The Jet Magazine Interview

[Interviewer]
Okay, February 4, 1984, this is an interview for Jet Magazine with James Shepard. Okay, we're ready to go. Okay, we got five questions, James. Number one, are you happy with the state of music in general?

[Jim]
No.

[Interviewer]
And what state are you most comfortable in?

[Jim]
Okay, I'll answer the second part first.

[Interviewer]
Yeah?

[Jim]
Ohio is where I live, so I prefer Louisiana, Vermont, or Florida.

[Interviewer]
Yeah, I agree with that.

[Jim]
I spent my boyhood in Vermont, adolescence in Florida. Both were wondеrful. Don't believe what you hеar about the South. It's actually quite nice if you like being unknown, realistic, yet remain creative. I mean, I don't think Joe Bird, Leadbelly, or Sterling Morrison gave a shit about making it. If you're smart, you run a creative course until you feel as a volume you've made your statement. Don't end up like a lot of these bands and crank out two LPs a year and end up at the mercy of these simple tricks and these two-bit Xerox scenes that always try to compare you a new one to the last one or where your music tried to set a mood and where you let the studio do all the fucking work for you. Just play your guitar in as few takes as possible.

[Interviewer]
What's that? You don't want to go on.

[Jim]
I don't want to go on.

[Interviewer]
What do you mean you said everything?

[Jim]
Trying to make a fucking statement.

[Interviewer]
Is that how you feel?

[Jim]
Play your guitar in as few takes as possible.

[Interviewer]
Okay, then. This interview's over. James Shepard, ladies and gentlemen.

[Jim]
[?]

[Interviewer]
Yeah, yeah. You want to go on to the second question?

[Jim]
Music and literature are similar. A year or two of great work.

[Interviewer]
Is that all you got to say? Are you finished?

[Jim]
Yeah, I don't need to go on anymore.

[Interviewer]
You don't want to go on to the second question?

[Jim]
I made a statement, okay?

[Interviewer]
I guess this interview's over, ladies and gentlemen.

[Jim]
What do you want, a fucking book? Huh?

[Interviewer]
I guess it's over.

[Jim]
I don't like your Jet Magazine anyway.

[Interviewer]
Hell with it.

[Jim]
It's crap. It's racist. It's racist. It's racist. The last white guy you had in your magazine lives in a fucking…

[Interviewer]
Yeah, get the hell out of here.

[Jim]
The last white guy you had in your fucking magazine…

[Interviewer]
You don't make a goddamn bit of sense. Get the hell out of here.

[Jim]
…was Liberace. I guess you got to be dead and white…

[Interviewer]
Just go.

[Jim]
…to get in Jet.

[Interviewer]
Get the hell out of here. Just go. Go.