The Joe Jackson Interviews

Goldie 1996, in one of his best interviews ever, rips into Prodigy, Enya, and talks about aspiring ever-higher to better his art

This was maybe the best fun I had doing a phone interview. Goldie, as you will hear, was barely awake at first, but when we clicked the questions and answers were ferocious as he let rip in terms of class, race, music, Prodigy, Enya, and his persistent, ever-aspirational drive to make music that would equal that of his heroes such as Miles Davis. It's probably best that I don't mention he also refers to his hard-on. But it was cool to be described as "clued in" by Goldie! 

Who The hell is Donal McCann and Why Should I Care?

My title for this podcast is purposefully provocative. However, it is also rooted in the fact that every time I tried to include this show in my RET Rdio 1 series, The Joe Jackson Tapes Revisited, I was asked "Who remembers Donal these days" and had to substitute another show. That went n for three years. So now, in part as an act of defiance, I am making the whole dam one-hour show a podcast. Besides who the late Donal McCann was, is one of Ireland's greatest actors, and maybe is remembered most as a result of playing the lead role in John Huston's last film, the adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead. Donal and I also discuss existential questions that are even more relevant amid COVID 19, believe me. Listen, you won't be disappointed.

Jedward 2011 on, drink, drugs, and gay rumours.

From intro...'The interview was for The Sunday Independent and their manager Louis Walsh had said he hoped it would be their “first serious interview” which is how Louis described the first interview I did with Boyzone. But it’s all relative and as I said in that article, Edward took to the relatively serious nature of this interview more seriously! Incidentally, I also said, in the opening line of that article that ‘nothing I say’ – maybe I should have written ‘nothing I ask them’ – fazes John and Edward Grimes. And that was true, as you shall hear, whether we talk about both becoming, or being, interdependent as twins, living charmed lives in what they call a bubble, drink and drugs and rumours that they are gay. Also, it they barely take a breath and probably couldn’t speak faster unless they were on speed. As such, it’s verbal roller coaster ride that I split into two podcasts. This is part one. If you want to read the article I wrote based on this chat or gain access to the full tape, unedited, check out my website joejacksoninterviewer.com

Bob Geldof 1989, on Phil Lynott, his own drugs experience and saying that on coke he "sounds like an arsehole."

This is a clip from my Ebook, Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus. I'll paste it the link later. However, whereas my first Bob Geldof Podcast, 'The Joe Jackson Interviews: A Searingly Honest and Incendiary interview with Bob Geldof' is one of my so-called cradle-to-the-grave interviews, this is just Bob and me - allowing for our peripheral personal history - discussing the subjects of Phil Lynott, and Bob's own drug use. It is basically a clip for fans of the late, and still-much missed "Philo." 

Jimmy Savile, "they didn't know I could be diabolical," remembers Elvis, and Colonel Parker

This is a clip I didn't use in my first Savile podcast, The Joe Jackson Tapes: 'Jimmy Savile. Attempting to Unmask a Monster. 2001.' It includes arguably the single most revealing comment Savile ever made about himself. Namely, "I could be diabolical, with a straight face." Stupidly, I didn't use that quote in the original print interview I wrote out of this 2001 interview. I did, however, include it in my 2017 radio show The Joe Jackson Tapers Revisited: Jimmy Savile, which RTE refused to broadcast. Now it ids a podcast 

David Norris. The 'Famous' Or 'Infamous' 2002 Sunday Independent Interview

This 2002 interview - later used as the opening chapter of my book, David Norris: Trial By Media - now out of print but available as an ebook from joejacksoninterviewer.com - came back into the news during David Norris's bid in 2011 to become the next President of Ireland. Simply because it was the first in which he had directly addressed allegations that were made against him by Irish journalist Mary Lucy Burke. In his more recent biography, Kicking Against The Pricks, David kindly says he will "always be grateful to" me for doing the 2002 interview. But this is the first time it will be heard publicly and I have split it into two parts - the first part focusing solely on his highly-emotional response to those allegations. This is a slice of Irish political and cultural history. 

Memories of a Celebrity Interviewer. A 'Single.' The Night The Killer (Jerry Lee Lewis) Threatened to Have Me Killed.

This podcast is part of my 'Singles' series, as in singles, as opposed to albums! But It was only after I made it that I decided to apply to it the title 'Memories of a celebrity Interviewer.' Why? Because it is mostly me telling a story about the night I finally got to meet and interview one of my life-long music heroes, Jerry Lee Lewis. The clip of him actually talking is short, noisy, because it was recorded backstage at one of his Dublin gigs, and insultingly to the point! So, did it make me decide that having become an interviewer mostly to meet my music heroes had been one of my great mistakes in life? Listen and you will find out. This podcast is dedicated to all my fellow lovers of 50s rock 'n' roll - and country music. And to fellow Jerry Lee Lewis fans. 

The Music That Made Me. Nils Lofgren on, The Beatles, Neil Young, his own solo work and being in Bruce Springsteen's band.

I have one abiding regret about this radio interview I did with Nils Lofgren in the home studio in 2009. At one point he picked up the toy Elvis guitar I got as a kid, strummed it and said, "Bruce would love to see this!" I wish I had taken a picture of Nils then! But, we clearly were joyfully in tune about the music of The Beatles, Dean Martin, Buffallo Springfield, and so on and it shows. I hope the listener feels the same delight we shared in talking this way about the music that made nils Lofgren want to make music and the music he mad1 

Joan Baez 1993. "Just Don't Mention Bob Dylan and we'll get along fine!"

Actually that title is not something Joan Baez said to me during, or before this 1993 interview we did for my 'The Joe Jackson Interview' slot in The Irish Times. But I wish she had said something like that in advance because the only time this wonderfully free-flowing phone chat hit a wall, named Bobby Zimmerman, in fact, was when I referred to the latter. Thankfully at the very end of the interview, I explain that this I did only to highlight the fact that I sided more with her than with Dylan, when it came to her old claim that the difference between them both, politically was that he said basically "Let's all go home and get stoned, there is nothing we can do," or words to that effect, whereas she argued 'There is and I am going out to do that something!" Joan and I also talked about the argument that drugs immobilized the 60s generation. And of course, we talk about her music. Indeed 99% of the interview is about Joan Baez, her music, politics and ideology overall. She says at the start "lucky man" to me. I was, to get even a 23-minute phone call with Joan Baez.  

Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll: Episode 3. Rock 'n' Roll. PJ Proby. Monster of Rock?

This is, arguably, the most outrageous, and offensive - particularly in terms of Proby's language, and attitudes towards blacks, gays, and women -  rock 'n' roll interview I have ever done. So, why turn it into a podcast? Because whether you agree with the headline 'Monster of Rock' placed on the original magazine article by my editor, or agree with me that much of it may be Proby myth-making and living up to his fictional image in the novel, I Am Still The Greatest, Says Johnny Angelo, by Kik Coh, this is some might say rock 'n' roll in essence, in terms of what that editor also claimed are its worst characteristics. Either way, nowhere else will you hear the history of rock 'n' roll told this way, including tales about Elvis Tommy Sands, Eddie Cochran, Dion, The Walker Brothers and above all Proby himself. Not for sensitive souls. But a fascinating psychosexual study.