PassTheAux with Dorian Lynskey: What makes a good celebrity profile and how to deal with moments of self-doubt
The journalist and author on wildest interviews, how magazines have changed, top writing tips and the time he lost his mojo
One of the things I love most about writing this newsletter is being able to nose around the lives and careers of journalists I have always admired from afar. So it was a particular treat to interview Dorian Lynskey for this month’s Pass The Aux.
Dorian has been in the game for over 20 years, interviewing everyone from Jay Z to U2 for publications such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Billboard, the Observer, Mojo and Q, as well as writing about pop culture and politics for the New Statesman, the Guardian and UnHerd. His book about the cultural influences of George Orwell’s 1984, Ministry of Truth, was longlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.
As an intern for GQ, I used to write up Dorian’s “Contributor” blurb for the front page of the magazine, for which he would write monthly essays on the music biz’s most interesting talking points. As a fledgling writer who found it particularly difficult to get to the point, as my editor would scrawl in the margins of my printed abominations, I found Dorian’s clear, succinct and persuasive prose a particularly useful blueprint. His current and rather brilliant columns for UnHerd are refreshingly measured and researched at a time when so much opinion writing has become spiteful, slapdash and somewhat unhinged. Read this one on why comedians are no longer funny and this one on the legacy of Batman.
Of course the best thing about interviewing other journalists is that they always come armed with stories – years of trying to prise them from the pursed lips of media-trained celebrities makes them generous with their own. So Dorian’s anecdotes about the highs and lows of celebrity journalism make for juicy and insightful reading.
I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did. I’m particularly grateful to Dorian for being so open about how even a journalist of his experience and reputation can have a rough time of things, and how even the most seasoned freelancer’s workload ebbs and flows in frustratingly unpredictable ways.
As always, you can read my cultural picks for the month right at the bottom, from my new favourite journo newsletter to the memoir I can’t stop thinking about. Let me know what you think!
Eleanor: So Dorian, tell me about how you got into journalism.
Dorian: I came out of university where I had been doing things for my student paper, and then a very entrepreneurial friend of mine just sort of arranged a meeting with Dazed and Confused and asked if I wanted to come along. I started doing reviews and interviews for the hip hop magazine Trace which was in the office next door. They didn’t pay anything, but it was exciting. Then when I was working at a club night one evening I got introduced to the editor of Mixmag, and I said something that amused him, so he gave me a chance to write for them, and for actual money.
How fun to network in a nightclub! Not so much these days…
Yep! That's what's crazy when I try to think about music journalism now is that there were just so many magazines. You could literally just ask some of them, “Can I do some stuff?” and they would say, “Alright”.
What was your first big feature?
The first feature I did for Mixmag was Fatboy Slim. And I was temping at the time, doing data entry. It was mid-week, so I had to go down to Brighton. And the interview was quite…chemical. His team had a whole plan, essentially, of things to take at different stages of the evening. They were just like, “Oh I think speed or E for the interview”. Then other things later which I wasn’t up for.
So you did it with him for the interview?
Yes! It was an incredible interviewing experience really. It was like these people were my best friends. It was this house and brand called the House of Love, with smiley faces everywhere, we stayed up really late and then I got the train back the next morning. I was not very good at data inputting the next day. My boss there was very nice and said, “Look, it's obvious that you have found other priorities, so we’re going to let you go.” So it was the most polite, nicest firing ever. So then I was like, OK, I guess I’m a freelance journalist now?
How was the interview, written up?
I mean, in that era of magazines, you had to be able to do stuff while doing stuff, you know what I mean? You just had to find ways of filing the copy. It tended to be quite hyperbolic and a little bit breathless. But Mixmag really liked it.
I didn’t think I could make much money from writing yet so I went to City University, because I thought, there is a path here. I met my wife there which was great, but the problem was I was getting lots of work from magazines and so I was missing a lot of classes at City. It was really hectic. I mean in December ‘96 I was asked to go to New York to interview this rap artist called Jay Z. And I was saying to my now wife at the time, “I really don’t want to go, I’m so tired…” But she said, “Look, you’ve never been to New York, you should go!”
Oh my god. Thank goodness for your wife.
I managed to idiot myself through that interview, not realising that when you order spirits in America, they tend to give you a lot…And Jay Z was late, by which time I was accidentally drunk. So that wasn't actually a great interview.
Were you getting paid well?
Probably the same as I’m getting now to be honest, which is 25p a word. But that was kind of weird because the music industry had lots of money. And that was an immense privilege at the time. One thing I did in 99 was with the Dixie Chicks, which was £100 for 400 words. And we went to New Orleans and stayed in the best hotel in America and ate at one of the best restaurants in America. The meal cost more than my fee, like $2000. So the Nineties were a lot of fun to work in the music industry.
When you look back at your interview with Fatboy Slim, where you got such wild access, how does it feel doing artist interviews now, when access is so limited?
I mean I still get really good access. Every time I do U2 I get good access. My interview with Father John Misty lasted two hours and he got through a whole bottle of Tequila. And it was the most intense conversation. So I would say the access is still OK.
That’s interesting, a lot of journalists would disagree, often we’re given 30-minute Zooms maximum.
Hmm, I mean with movies, I’m used to doing 15 minute roundtables with Tobey Maguire and once I got 50 minutes with Kirsten Dunst because I was doing a cover for Empire. Though she was absolutely knackered and absolutely not up for it. But with music it’s always felt freer, you could end up in all sorts of situations with artists. You could pick up all kinds of colour. I’ve done on the road pieces with Muse, Noel Gallagher and U2 and the colour I got was just incredible. You go to the gig, backstage, the afterparty, and I’m so proud of those pieces because it’s such a panoramic view of these artists. It’s only in the cab on a way to the gig or over a drink afterwards when somebody says something that you get the really interesting stuff, stuff that would never come naturally from a question.
So when publicists don’t give you that kind of access, do you still agree to the interview?
You know, I really am quite happy to do anything. Because what’s really nice is when my daughter says, “Have you met so and so?” and I can say, “Yes I have!” And even if it was for just 20 minutes on Zoom, that is still exciting, and I still love meeting people.
That is actually a really lovely and positive way to think about it.
It’s true you need an hour to go deep. I once sat next to an actor at the Empire awards and I asked him, “is there anything that can surprise you at a junket?” And he said, “no, absolutely nothing.”
And when I was on a set visit for Dr. Strange, we were in a room with screens where we could observe a scene being shot. And we could hear when the audio was on. And Benedict Cumberbatch came in and did a quick roundtable with us, then he went out back onto the set, but he still had his mic turned on. And he was talking to Chiwetel Ejiofor, who said, “How was that then?” And Benedict went, “Well, they’re going to ask you, ‘What attracted you to the role?’” And they had a good old chuckle about it. Then Chiwetel came into the room for his interview and we were like, “Oh shit”.
Do you think the “celebrity profile” is still needed?
Yes, and I think its decline is really sad. I saw a Facebook post by James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem, and he was just like, “I'd love to do a good interview, again, one day, rather than clickbait”. I said, I’d do one! But what I found so sad about Q closing, as well as the loss of work and friends losing their jobs, was that some of the artists profiled were artists who wouldn’t get that kind of coverage elsewhere. People who would fall through the cracks of other magazines. And those people aren’t getting those interviews at all, and that’s a shame because further down the ladder of fame, I think they really enjoy a good interview.
Then up at the top of the ladder, of course, people have just withdrawn completely, like Beyonce. I actually did an interview with her and Destiny’s Child for Q, back when she had literally nothing to say. But then what’s interesting is that there are also people like Bon Iver and James Blake, who are not superstars, but now even they would do one interview with the New York Times and one with the Guardian and that’s it. And even Q, who in the Nineties could have got whoever they liked, weren’t getting them.
How do you prepare for an interview?
I am very meticulous with my research. I find that it really helps get better stories, particularly when you’re speaking to stars who are anecdote machines such as Nile Rodgers. And if you know your stuff then you’re aware of the stories he’s already talked about and you know how to get new material and new angles on things. The more research you do, the more you know what to ask.
I also do something a little cheeky. I find that when you’ve read lots of their interviews before, you end up saying to them an observation they’ve actually made in the past. And they like it. They go, “Exactly! That’s very perceptive.” And that puts them at ease. Because they think that’s from me rather than something I’ve got from reading an old interview. It’s not cynical, I just find that they feel listened to and understood.
Do you ever provoke an interviewee?
No, because that’s just not me. In the Nineties I would read Lynn Barber’s interviews in the Observer and I would think, my God she’s good. But she was rude and could be kind of bitchy on the page afterwards, which I didn’t notice at the time. Now I realise she wasn’t doing much of the negative stuff in the room, just after, which is a bit cheeky.
Have any interviews gone wrong?
Finley Quaye once threatened to hit me, back when I was a bit more abrasive. He’d been pictured with Paula Yates and I asked him about it. And he was being evasive so I said, is that a no then? And he said, “I’ll give you a no on your nose if you’re not careful”. I found that quite a funny threat, I enjoyed that actually because it was a talking point. And that is the thing, I noticed there was this guy at Q Magazine whose thing was to “expose” artists as arseholes. But then I interviewed some of these artists after him, and they were great. And I realised, hang on, maybe he’s just winding them up? Maybe he’s doing it simply to get his pieces talked about more? And so that can be quite cynical.
What if you don’t get on with an interviewee?
Some can be deeply unpleasant. I can’t stand Alex Turner, I’ve done him several times now and he actually gets worse every time. I should have done what a mate of mine did with him, which was simply throw his questions against the wall in exasperation.
Sometimes you have to be aware of the context they’re in of course. I did Pharrell, like 20 years ago, and thought he was kind of a dick who just wouldn't engage. He was acting bored and sarcastic. And then I interviewed him about 15 years later, and he was really nice. So I mentioned our previous interview and he apologised, and said he had been in a windowless basement for eight hours of interviews. But he said that wasn’t an excuse and that he was really sorry, and that he was really glad I had another chance to see a different side of him. So sometimes with interviews the chemistry is not right because the timing is just bad and there are circumstances you are not aware of. It’s also absurd to be able to know what someone is really like in just an hour.
I’ve been thinking about recently, about how insane it must feel to some celebrities to see their entire life story condensed into 1500 words by some random writer they’ve never spent more than an hour with, writing as if they know everything about them, and deciding an angle on them. Seeing their entire personality stripped back to a few fragments. I can see why so many of them hate it.
Have you ever upset anyone in a profile, and how did that make you feel?
I once hit a nerve without realising, with Bat For Lashes (Natasha Khan). It was a second interview, and it was for a bit more background, and I asked her about her relationship with her dad, which was obviously much worse than I understood. And she was really uncomfortable, and really didn't want to talk about it. I am much more careful now about the observations I make, in the interview but on the page as well. You can end up hurting people without meaning to, and that doesn’t serve the reader.
I think interviewers across the board are more sensitive now. Particularly with physical descriptions in those men’s magazines. And it can be hard because you sometimes want to describe someone’s beauty or sexual magnetism, and with men I can do that very easily. But with women, how do you do it without sounding lecherous? So I don’t do it, I just can’t. I interviewed Joanna Newsom and she was so beautiful and had this amazing look, but I just ended up cutting it because I couldn’t seem to write it without sounding like I fancied her.
Yes I can see how tricky that can be. I wonder when middle-aged women will be able to stop writing lustful copy about twenty-something men. I mean all the objectification Paul Mescal got from female journalists was insane, but it was seen as funny. I wonder if at some point that won’t be the case.
When did you have the best interview access?
Probably my time with U2 for Q in Boston. I wanted to know: how does it feel to walk on stage at a really big show? And so management arranged for me to basically follow Bono on stage, and to wait in the wings when he comes on. And he came from an area of the stage that the crowd wasn’t expecting. So I'm walking behind him and I'm seeing all those faces suddenly turn around and all those phones come out and that noise. It was the most amazing experience on the page of like, this is what it feels like to be a rock star walking into an arena.
And you know, it just shows, if you give me lots of time then you will get something that is richer and more nuanced than with a standard interview. So there is a responsibility there, but I felt yes, he gave me something, and then I could give him something back: a piece no one had read before and that fans would learn something from.
Have you ever had a serious moment of self-doubt as a writer?
I suppose during the pandemic, there was definitely a point where I didn’t know whether I could continue to make a living as a writer, and what I should do. Q closed, I couldn’t seem to get enough freelance work, and I didn’t really know where to go. I lost my confidence. I thought, well, I’m not going to reach out to people because they probably have enough writers, and if they were interested they would have gotten in touch. But it’s that thing, when you lose the work, you lose the confidence, when you've got lots of work, you get more work.
There have been times that things haven’t gone to plan, I guess. I was offered a staff role at Blender, this American music magazine in New York. And I was really tempted, as American word rates are obviously better, but my dad had died quite recently so I didn’t want to leave my mum. And the person who did take the job was Adam Higginbotham who became quite a successful journalist and author over there. So you think, should I have…? But then you know, I wouldn’t have the kids I have now, the friends, the things I have done since.
Is most of your income through your writing and through your books, or do you do artist bios, copywriting, etc?
Occasionally I’ll do an artist bio, but I’ve never done copywriting. It’s always been through journalism or books. Books can bring in quite a lot of income in different ways, be that translations or festival appearances. Annoyingly for tax it comes in quite a short space of time. So 2019 for me was wonderful, then 2020 and 2021 was a disaster.
What I have found is that there is money but there is also mental wellbeing. My wife has a full time job so it wasn’t so much about the money. The thing is my brain needs somewhere to go, it needs to write. And I don’t like fiction. So I just felt useless. But this year I have sold a book, and weirdly the freelancing has come back too. You think, where were these sorts of offers before, when I felt like I had disappeared off the face of the earth? As a freelancer I think you need a certain amount of psychological fortitude.
And finally, best writing tip?
I try to write as I research, or write as I transcribe, because you don’t want to end up with a mound of notes. So I’ll often write out the interview and leave the gaps for the transcribed quotes where I think they might go. I find that doing it that way, the piece has a different energy to it. I get excited by starting to write as soon as I get out of the interview. You should always start with the stuff you can’t wait to tell your partner or your mate.
*Nervous throat clearing* I’ve been writing Pass The Aux every month for about 18 months now but have been hesitant to introduce a paywall. So, if you fancied buying me a coffee to keep me company on the long and lonely evenings that I tend to write this newsletter then I would be very happy indeed! You can do so via this nifty little platform Ko-fi.
This week in links
Last week I was on holiday, so I packed no less than nine books and read a measly two. Perhaps Shuggie Bain was a little optimistic a beach read, and turns out it’s actually quite difficult to stop the words floating off the page when you’ve drunk four Pina Coladas in 35 degree heat.
Anyway, the two I did read were marvellous: At the Table by Claire Powell and Meg Mason’s Booker-longlisted Sorrow and Bliss. Both are tender but wry debut novels about family, relationships and the shame and stigma that can come with poor mental health. And both tap into the approaching wedding mania of your early thirties with somewhat anxiety-inducing accuracy. (Best not to read either before your own wedding, mind.)
This week (I’m trying to read for 20 minutes at lunch every day in the Telegraph canteen) I then ripped through comedian Marise Gaughan’s memoir Trouble, about how her unprocessed grief from her alcoholic father’s suicide led to a dangerous unravelling. It’s pretty harrowing to read the extent of her self-sabotage – particularly the graphic chapters about how she slept with older men for money – but you won’t be able to put it down.
My favourite Substack is Things Worth Knowing by Farrah Storr, the former editor of Elle. Alongside practical pieces on pitching and writing for aspiring journalists, she writes beautiful personal essays on friendship, love, and her career, as well as juicy insider-style dispatches on everything from fashion week to the Met Gala. I don’t know how long she spends writing them but they read as if they just glided out of her – each essay is utterly moreish.
I’ve been listening to former Made in Chelsea star Caggie Dunlop’s podcast Saturn Returns, about finding yourself in times of flux. I’m not usually one for astrology, but I’ve been making my way through her archive ahead of a talk I’m hosting with her later this month at the Podcast Show, and I particularly loved her episodes with dream expert Dr Michael Lennox (who has inspired me to start writing down my dreams every morning), and sexual wellness entrepreneur Chloe Mackintosh.
Finally, I can’t stop thinking about the extremely good bottled cocktails I recently ordered from Hunter and Grey. Not spon, just genuinely loved them (and I have literally had almost every bottled cocktail under the sun). Try the coconut Daiquiri.
Thanks for reading! Say hello on Twitter @eleanorhalls1 or email me at eleanorahalls@gmail.com