Rolling Stone Q&A

On to your relationship with your fans. You've made yourself very accessible to them via Twitter and regular interaction on your forum. Is there a downside to that for you at all?


FT: The first thing I should say is that I'm not all that comfortable with the word "fan" per se. To me it seems like a slightly derogatory word, you know what I mean?

Oh, ok. Well what term do you prefer to use?


FT: Just..."people at my shows." I know that's kind of a clumsy way of putting it. I guess growing up with the whole slightly Bon Jovi-ish "We're doing it for the FANS man!" thing. In that context, that word to me has the same ring about it as "proles." Kind of like "the little people" who pay their money and enable me to be some f**king coke-boshing, jacuzzi-trashing ass.

It makes me uncomfortable because to me, the whole point of punk rock certainly is that there's continuum between the people in the audience and the people in music. It's community music. That ethos incidentally is why I think that punk and folk have kind of embraced each other. Punk has embraced folk as an idea recently because of that idea of it being an equal community. So the two slot into each other quite neatly.


I love hanging out with people at shows and stuff. I like meeting people, I'm a gregarious person, so it's cool. I've got a lot of friends who I've met because they like my music. We hang out, I stay around their house when I'm on tour and they stay at mine. Well, when I have a house, which isn't very often.


There are moments when there are occasionally people who, and I'll try to phrase this as politely as I can, are bad at identifying social boundaries. I think some people view me as a construct more than a person, therefore their behavior around me can be difficult and annoying. One of my absolute pet hates is if after a show, I'm sitting around with a bunch of people having a conversation with somebody and somebody else walks over and just starts talking to me like I'm not already in the middle of something. It's like, "Really? I mean I'll talk to you the minute I'm free, then you can have my full undivided attention and all my time. But I'm actually literally midway through a sentence with someone right now." That's just mind-bogglingly rude. I think people kind of view it as "This is a CD that I'm talking to" rather than an individual. That I find difficult. Then there are some people who start trying to find out where I sleep and s**t like that.

I mean, I want to be completely available and on the level with everybody. But the flip side of that is that I request people treat me normally as well. Occasionally I think the problem is that there are people who think that the rules of social engagement when they're talking to me are different because I just played a show. And the whole point for me is that's not true.

I was about to ask why you thought some other artists choose not to get too close with their fans, but I think you've already kind of answered that in a way.


FT: The thing about it is that, and not that I'm saying that you're doing this, but there are times when sometimes in interviews people are essentially trying to get me to say that people who don't interact with their fans the way that I do are all automatically rock star a**holes. But I'm not saying that you're doing that.

No, definitely not. To clarify what I meant, as an example, Jay-Z doesn't take the time to post on his forum and answer people's questions like you do. But I never took that as he looks down on them. I just wondered why some artists choose not to get too involved with their listeners.


FT: I think part of it is some people just aren't gregarious people. I know plenty of people who play in bands who are very, very shy and introverted and find dealing with large numbers of people, and new people, very intimidating. What they want to do is play and go home. I think that's a perfectly legitimate approach to take. Then there are moments sometimes when, after a show, I really just am not in the mood to hang out and people kind of give me s**t. I had that a couple of days ago. I was a little sick after a show in Belfast and I really needed to just go to sleep because I have more shows coming up and I don't want to jeopardize that. There were some people who were all "Aw, come on man!" And it's like "Really dude? I'm trying to do the best I can here. Cut me some slack." End: Rock Star Complaining Moment.