Go Now, Moody Blues, 1965
Today's SOTD reminds me of the worst, yet most memorable, interview experience of my career -- Denny Laine. For those of you who don't know, I am not much of a classic rock fan so I studied like crazy for this interview. This guy co-founded Moody Blues and also co-founded Wings with Paul (and Linda) McCartney but I had never heard of him. Truthfully, I had never listened to either of those bands before being asked to interview Laine ahead of a performance at a local recording studio.
Like with most established artists, I went through a third party to schedule a time for a phone interview with Laine. It was a little out of the ordinary, though, because he was scheduled to call me instead of me calling him. Although few and far between, this interview dynamic was the most frustrating for me because I'm a control freak. I hate being on someone's hook. It's torture waiting for someone to call and of course, the call came more than 30 minutes after the scheduled time. Then, the "connection" was horrible -- he was cutting in and out. He was traveling and asked to call me back, which he did about 10 minutes later. So almost an hour after our scheduled interview time, I finally had Denny Laine on the line.
The second call was clearer but God as my witness, I could not understand 80% of what he was saying. We had a language barrier -- my small town Southern ears heard his heavy British accent as a bunch of fast-talking goobly garb. Thankfully, he was a good-natured person and thought it was equally as funny that he was having trouble understanding my slight Southern accent. It wasn't terribly satisfying and I didn't have the chance to utilize my research at all but we ended up having a nice, very short little chat that suited the purpose of my story just fine.
Hours later, I was sitting at the paper writing the story and a call came in on my cell from a number I didn't recognize. And yeah, I am that person who never answers those calls. I'm that person who believes, "they can leave a message, then we'll see if I need to call them back." Turned out, it was a butt dial from Denny Laine. A long, long, long, butt (pocket) dial of him obviously walking around talking with several people. Pretty funny. I wish I had kept it.
https://youtu.be/gMee_r95Nfs
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