Klosterman: We met at a Moby show at Hammerstein Ballroom. [Audience laughs.] You told me a writer should always wear a suit, and you actually scolded me for not wearing a suit.
Spitz: I did, I gave you some shit for dressing too comfortably.
Klosterman: So when you were thinking to yourself, an author should wear a suit, was that how you really felt about what you thought a writer was? Or was that an attempt to create something? Because I feel like one thing that kind of makes you different from a lot of the other rock writers is that you were very into the idea of having almost a classic 70s-ish characteristic.
Spitz: Ideally, a rock writer is someone who profiles a band and turns in the piece on time. It shares with a reader what it’s like to be with that band and have some insight into their music and what they mean in that period of time. I wanted to be as heroic and as self-destructive and, in a weird way, as famous as the people I was profiling. I thought that was what it was like in the 70’s because in the late 90’s and early 00's people like Cameron Crowe or Nick Kent or Julia Burchell, or to some extent [Robert] Christgau, were starting to reflect on the 70’s. The 70’s loomed so large, especially in New York in the downtown myth. We were sort of under that thumb, and so that's where I took my cue. The narrative of [Poseur] is how do you shake that off and figure out who you really are? Because at the time, Spin was a really, really great magazine. I don't know if you agree with me on that, but it was a place where you could be identified and appreciated and live your life and actually make a living as a rock critic. …We are also sort of bullied a little bit.
Klosterman: Would you say culturally bullied?
Spitz: No, we were directly bullied by publicists and managers and record label people. We were sort of obliged to be deferential and less flamboyant and less colorful and less fucked up than the people that we were profiling. But my heroes were as fucked up as those people, like Nick Kent and Lester Bangs. That’s the way I was going to go, at the risk of my personal well-being, as well as at the risk of inter-office politics. I think I made a lot of enemies that way.
transcribed by Alta Swyers
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