Started by Andy Warhol, I discovered Interview magazine in high school, when it was still in its out-sized form, looming over the other traditionally sized magazines in the rack. The covers were always striking. Even if it was someone famous – and it was always someone famous – they would be presented in a way that made you look twice. There was nothing generic about the images. The covers were often flat-out avant-garde.
The interviews inside were pure transcripts, no editorializing, which was part of the magazine’s style. It made you feel like you were in the room. I got a subscription, which I maintained for years. It was my only magazine subscription. It was also the only magazine I read literally cover to cover. Even stuff I thought I wasn’t interested in (there was a restaurant review section), I read. Interview introduced me to many things which would become favorites. An interview with Tori Amos, before Little Earthquakes came out, turned me onto her. There are many more examples. I still have some of those magazine covers in my mind. Drew Barrymore, nude, lying in the green grass. On the cover!
Eventually I lost track of Interview, and eventually, the decision was made to reduce its size, so that it looked like every other magazine on the rack. Something was lost. For a long time, I lugged around all of my old issues of the magazine, gigantic size, floppy. They seemed too precious, too unique, to just toss out. Each one was a work of art in its way. But eventually, I made the tough decision to get rid of them. It just wasn’t practical to be packing up boxes of old gigantic magazines every time I moved.
Now, with the news that Interview is closing up shop, I regret that decision.
Turns out, I did keep one issue. It was an entire issue shot by Bruce Weber, with Mark Wahlberg (then known as Marky Mark) on the cover. The “Uncensored” curving over his nipple says it all about the magazine’s erotic and playful style.
As a high school teenager, Interview opened doors of curiosity in my mind. It introduced me to artists I had never heard of. It opened doors in a downtown New York scene which I could only imagine, and dream of. It made the world seem like it was CLAMORING with creative people just doing their own thing, eccentric, bizarre, unclassifiable, precious.
I will miss you, Interview. And thank you.
