The Prophet Motive ... and other stuff

The Prophet Motive - photo: Storm Ryan

Here’s my most recent piece published in NZ Musician (see link below). Due to space constraints the magazine edited it quite heavily from the original version I submitted, but that’s the way it goes, and it’s one of the reasons I like blogging here – there’s nobody to rein me in, which may or may not be a good thing!

In terms of writing magazine features – or at least sitting down to chat with artists and musicians – I’m a genuine novice and have no formal training, just a passion for music and words. I’m learning all the time, and one of the things I learned from chatting with the guys from The Prophet Motive is that sometimes it’s best just to shut up and let the artist(s)/subject speak. I recorded our conversation on my iPhone and when I played it back I was quite surprised with how much I rambled on myself, when actually, I needed to try and shape a feature from their words, not mine. I also needed to consider that some of it would be edited out, so ultimately I was a little disappointed with this particular piece. Although I didn’t let the guys down with what was eventually published, I felt it could have been so much better if only I’d let them do more of the talking. Because I know they had much more to say …

More recently I interviewed local blues and soul legend Darren Watson for the next issue of the magazine, and it was like chalk and cheese. Watson is so experienced in all matters media, he just took control, even in a crowded café environment where a lot of other peripheral distractions could quite easily have side-tracked us from the task at hand – right down to sorting out my coffee order for me! It probably helped that our paths had crossed a few times before, and that we had mutual friends from way back, but the key thing was I wound up with a lot more quotes than I needed. The end result was an article that was much easier to write, presumably easier to read, and the majority of words in the piece came directly from him. Which is how it should be.

Anyway, that’s for another post sometime in the future … in the meantime click below to learn a little bit about The Prophet Motive, a couple of very cool cats from Rotorua ...

Click here for "Density In Motion" as published in the October/November 2014 issue of NZ Musician