Leslie Simon is the ultra-hilarious author of the book
Wish Your Were Here: An Essential Guide to Your Favorite Music Scenes – From Punk to Indie and Everything In Between and co-author of the book
Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture (I covered both books in my Currently Reading segment which you can see
here and
here). She was also the editor for Alternative Press magazine (and helped make it not suck anymore).
As soon as I started reading
Wish You Were Here, I wanted to interview Leslie. The book was so incredibly well written, thoroughly researched, and just down right fun to read that I had just had to try and contact her. And much to my delight, Leslie not only responded, but she responded enthusiastically. Of all of the interviews that I’ve
done over the years, this is one that I have looked forward to more than just about any other (with the exception of my interview with Ian MacKaye which will probably always be my favorite).
This interview was conducted via email May-June 2009. You can find out more about Leslie Simon, her book, projects, and various tom-foolery by visiting her on her
Official website,
MySpace, and
Twitter.
Dave: How did you first become involved in the underground music scene?
Leslie Simon: I really turn my attention underground until I graduated college and started interning at Alternative Press. Up until that point, I was too busy wandering around the country on Phish tour, stitching my own patchwork pants and trying to learn “Closer To Fine” on the acoustic guitar. (You think I’m kidding? I wish!) When I first started at AP, I hardly knew anything about music that didn’t contain a 25-minute, noodling guitar solo. However, after leafing through the pages—in between cleaning the office cat’s litter box and organizing black-and-white press photos—I started learning about a whole new scene of music that seemed to be exactly what I needed in my life. Dashboard Confessional was really the gateway for me to explore all these other great, yet-to-be-discovered groups. (He was my musical marijuana, if you will.) From that point on, my life—and my stereo—would never be the same.
Dave: How did you become interesting in writing and journalism?
Leslie: For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been hugely interested in writing. I never wanted to be a journalist, per se, because I wasn’t interested in all of the rules involved. Instead, I wanted to focus on the story-telling aspect of things. That’s why, to this day, I never call myself a journalist or a critic. I’m a writer. Period.
Dave: The emo scene that you and Tevor Kelley described in
Everybody Hurts reminded me a lot of the underground scene in my high school in Florida. In fact it seems to me that the scene you described is the same basic scene that I was involved in nearly 20 years ago, just with a new name (we were called the “progressive kids” back in 1990). Do you see the emo scene as just the new name for the underground music scene of today’s youth?
Leslie: Through the ages, the “underground scene” always takes on different identities. For some, it’s a punk scene. For others, it’s metal or prog. I think it really just depends on the time, place and status quo of society. The underground is a great barometer of what’s going on in the world because, more often than not, it usually stands for some sort of rebellion or expression of dissatisfaction with the way things are going (i.e. politically, financially, socially, etc.) You can always tell the mood of the youth based on the sounds of the underground.
Dave: This question is probably a bit nit picky, just to warn you… In the chapters on the Bay Area and Chicago scenes in
Wish You Were Here, there were a couple of bands that I noticed were absent that I have always seen as very important to each scene. The bands in question are the Swingin’ Utters (San Francisco) and Screeching Weasel (Chicago). Why were they left out?
Leslie: It totally wasn’t intentional. Trust. The only explanation I can give is that there were so many bands and not enough page-count.
Dave: Do you have any personal heroes or people that you admire/look up to? If so, then who?
Leslie: Oh, most definitely. Personality-wise, I absolutely adore and admire Pamela Des Barres. She’s one of the most famous groupies of all time and her books—
I’m With The Band and
Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart—are so riveting and revealing, I think it’s impossible to be a music fan and not have them on your bookshelf. I’d also be crazy to not gush about Courtney Love. Love her or hate her, she’s a rock ’n’ roll goddess who isn’t afraid to speak her mind—even when it’s kind of indiscernible. It’s her “Miss World;” we’re just living in it.
Dave: Alternative Press was a magazine that I read a lot in the early and mid-90s but it seemed to me that by the late 90s the magazine had moved away from covering bands like Fugazi to covering the Dave Matthew’s Band. In the past few years I’ve noticed a bit of a return to AP’s roots. How did you get you job at AP? What did you do to guide the direction of the types of bands that AP covered?
Leslie: Like I said, I started on the lowest rung of the totem pole at Alternative Press as a patchwork-clad intern. Howev, I made it known to anyone that would listen that I was never content to be a glorified secretary. Almost immediately after I started, I began pitching ideas to editor in chief Jason Pettigrew until he gave me a shot at writing something for the magazine. It was a full-page lead Low Profile on the nu-metal band Adema. I thought they were completely awful but I earned my first real byline for the piece.
When I first started at the magazine, bands like Coal Chamber and Disturbed were still on the cover but their brand of mook rock was already starting to die a slow, painful death. Dashboard Confessional was the first band I triumphed all the live-long day and when the editorial staff eventually started listening to my cries and put Chris Carrabba on the cover, the magazine got an overwhelmingly positive response and I knew I was on to something. Smell you later, nu-metal! Long live, emo!
Dave: Is there any one story or interview from your career that you are most proud of?
Leslie: Aside from my two books—
Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide To Emo Culture and
Wish You Were Here: An Essential Guide To Your Favorite Music Scenes-From Punk To Indie And Everything In Between—I’d have to say the first My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy stories I wrote for Alternative Press. Both of those happened at such a magical place in my life and in music—and I think both pieces really captured that moment in time.
Dave: This is a
High Fidelity inspired question. What are your All Time Top 5 bands/artists, albums, books, movies, and TV shows?
Leslie: This is so hard! I’ll go with
Gilmore Girls, Lifted… Or Your Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground by Bright Eyes,
Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen,
Sixteen Candles and
Celebrity Skin by Hole.
Dave: What song(s) would you like played at your wedding/funeral?
Leslie: I’d love Bright Eyes’ “First Day Of My Life” to be played at my wedding and “Silver Lining” by Rilo Kiley to be played at my funeral.
Dave: What’s your next project? Any final thoughts?
Leslie: I’m currently living and freelancing in Los Angeles, working on some super-secret movie and television projects, trying to keep my apartment cool without an air-conditioner, updating my website (
http://www.leslie-simon) on a semi-regular basis, plotting the course for my next book, lurking Lindsay Lohan and tweeting up a storm (
http://www.twitter.com/redpatterndress)!! Whew… I’m tired just typing all that. I think I need a nap.
