Tom Waits - The Collected Interviews

[howard male]

I spent most of the weekend (breaking to listen to Charlie's show of course) with my head buried in, 'Innocent When You Dream', a wonderful collection of Tom Waits interviews compiled by Mac Montandon. It functions as a better biography than any other books I've read on the man. No one talks more lucidly and entertainingly about his music and the processes involved in creating it, than the man himself, and no one is funnier, wiser or crazier when interviewed.

It begins with Waits' first self penned press release from 1974 and goes through to the present day and also includes lengthy conversations with Costello and Jarmusch.

Also worth noting is that if you're like me and spotted most of his UK interviews over the past couple of decades, you'll be pleased to know most of the pieces reproduced here are from American publications.

I loved this quote from one of those quickfire-style question interviews:

Interviewer: Which words or phases do you most overuse?

Waits: "Do as I say and no one will get hurt."