In Cold Sweat: Interviews with Really Scary Musicians

by Thomas Wictor

(Limelight). From the chaotic world of music journalism comes this collection of unabridged, unexpurgated interviews with four of the brightest, most influential and complex pop and rock musicians alive: Gene Simmons of Kiss, Peter Hook of New Order, Jerry Casale of Devo, and Scott Thunes of Frank Zappa fame. They are all bass players and they are all plainspoken, profane, stressed out, caustic, antagonistic and on occasion so belligerent they are prepared to engage in psychological warfare with their interviewer. Each interview is illustrated with striking, often candid photographs, and includes an introduction and a postscript. ..".the ultimate reason I liked this book was because of the very interesting circumstances of the interviews themselves. These people are almost impossible to get a hold of, let alone interview." YourFlesh

Genres: Music

306 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Thomas Wictor was born in Caripito, Venezuela, and has lived in Texas, the Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, Oregon, Japan, and California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Lewis and Clark College and has worked as a stevedore, library archivist, conversational English teacher, editor of the world’s first online newspaper, voice-over actor, delivery driver, process server, field representative for a document-retrieval service, scale-model builder, and music journalist.

He is the author of seven books and is the planet’s only expert on World War I flamethrowers, an accomplishment he attained completely by default, since nobody else is interested in them. A former Contributing Editor at Bass Player, he was once a semi-professional bass guitarist in Tokyo.

To read the most important development in his career, go here.

http://www.thomaswictor.com/my-two-fa...

Reviews

[Shawn Persinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unexpectedly engaging responses/insight from four well-respected musicians (all bass players), despite the interviewer's complete lack of self-confidence and banal, redundant, benighted questions.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A classic example of why you should never judge a book by its cover (or at least its title), but not bad for all that, just not what I expected. For example, I'm sure this book felt at least a hair more relevant six years ago when it was published than now. At any rate, Gene Simmons is probably always going to be an appropriate interviewee when it comes to this particular subject, and Scott Thunes was a good choice too for obvious reasons, but how "scary" can anyone from Devo or New Order really be, honestly? So perhaps there was a little bit of false advertising going on, but the interviews themselves were intriguing. Even though Wictor (in every instance really) was dealing with very difficult interview conditions he gets in some good questions and these notoriously prickly guys seem to really open up to him for the most part. The Thunes portrait especially stands out as an example of this. Gene Simmons doesn't really turn out looking a bit more sympathetic or human but just like a car wreck, you find that you can't really look away. Just like certain pop culture figures these days Simmons seems willing to give and give in terms of flat-out craziness. I'm not sure if it's actually entertainment, but whatever it is--it's interesting. Read this book if you're a fan of these specific musicians, but if you're not, and are just looking for a quick vicarious thrill you can probably get more out of the day's run-through of entertainment "news"--at least it would be more timely.

[Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it just for the Thunes interview. I'll never look at horn players the same. The Gene Simmons interview is interesting because it doesn't devolve into his generic "schtick interview" (see NPR's Terry Gross). He really knows music history, so that offered some saving graces. Jerry Casale's interview is very thoughtful (DEVO is on tour with Blondie in 2012, so it's not as outdated as other reviewers have complained). The best part is when Casale begins to ruminate about the nature of beauty--the interviewer is clearly uncomfortable. Peter Hook's interview is the shortest and the least insightful, but to be fair to Wictor, it took place in a kitchen during sound check, with an infuriated manager shoving his watch into their faces every fifteen minutes.