Sample Interview with Herb Bowie, author of

Sample Interview with Herb Bowie
Author of
Reason to Rock: Rock Music as Art Form

1) The interviewee is accurately identified as Herb Bowie.

2) The Web site address is accurately provided as http://www.ReasonToRock.com.

Reason to Rock is a new book that looks at rock music from an aesthetic perspective. Author Herb Bowie is publishing the book via the World Wide Web -- in fact, he has made drafts of the work available online, allowing readers to contribute by providing feedback on new material as he posts it to the Web. Reason to Rock can be found at http://www.ReasonToRock.com.

Q: How is your book different from others on the subject of rock music?

Most other books focus on details about particular artists, or provide reviews and ratings of albums, or talk about the history of the music, or explore the relationships between rock and other musical forms.

Reason to Rock takes a whole different approach. First, I talk about specific elements that distinguish great rock music from both other musical forms and from lesser examples of rock. I identify eight of these elements, and my thesis is that most of these are present in any great rock recording.

Next I do a detailed analysis of specific tracks that I consider great examples of the form. Some of these are well known, such as The Rolling Stones’ song, "Sympathy for the Devil." Others are more obscure, such as Jesse Winchester’s recording, "Quiet About It." All of the tracks are quite different in many ways, yet they consistently exhibit all or most of the eight elements I consider important. Along the way I do talk a bit about the artists that created the specific tracks I analyze.

Q: Are there other ways in which your book is different?

Yes. I draw many comparisons between rock music and other art forms. In many ways, I contend that rock music draws as much from forms such as poetry and film as it does from other musical forms.

Also, since the book is currently published via the Web, I am able to provide short sound clips so that the reader can actually listen to specific features of the music that I am describing.

Q: Can you give us some examples of the elements of great rock that you are talking about?

One of my contentions is that the overall theme of rock music has been that of liberation. To a great degree, rock songs dramatize the act of throwing off restraints, of exceeding limits that were previously established. Chuck Berry’s song "School Day" is a great example of this. The lyrics describe a student's escape from the boredom and discipline of a typical school day into a world of passion and freedom. But this sense of liberation is present in the music as well as the words, in Berry’s primal, anarchic guitar playing.

Another element of great rock is its creation through a very unusual sort of collaboration. Like film, another modern art form, rock cannot be produced by a single artist working in isolation. Unlike other forms, though, rock developed a means of collaboration that was essentially leaderless. In the great rock bands, there was no director who played the overarching role of auteur, as in film. There was no bandleader who shaped the overall direction of the group, as in jazz. Instead, you have these small groups of artistic equals, with no clearly defined roles, all of whom are shaping the resulting work of art.

Q: Why do you think your book is important?

I have a deep belief in the power of art. I start my book with two quotations. The first is from Henry Miller, and says in part that people "…are suffering from the fact that art is not the primary moving force in their lives." The second is from a Lou Reed song about a girl named Jenny, whose "life was saved by rock and roll."

I think that great rock music has as much to offer people, in a very deep sense, as any modern art form. It is a force that can, very literally, save people's lives. Yet most of our culture trivializes the music in one way or another: we hear it played on commercials, or as a soundtrack to film or television; we listen to great music side-by-side with terrible trash on the radio; we talk about rock music as a cultural artifact or a movement, much as we would talk about the rise of communism or the cultural significance of the hula hoop.

None of that is my primary focus. What excites me is that certain individuals were able to use this medium to express their ideas and feelings in new and compelling fashion, and were able to touch others with their creations.

Q: To what sort of audience is your book directed?

Reason to Rock is really intended for anyone who is interested in how and why great rock music affects us the way it does. This could be someone getting their first real introduction to rock music, or someone who grew up with it and wants a deeper appreciation of this music that has had such an impact on our lives.

A: What has the experience of writing this book been like for you?

It’s been a real journey of adventure for me. When I started a year ago, I had a few pages written twenty-some years ago, a handful of ideas that kept bouncing around in my head, and some compelling music that I kept coming back to time and time again. It was a great feeling to get the thoughts onto paper, to see the words take form, and to find the primary references that supported my ideas. But the most exciting part has been choosing the individual tracks to include, and then writing about them in great detail. In every case there have been "aha!" experiences along the way, where I discover how a song works. And then I have had people write to thank me for the analysis of a particular song, saying that it had been haunting them for years. It’s been very exciting and rewarding.

Q: What sort of qualifications do you have for writing this sort of book?

I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1973 with a B.A. in English. It was there that I really learned some of the tools of artistic analysis. My years in Ann Arbor were important to me in other ways. I wrote record and concert reviews for the school paper, The Michigan Daily. I watched classic films being shown on campus, studied film in class, and discussed literature, film and music with fellow students. And, of course, I’ve been listening to rock music steadily for over forty years.

Q: Why are you publishing your book via the Web?

A: I think the Web is a great publishing medium. If I were going straight to print, I would have to spend a year or so writing the book in relative isolation, invest a great deal of money to get thousands of books printed, then would be unable to change a word of those books once they were off the printing press. With the Web, I've been able to publish each chapter as soon as I finish it, get immediate feedback from a global community, and make changes as often and as quickly as I like.

By using the Web, I am also able to take advantage of other resources not available in a book. I can provide links to Amazon.com, for people interested in buying the music I am raving about. I provide links to other resources on the Web, for people interested in more details on a certain artist. And I can provide actual bits of music for people to listen to as they read my words about that music.

Q: Is your Web site currently under construction?

All the links work, and there are no empty pages that say "under construction." My rule has been to only post new or revised content to the site when I feel that it is ready for public consumption. I maintain a status page that shows the revision history of the site. The site now contains a complete version of the entire book.

Q: How do you profit from this venture?

In financial terms, I earn a small referral fee on any Amazon.com sales generated by my Web site. Access to the Reason to Rock Web site is free, and there are no annoying advertisements. The primary goal of the Web site is to communicate my ideas and get feedback from others.

Q: Should readers assume that they are getting what they are paying for?

I don’t think so. Open Source software advocates have been leading the way for our society by showing how valuable the Internet can be in terms of allowing easy interchange of valuable intellectual capital. Eric Raymond's book The Cathedral and the Bazaar is a very important work that has been published in print form, yet it is also freely available on the Web, and continues to evolve in that form. In some ways, this is a reflection that the World Wide Web is just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Q: Where can people find your book?

A: Reason to Rock is available on the Web at http://www.ReasonToRock.com.