Tiff’s Guide to Interviewing Bands

Eater’s Digest Logo, a shameless jab at Pitchfork I created in 2013 😂

I actually wrote this article 5 years ago, while I was a college radio DJ in grad school at WMBR, MIT’s radio station.

At the time, I decided it would be fun to learn more about how bands eat on tour, given that I had a radio show called Eater’s Digest about the intersection of food and music.

Over the course of three years, I interviewed 30 bands (mostly indie rock) about their favorite restaurants around the world, what they requested on their rider, and what they like to cook when they’re at home. It ended up being a surprisingly wonderful experience, not just because I got to meet a lot of great people and amassed tons of recommendations for where to eat, but it was also a lesson for me personally in how easy it is to start up a series like this if you have the ambition.

I compiled their recommendations into a map of places to eat around the world:

Unfortunately, since Vox ripped me off* recently by claiming trademark over a name I already had (?!), the show is no longer on iTunes Podcasts, but you can find all episodes on Mixcloud at https://www.mixcloud.com/scientiffic/.

Below is my unedited interview guide I wrote in January 11, 2014 on my old radio show’s Tumblr. But since it’s 2019 now, I want to add a few things:

• Don’t get into cars with strangers by yourself! I did this on many occasions and survived, but I would bring a buddy if I were doing this again, at the age I did this show.
• Document the process! I wish I had pictures of doing these interviews, but I had none because I was doing the interviews. 😅
• I don’t claim to endorse any of these bands — the archive serves purely as a record of what happened from 2013–2016.

I’m by no means an expert, but when I started interviewing bands 6 months ago, I literally knew nothing — who to contact, how to contact them, how to record an interview — these were all things I had absolutely no experience with.