Rob Sheffield Finds Love and Life Through Music

Author Rob Sheffield has written three great books about pop culture, music and love, and also works as a music journalist. His essays have appeared in Blender, Spin and Rolling Stone magazines, among other places and he’s currently a contributing editor for Rolling Stone.  In his latest book, “Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke”  Rob talks about his experiences moving to New York after his wife died, and finding a way to pick up his life again through music– and with the help of the Karaoke culture of the New York. He recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios in New York City to talk with Ron Bennington about the new book and the circumstances that led to his writing it.  A few excerpts of the interview appear below.  The interview can be heard in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.

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Rob Sheffield Talks About How Karaoke Inspired Him

Ron Bennington:  You look at the karaoke thing – this was almost a lifesaver for you.

Rob Sheffield:  Totally. There’s so many ways for people to share music. It’s just a fundamental human need. For me, like karaoke became one of them. But it was a way that I never thought I would be able to share music, actually performing it. Because I actually have a really really terrible voice. And it’s something that lets anybody participate in music without any regard to whether they have any talent at all.

Ron Bennington: Was it difficult the first times you started to jump up knowing that you can’t sing and you’re doing karaoke?  

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)  It was scary. I thought – okay, what in the room are they going to throw at me? Okay, there’s glassware I can duck. Like I’ve got to watch for that table and for that table. But it creates this totally like forgiving, accepting community where as long as you bring enthusiasm and passion, talent means nothing. The only thing that matters is that you care about it and you give your all to it.

Ron Bennington:  And this is…I remember when they called it a fad, but it’s been far too long to be a fad at this point.

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. It’s wild how it caught on really fast after being this thing that was huge in Japan and it started to invade the U.S. in the late ’80s, but it’s like as soon as people found out about it, they just wanted more of it.

Ron Bennington:  The book deals with you basically becoming a single guy. Some of it reminded me of “Lonely Guy”. Remember that old story?

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah! I love that book! Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Ron Bennington:  Yeah, it was great. But you were thrust into it in this way – you had been married. You lost your wife. And now you’ve moved to New York and you’re all on your own. And how on the edge were you?  For how long?  

Rob Sheffield:  It was a dark point in my life. Definitely. And it’s weird that that’s when I got into karaoke. It was something to kind of force me to get out of my shell. It was different from sort of hanging out in my apartment, watching TV and just ordering records on eBay – which was a new thing then.  (laughs)  The early 2000s.  And I was like – wow, I can go out, like even if I don’t know anybody in the room, it doesn’t matter. It’s just like a room full of strangers. You can walk in and sing a song and nobody’s going to throw stuff at you. It’s this open embracing environment and nobody else can sing either. That’s why they’re at the karaoke bar. If they could sing, they would have a band. (laughs)

Ron Bennington:  So, that was the thing. It made you part of the city a little bit. It made you part of life. Because you had felt like – well, you had had your shot at love and you were not comfortable being the lonely guy. 

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. It opened me up really emotionally in a lot of ways. Because you think before you do it…I mean before I did it anyways – as someone who has always love music and never performed music or played music, much less sang music – it was a thing where the idea of going up in front of people and just doing music in front of them was just so terrifying. And kind of conquering that primal fear makes you feel anything’s possible.

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Rob Sheffield Talks About Musicians Continuing to Perform in Later Years

Rob on Rod Stewart:

Ron Bennington:  You get into a Rod Stewart (in the book)… Rod Stewart becoming kind of the every man – which I think is just brilliant. 

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. I just love that guy.

Ron Bennington:  I saw him in here not too long ago, very primped, very ready. But you have the thing of he’s got an attitude that he’s just going to keep going. He’s someone we should emulate.  

Rob Sheffield:  I think so. He’s somebody…he seems more wise to me as I get older. I’m like Rod Stewart – like he really figured out a lot of mystic-seeming shit. It’s kind of like he’s the Zen sage. Like Rod Stewart, the way he would do some songs that are just heart breaking. Just exquisitely beautiful painful songs. Like “Mandolin Wind” – he wrote that song. And “Every Picture Tells a Story”. And then, he’ll also do something like “Tonight’s The Night”. And for him, they’re both the same kind of thing.

Ron Bennington: Well, you’re not going to go anywhere without hearing someone bringing up “if he would have died in 1975” – he would have been the James Dean of Rock and Roll. But there’s also no reason to cut him a break for 35 years later. He made this thing, but you said it’s just to keep going. That he adapts more or less to keep going. 

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. And that’s something I love about him. That it seems like…there was a period where a lot of bands broke because they wanted to sort of preserve the legacy. And then they all said – what are we doing not playing these songs? We’ll get back together. We’ll play them badly, but these are our songs. We should do them. And it’s funny. Now it seems like I feel like any band that can do a reunion should. Whether they’re going to do it at the same level or not – it doesn’t matter. But musicians, they just need to keep playing music.

Ron Bennington:  I’m trying to think, other than the Talking Heads, I can’t think of anyone with any money on the table, that hasn’t gone back to pick it up. 

Rob Sheffield:  The big one. Maybe, like the last big one is The Smiths. And I think they just hate each other too much and Morrissey is making too much as a solo artist, so I don’t think…that’s one that I’m pretty sure is never going to happen. But I love when I heard about the Replacements doing it. I thought that’s a beautiful thing. At this point, I think any band that can put it together, should.

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Rob Sheffield On The Eagles

Ron Bennington:  Right. Well, the Eagles hated each other and then they just went and did it. Did you see their documentary?

Rob Sheffield:  That was so funny. Yeah.

Ron Bennington:  It’s so great. It’s so cynical. It’s so blunt. That you would think – alright, we want to go back and edit some of these things out about money.  (Rob laughs)  I was like – oh, I can’t stand these guys. And then I watched it like 3 times. I’m like – I don’t know. Maybe they’re the most honest people ever. 

Rob Sheffield:  I like how they don’t try to put up a front for people who don’t like the Eagles. They’re like – you know what you hate about the Eagles? We’re gonna crank that up to 10. And I was like – okay, I like that they’re not trying to put on a happy face for me.

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Rob Sheffield Talks About Going to Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp

Rob Sheffield:  There’s a chapter about when I went to Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp – which was one of the best weeks of my entire life. And it was really inspiring to see these musicians. Some of them were stars. Some of them were journeymen. But they were all just keeping on doing it out of the love of doing it.  And to be with my fellow campers who were all there because we love it and worshipped these guys and the music that they made. It was a really beautiful thing that all these different people – their dedication to it and they were lifers. It was really inspiring.

Ron Bennington:  I love that chapter too. And it almost seemed like that could be a movie. (Rob laughs)  Because that experience is so high.  But does it ruin it for you at all when you get to see some of these guys as regular guys?  

Rob Sheffield:  No, it just makes it more beautiful just because you see the dedication that they bring to it. This is something that they start doing it as a kid because it’s a short term…it’s a fun gig. It’s just fast times and laughs for awhile. And they keep doing it through the heartbreak, the broken relationships, the bad contracts, the bands breaking up… all this stuff. And if they keep doing it on the other side of that – it’s just out of sheer love and sheer dedication. And that’s something that’s just really beautiful to see.

Ron Bennington:  How quickly, when you were at the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, how quickly did you fall into it?  Like we’re a band and we want to do a good job. 

Rob Sheffield:  It was really instant. And again as a musical no-talent, I wasn’t even the best tambourine player in this band. But everybody was really determined to play it right and we were rehearsing…like we played one song the first day. It was “Little Pink Houses” by John Cougar Mellencamp. We played that song for like 3 hours. I was like – wow, this is what rehearsal is like. I see why musicians break up while they’re doing this. I was like – no, no, we’ve got to do this change again. I was like – what?

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Rob Sheffield On David Bowie.

Ron Bennington:  You’ve got a chapter on Bowie that I loved and I want to go back over it. Because you’re saying that he can see stuff from the audience’s perspective – which I’ve never thought about before. 

Rob Sheffield:  It’s really amazing. You can see how he designed his whole act really for the cheap seats that. He made it very user-friendly for the fan at home to think – yeah, I’m as cool as this guy. Like because we’re both into this thing.

Ron Bennington:  As he’s inventing it, because you brought up “Starman” – that all of sudden he’s taken…but I’m going back through that album, “Rock-n-Roll Star”, “Lady Stardust” – he’s in the audience. And I’m reading your book and I’m fucking putting it down, going – how did I not see that all these years?  (Rob laughs)  Now I re-love this album. Bowie is one of the few people, when I’m in his neighborhood, that I’ll be just like glancing around – am I going to get a Bowie sighting? I still think he’s one of rock stars that are up a level from everybody else in terms of that mystique. Every thing that we kind of fell in love with rock and roll about. 

Rob Sheffield:  Totally. And I love his new record. And I love that he was just able to do it in secret and then say – yep, okay. Here’s my new record. And keeping these sessions a secret and everybody that played on them, kept their mouths shut. And he didn’t make anybody sign anything. Like everybody just kept their mouth shut just out of respect and admiration for this man. And I thought nobody else could get away with that.

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Rob Sheffield On Rush

Ron Bennington:  You do a chapter about Rush – about how you finally had to come around on them. And I’ve, more or less, have done the same thing, at least I’ve given up the hate that you brought up. But seeing them going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and seeing how much it mattered to them and their fans – it was like really fun.

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. It was beautiful and inspiring. I voted for them.

Ron Bennington: Oh, you vote, do you?  

Rob Sheffield:  Yeah. I vote. And I was like super psyched for them. I was like this is a really beautiful…the bond between that band and its audience is…I think we can all agree is unlike any other.

Ron Bennington:  And how does that happen? Is that because of how long it took them to get this kind of acceptance? 

Rob Sheffield:  I think it’s just that Rush decided a long time ago that as long as they had the Rush fans, they didn’t care about anybody else. And that sort of stubborn independence streak, it’s what’s carried them through all these years. Because in the ’80s when…let’s face it, in the ’80s and ’90s when Rush were making like really terrible records, trying to adapt to trends with synthesizers and everything – they could go anywhere in North America at the very least and play Rush songs and the same loyal fans would come. And I think like Rush eventually decided – we have those people. We don’t need anybody else. And it’s a beautiful thing.

Ron Bennington: Well, the Rush fans even kept a lot of the people away from the band. 

Rob Sheffield:  (laughs)  I hear ya.

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Ron Bennington:  Rob, so great to see you again, buddy. And stop in any time. You’re right down the street. Just come in and talk. 

Rob Sheffield:  Thank you so much.

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You can follow Rob on Twitter @RobSheffield and order his new book, “Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke” on Amazon.com.  You can also order his first two books, “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time” and “Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut” on Amazon.com.

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.

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