Interviewing techniques and best practices

Interviewing Technique

The Cruxshadows are an alternative darkwave/synthpop band that have been very popular in the underground music scene for almost a decade. Recently, this band has gained a snowballing fanbase in Europe, particularly Germany. A German television show was present at the packed "Zillo" festival, which is sponsored by the German music magazine of the same name, and the lead of The Cruxshadows was interviewed following the phenomenal performance. Rogue, the lead singer, performer, composer, and creator of the band, spoke to a German reporter. Rogue had dramatically spiked hair and a creative performing costume. The reporter began by asking Rogue about how the band was formed, and he spun stories about his days studying art at Florida State University and the repeated dreams about a falling sentient satellite called The Angel IV that inspired him to create the Cruxshadows' first major album, "Telemetry of a Fallen Angel." The reporter also asked about the band's current lineup, and Rogue introduced first the newest band member, George on guitar. Next he introduced Rachel, the violinist, who is a major part of the band's unique and classically-inspired sound. Chris, who has been with Rogue in the band the longest, began as a roadie over a decade ago and has been playing keyboards and assisting in technical programing for the band. The band also features two interpretive dancers, who were introduced. The reporter next asked Rogue about how they create their electronic sound, and he explained that the band only uses Macintosh computers, and gave a lengthy speech about the superiority of Macintosh computers over PC computers. He very strongly believes that Macs are one of the most important tools for today's artists, and in fact the entire programmed music set is run off of a couple Mac laptops. The reporter then asked Rogue to speak about how it felt to perform for such a huge crowd, and he was very happy with it, the energy he got off of the audience was very inspiring to him. He finally spoke to her about the security guards who attempted to keep Rogue from climbing the side of the stage to perform from several stories up, and how they tried to restrain him when he entered the audience to dance with the crowd. He ended on a note that his art is the most important drive in his life, and that performing and creating to the best of his ability is the most essential aspect of his being.

The interviewee, Rogue, was quite excellent with verbal communication, and came across as quite articulate. His cognitive verbal responses included his speaking about the band's history. The affective verbal responses were many during his explanation of why art was so important to him. However, in general, Rogue utilized a very effective mixture of the two. His responses would appeal to both the emotional response of the audience, but always included a lot of practical reasoning. In terms of real world communication, this is generally the most effective route. For example, Rogue's response regarding Macintosh computers was a heavy mixture of both styles. He explored the practicality of the equipment, such as the ability to run complex programs and the fact that the same quality of machine is far less expensive than an equivalently fast PC computer. He also appealed emotionally to artists and computer users, creating a vision of binary excellence.

Rogue was very expressive physically, having a background in theatrical performance, so his nonverbal communication was very obvious. His eyes grew wide when he was on an interesting subject, his facial expressions of excitement or disappointment were very obvious. When he was telling the story of the Angel Cycle, the basis of his work, he almost acted out the story, jumping around and making huge gestured with his hands, pointing to the sky and putting on quite a performance. When expressing his amazement with the size of the crowd that attended the show, he counted on his fingers absent-mindedly, and then used his hands to show the grand vastness of the size of the crowd. When telling the story about climbing the side of the stage, Rogue made gestures as if he were climbing and dancing and reenacting the performance. It was also obvious when Rogue was having difficulty understanding the German interviewer because his face scrunched up into an expression of confusion and he would tilt his head to the side as if trying to concentrate harder on the words. Finally, Rogue showed not only excitement but exhaustion, as the stance of his body showed that he was physically worn out from the show. He was proud to be there, and quite happy with the performance, but also needed to get some rest.

The interviewer was very responsive to the answers given, nodding and showing great amounts of interest. Every few words, the interviewer would say "Yah" or "Mmhmm" to communicate that he was following the conversation and in agreement with Rogue. The tone was very respectful, almost as if he were in awe to be speaking to the performer, and it came across that he was probably a fan of the band as well as a television personality. When Rogue got very worked up about computers or art, the reporter acknowledged Rogue's excitement and asked him to elaborate on the subjects that he was most interested in.