the original versions of some of the songs they hear on the show, though. Last season, “Superstition” became a big favourite. You have no chance influencing your kids’ tastes. The whole point of listening to the stuff is actually to piss parents off. They don’t want to be approved of by you.

By Justin Lee

A month ago I was on a Lufthansa flight that was about to depart from Cologne, Germany to London. After three grueling days of reporting at an IT conference held at an amusement park decorated like Medieval China (I wish I was lying but even JK Rowling wouldn’t be able to come up with this kind of fantastical bullshit), I was greatly anticipating a weekend getaway to visit some old friends.

My co-worker Allison was on the same flight sitting next to me in the window seat, and across the aisle sat a middle-aged bald man who was reading a copy of Patti Smith’s autobiography, Just Kids.

As a testament to the power of the human spirit, my sorely sleep-deprived mind managed to recognize this man whose photo I had only seen a few times. But despite a slight unfamiliarity of his appearance, I was all too familiar with his written works, which were among some of my favourite books. The man was Nick Hornby, author of About A Boy, A Long Way Down, Fever Pitch, Juliet, Naked, and of course, High Fidelity, which had been my unofficial bible for more than a decade.

I didn’t want to disturb him as he was fully immersed in his book, so I waited for the perfect opportunity to introduce myself. Several minutes later, Mr. Hornby set his book down, and just as I was about to introduce myself he closed his eyes and fell into a light slumber.

Shit, I thought to myself, now any chance I had of picking the brain of a literary god was lost in the clouds. He was probably one of those immortal beings who was actually capable of sleeping on a plane.

But suddenly the Trojan Horse of beverage carts came rumbling by, promptly awaking Mr. Hornby. The flight attendant handed Mr. Hornby a cup of tea, or at least I think I remember it being tea. With all the excitement, I couldn’t be bothered remembering the inconsequential details of a beverage choice.

Hell, for all I know it could have been the blood of Geoffrey Fletcher, whose screenplay for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Saphire had beaten out Hornby’s An Education at the 2010 Academy Awards, because you all know how cutthroat the Oscars can get.

Before he could even get in a single sip of tea/Fletcher’s blood, I turned to him and rather timidly asked, “excuse me, are you Nick Hornby?”

“Yes, I am,” he replied nonchalantly. It was a massive mistake on Hornby’s part, because for the next five minutes I proceeded to gush about him in the most shameless manner. I mean, even Robert Pattinson fans would have been nauseous by my demeanour.

I told him how High Fidelity was my favourite novel. I told him how much I admired his ability to write in the areas of fiction, non-fiction, young adult, and screenplays. With all the praise I was sending his way I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up telling him he had possessed the power to single-handedly prevent global warming, or at the very least, ensure that the Black Eyed Peas’ “I’ve Got A Feeling” is never played in public again.

And then I told him how Songbook had partially inspired the idea for My Liner Notes. He seemed genuinely appreciative that his collection of music essays had such a lasting impact on another individual. I asked him if he would be available to do an interview to post as one of the first entries on the blog, and to my surprise he graciously accepted.

Tomorrow, Nick Hornby discusses his own personal connection with music, the influence music has on his own writing, and why he could never be in a romantic relationship with a Susan Boyle fan.

Music is more than just an expressive art form that I turn to for escape; it is as much a part of my survival as nourishment, rest and human interaction. Like many of you who are reading this right now, it plays an integral role in my life.

Throughout my daily commute and at the office I listen to my iPod, which boasts a rotating discography of 1,183 albums. I browse my favourite music blogs and websites, as well as download the most recent leaked albums when I should probably be working. During the evenings I play various selections from my shelves of vinyl while reading or preparing dinner (notice that I choose the word “preparing” as opposed to cooking — I can barely toast a strawberry Pop-Tart).

Since my days as a snot-encrusted toddler when my late-father used to play Thriller on family road trips, I have been entranced by stirring melodies, layered instrumentation, and poetic lyrics. That said, I have always been more of an appreciator or critic than having any legitimate talent in creating music. Ten years of banging away at the ivory keys amounted to nothing more than bragging rights for my parents at Korean church bake sales.

Despite my lack of talent, I decided to learn as much information about music as my brain could possibly store. This was particularly challenging during my teenage years because I spent most of my cerebral energy trying my best to not get a boner at the wrong time (ie. class presentations, school dances, climbing the rope in gym class).

By the time I turned 13 I had completely abandoned my previous obsession for hockey, and instead, devoted all my free time and energy to learning more about new bands and artists, the plethora of music genres, production techniques, the evolution of popular music, and anything else I could find within the pages of Spin and Rolling Stone magazine.

So it’s no wonder that I eventually went into music journalism where I found myself interviewing bands and writing album reviews, features and the occasional opinion-editorial piece for both online and print magazines. At first it was an Almost Famous-esque dream come true; the pay was minimal but I received more free CDs and concert tickets than I ever could have imagined. And picking the minds of some of my most respected bands and artists was payment enough.

But somewhere along the line I lost my zest for the whole game, particularly when it came to writing reviews and features. What’s more, reading music magazines and blogs were beginning to feel cumbersome and rarely did one interview with a band distinguish itself from the hundreds of others printed in other publications.

And with the Blogosphere (I promise that this will be the one and only time I use this term) becoming increasingly saturated with music blogs run by any college dropout with a MacBook and a DSL connection, I eventually lost my appetite for blogging about new music.

A few years past and I began to miss writing about music. I felt this nagging urge to get back into music writing, only approach it from a different angle. Inspired by Stylus magazine’s “Soulseeking” section and Nick Hornby’s Songbook, I eventually arrived at the idea for My Liner Notes.

I’m not going to spout some Jerry Maguire-like mission statement bullshit
about how My Liner Notes is some revolutionary new idea that will save music journalism. It’s not and it won’t.

But what it will do is offer a refreshing spin on the same tired format of the new music blog. That is, it won’t proclaim the band of the week to be the next Talking Heads, only to forget about them in a month, and it certainly won’t be Pitchfork-approved (that said, we have our fingers crossed for at least 6.2).

Just as the name suggests, My Liner Notes takes from the nostalgic art form of an LP’s liner notes, which can be found within the inner sleeves of dusty records and inserts of cassette tapes. The personal essays found on this blog will contain anecdotal and factual material which celebrate the visceral and emotional connection we all share with music.

These analytical, humourous, and often poignant opinion-editorials are always delivered with the kind of brutal honesty you can only expect from a music nerd. So whether you’re into Lady Gaga or Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (and let’s be honest, those two artists probably share more of a common audience than we would like to believe), it is my hope that you will connect with something within these daily posts. Just remember, sometimes we all need to read between the notes.

Justin Lee, editor