Almost 20 minutes into my interview with Aidan and David, two members of the Montreal-based band Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Aidan said that he didn't think my questions were very good and that the interview was a waste of time. He expressed himself not angrily but with genuine frustration at my transparently awkward attempt to make them feel comfortable about discussing their music and at the same time elicit something that would read well on the page.
I should have seen it coming. At the outset, David had asked why The Japan Times was interested in GYBE. He apparently felt that, since it is an English-language newspaper published in a non-English-language-speaking country, The Japan Times is an organ for globalist interests. "Who's going to read this article?" he asked. "A businessman on an airplane?"
Aidan was even more direct. He said it wasn't my fault and that, in fact, they almost never granted interviews "and shouldn't have done this one," because the idea of sitting down to hammer out "an introduction to Godspeed You Black Emperor!" was "just so f**king boring. Who cares? Why can't we have a conversation that goes somewhere?"