Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. Neil Strauss
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way I know I have to live to survive. I just thought I was invincible—until I bottomed out again. And every time I bottomed out, I realized how far away from God I’d been. So I started walking the walk again and trying my best as best I know how.
And how do you do that?
CASH: Now we have a minister of the gospel traveling with our show. He goes with us everywhere we go. He keeps me off the streets and counsels everybody on the show who might have a problem, no matter what it is, whether it’s a spiritual problem, personal problem, family, marriage, drug, alcohol, whatever.
When I introduce him at the end of the show as being part of our group, he always sticks around to talk to anybody who might want to come see him about various problems they might have in their life. He’s a recovering drug addict and alcoholic as well as a minister. He’s always just a few rooms down the hall in case we need to talk to him. He keeps me centered and focused, you know.
For—
CASH: For survival.
Why do you think it is that people are most attracted to your darker songs, by seeing the beast in the cage, as you put it?
CASH: I mean, these themes are eternal. Most everybody goes through that once in their life, at least. “Delia’s Gone” is a, you know, a folk song.
Though you rewrote some of the lyrics . . .
CASH: Well, one of the verses is original. Like, (sings) “First time I shot her / I shot her in the side / Hard to watch her suffer / But with the second shot she died.” The American musical culture is steeped in songs of violence and murder. Disaster, train wrecks, floods, cyclones. Um, but then there’s the spiritual, gospel side of the albums, too. That is so much a part of me: You know, gratitude and thanks and praise for life itself.
In 2003, Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes. He was seventy-one.
As Kenny G chattered happily during lunch, wearing a black leather jacket and an off-white turtleneck sweater, I realized that he was no less credible than the more dissonant jazz artists I admired. Like them, he plays what he feels. And perhaps if everybody were as gentle, pleasant, and meek as Kenny G, the world would be a much better place. Though the radio would suck.
Do you ever lose your temper or get in a bad mood?
KENNY G: Well, I was a little bit less than my, uh, jovial self yesterday, because I knew that I had to do something I really didn’t want to do. I’m so spoiled. I pretty much do what I want to do when I want to do it. So when I have to do something I really don’t want to do, I get a little bit, uh, not so happy.
What did you have to do?
KENNY G: The last thing I wanted to do yesterday was fly to New York and wake up at six in the morning to do Regis. I was playing with my son in the morning, and I told him I had to go upstairs and pack to go to New York. He said, “Dad, why do you have to go there?” I said, “Because it’s my job.” He asked what my job was, and I had to think about it. I told him, “My job is to play the saxophone.” He said, “Well, then, what’s my job?” I told him, “To learn as much as you can and to be happy. That’s your job.”
That’s great advice.
KENNY G: The biggest thing I could give to somebody is my respect. Love as well. But respect even more. Love you can just kind of get . . . I don’t know.
Maybe love comes after respect. You have to respect someone to love them.
KENNY G: If you want to sustain the love, you have to sustain the respect to keep the love. If you lose the respect, the love’s going to start to fall. That’s it. Respect first, love next. But you have to keep the respect to keep the love.
That sounds about right.
KENNY G: Hey, Neil, you and I should write a book: Love and Respect. It could work. We’ll go on a book tour. And inside the book will be like a scratch-and-listen. You scratch it and you hear a little saxophone playing. But we’d have to change our names. It can’t be like Strauss and Gorelick. It’s got to be like Deepak Chopra. Something mystical.
I like Strauss and Gorelick.
KENNY G: Strauss and Gorelick sound like doctors. “Dr. Gorelick, Dr. Strauss, you’re wanted in surgery at six in the morning.”
The following evening, Julian Casablancas called and promised to sit still for a normal interview. An hour later, he was waiting obediently at the Gramercy Cafe. You know what he was wearing; only the smell had changed.
JULIAN CASABLANCAS: I promise not to touch your tape deck.
Okay, I just want to ask a couple questions and make sure I got everything.
CASABLANCAS: It’s no problem, man. I don’t mind. I mean, I didn’t want to not talk to you last night.
I know. I felt like you were putting too much pressure on yourself to say something interesting.
CASABLANCAS: I knew that I was . . . I was going to say something I was going to regret.
I appreciate you doing this again, because I know you hate interviews as it is.
CASABLANCAS: I don’t hate doing them. I just get to the point sometimes where I feel like what I say never comes across. I just need to practice more. I don’t know if it was because the tape was on, but I acted differently.
I was pretty discouraged after last night.
CASABLANCAS: I was so hungover. I mean, more than the night we fucking hung out until ten in the morning. Days and days of just fatigue. I was like, “The goal is just, like, don’t die.” I felt terrible. Oh God, all this bad news from [our record label] RCA, and we were just overworked.
Yeah, you were pretty wiped out that night. You were saying—
CASABLANCAS: I was saying what’s the point of doing interviews when . . .
. . . you haven’t done anything undeniable yet.
CASABLANCAS: Uh-huh. I just feel like it would be nice if people thought, “Wow, this is something really special,” and then learned about the band from there instead of reading about a guy they’ve never heard of talking about all this fucking crazy, intense, over-the-top stuff. I was always bad at selling the band, you know.
You’re not expected to, though.
CASABLANCAS: I still can’t believe that you’re doing a cover story on us. I’m still waiting for someone to say like, “April Fools.” I’m sure a lot of people are going to be looking at Rolling Stone like, “Who the hell are these guys?”
Didn’t you tell me one night that you used to practice Rolling Stone interviews in the shower?
CASABLANCAS: It was more like a grand monologue. It was never, you know, like, “So how is the pressure?” “What happened in Hawaii?” Because no one