Interview taken ( & edited ) from HermAphrodite #8.
Zane Lowe is from New Zealand. That’ll be why he talks ‘funny’.
Zane Lowe presents MTV’s ‘brand:new’, weekdays, 11:00 & 19:00. That’ll be
why I never get anything done. Zane Lowe has music taste to be trusted. That’ll
be why I keep watching. Zane Lowe is a shining light for MTV as he’s
intelligent, engaging AND amusing. That’ll be why I wanna talk to him. Zane
Lowe usually extracts interesting interviews even from bands you have no
interest in. And that’ll be 
why I’m hoping I have interesting enough questions for
him...
I’d been lounging,
watching the clouds scudding past overhead and occasionally getting up to dance
during the latter half of Gomez’s set at V99 in Chelmsford. And when they’ve finished
playing, I’d been louging further, watching the swelling queue to return to the
backstage enclave and occasionally getting up to race after those people I
recognised. Like Zane Lowe. Whom, despite the glasses & hat, his being at
the centre of a crowd of people and my eyesight being slightly better than a
myopic worm, I still managed to spot. And, three days later, as a result of my
exquisite radar, I’m trying not to sprawl myself over the comfy comfy seats in
the chromic MTV offices in London tahn, watching the man himself shuffle
towards me. We’re going to sit in a cafe with luvverly hot drinks and talk
about the Beastie Boys. And now, courtesy of the power of the written word, you
can come too...
And so to start.
me - “I’d just like to say thankyou for not being Donna Air.”
Zane - “Oh well. I’m sure Donna’s parents would have something to
say about that. But I’m more than happy to be of service. Donna Air or
otherwise.”
Heh-heh.
Zane - “She gets a lot of stick, but you know that’s what she does
- she plays videos for little kids. I don’t really watch her, so I can’t really
comment.”
Okay. Moving on then…
me - “So how did you get from New Zealand to here ?”
Zane - “Personal reasons to start with - I needed a change. I was
doing Music Tv over there and I was in a couple of bands. The band I was in for
about eight years broke up, and I was just restless, you know ? And wanted a
break. And the other band, it was really enjoyable, but it was only supposed to
be a one album project - that was the deal I had with the record label. It was
great fun, but I knew I was going to go. So I finished that album, and then
literally flew-out twenty-four hours later. And then I went to America. Hung
out there for two-months. Drove across the States. Stayed in New York. Had a
good time. Caught up with a friends. And then said ‘fuck it, I’m going to
London’. Touched down in London, got a job in the Music & Video Exchange,
worked there for about eight, nine months. I had a tape with me - a showreel of
all the bands I interviewed...”
Quite a few of whom were quite big names - New Zealand does
attract touring bands. Just once in three years or so. But those names on his
showreel gave him some sirt of credibility, when fishing for a job over here.
Zane - “I got in touch with MTV, and kept pushing my tape at them.
And eventually someone gave me a break, and said ‘why don’t you come and do a
bit of presenting on this show, holiday 
fill-in freelance work, and we’ll use it as an
audition.’ Did that. Worked alright. Went back to the record store. Eight
months later I was back. Pretty lucky really. A lot of luck, a bit of
persistance, a smidgeon of talent, that’s about it really.”
me - “So it wasn’t that you were poached from New Zealand ?”
Which is what I had assumed...
Zane - “No. No poaching. Nothing poached, scrambled or fried about
it.”
me - “Damn.”
Zane - “It was kind of good in a way - you come over to the UK and
do it off your own bat. You start to motivate yourself, and you work out that
you really want to do it. I was thinking ‘Well maybe I could get to MTV and it
could suck, it could all be totally disposable. I could be working with a whole
bunch of people who don’t care about the music, who don’t give a damn about the
people or being creative...’ And that would be shit. But it didn’t work like
that at all. It sounds like a big cliché, but everyone’s there for the right
reasons. Everybody works their ASSES off, they do it cos they love the music,
and using the creative side of their brain.”
But this TV presenter malarkey wasn’t what he wanted to be when he
grew up.
Zane - “I wanted to be in bands. That was all I could see. I
wanted to make music, to be a rapper, to be an MC.”
me - “And you don’t miss it ?”
Zane - “I don’t really miss the MC part any more because I did for
like, ten, eleven years. ( he grins ) And there comes a time in every young
MC’s life where he has to hang up his mike, you know. Because you’re not saying
constructive any more, you’re not feeling the energy. I still rhyme - I’ve got
mates over here who do live nights... And I still write every now and then. But
I’m not in a band as such any more. And I’ve got more into making beats. I want
to be a DJ, a programme-writer, a producer. I want to produce beats for others,
and make instrumental albums - do more left of the field stuff, less kind of
stringent ‘one two one two MC on the mike’ type business. I don’t really miss
that, dramatically, because I’m still doing it. But I miss doing it as much as
I used to, cos I was always doing it. And then I just got into telly [ in New
Zealand ], purely by accident cos I was unemployed, someone said ‘d’you want to
be a tape-op?’ so I said ‘sure, I’ll give it a go’. And the it was ‘oh why
don’t you try presenting ?’ so I was like ‘oh yeah, I’ll give that a go’. And
that’s how I work - I’ll just keep giving ‘it’ a go until I don’t like doing
it.”
At the moment though, he’s concentrating most on the MTV.
Zane - “You want to be able to do everything once, but
if you do you become a jack of all trades and a master of none of them. You’ve
just to be able to go ‘for the next six months I’m going to do MTV’,
frustrating as that’s going to be at times, not being able to go into the
studio and piss about. That’s what it’s going to take. And it’s important to
me, the job’s important to me. In terms of what brand:new gives me, what I do
on the show. I get to interview bands, talk about music I’m into and exposing
the albums that I think are good and some people may not have heard. Bringing
that to MTV is really important to me, but being a TV presenter isn’t really.”
He’s not a social whore, ego queen or celebrity ligger. We like
this man a lot.
Zane - “I would hazard a guess that the majority of people on
television are doing the job to get to do the other stuff, d’you know what I
mean ? The b.s. that comes with it. Like I would say I put up with the other
stuff to do the job. Is that making any sense ? And that sounds awfully ‘keep
it real’, but it’s the truth.”
He never wanted to act, read the news, move to Hollywood and be a
part of the beautiful plastic people.
Zane - “I did have the old tennis-racket out in front of the
mirror when I was six. Like every kid who gets the music bug... I just wanted
to rhyme, ever since I was about twelve that was all I wanted to do, just to
write rhymes and rap them. And make a living from it. And it didn’t really
happen. So if I can’t make a good living making music, I might as well make one
talking about it.”
And so to his broadcasting future...
me - “D’you see yourself jumping to VH1 in fifteen years ?”
Zane - “Fifteen ? Hell, they’re going to be pushing me out to
graze in about two or three I would imagine.”
He stops to think about it.
Zane - “I have NO idea. Two, three years ago I didn’t know I was going
to be in England. I don’t try to think about it too much. The only things I
know I want to be doing is making music, whether it’s just me or I start a
label, still tinkering away. I just know it’s going to be music-based. It’s all
that really interests me - apart from the obvious personal stuff...”
He doesn’t see television as the ultimate working environment - he
really doesn’t mind if his face is on view or not, so’s long as the job is
enjoyable and his output is of quality...
Zane -”I’m just trying to get MTV locked, to use that to make me
happy and also to gain some access to the industry. And I’m also trying to get
into radio a bit, I want to learn that art-form because I want to be able to do
a new-music show on some station at some point. And I’m doing a bit of writing
for CMU. I’m just trying to slowly get my fingers in a few little pies.”
me - “So global domination could be yours ?”
Zane - “Hopefully. ( pause ) Naah... I definitely want to leave my
mark somehow. That’s always been an issue - I really want to step up and be the
best at whatever I’m doing. I wanted to be the best MTV presenter, the most
informative most up-to-date passionate honest totally believable music TV
presenter you can get. I read my own shit, write my own scripts, do everything
myself, because that’s the only way. What I do now is talk inbetween videos.
It’s not brain surgery. But what I bring to it is something that’s honest...”
Yeah. Oh yeah.
me - “There’s not a lot of point doing anything unless you feel
it’s the best you can do.”
Zane - “I agree. And there’s a lot of people who aren’t, who are
taking the easy option because it pays. I’ve got mates doing that. And to a
certain extent I’m lucky that I’m not going hungry - I don’t make an enormous
amount of money but I make enough to live comfortably on. But integrity and
credibility is really important. ( pause ) I’m in a very righteous mood today.
You’ll have to excuse me.”
Ah, I like it. I agree with it. Mediocrity & the banal drives
me crackers. I think I enjoy brand:new so much not just because of what it is,
but what it isn’t. Which is why I started the interview-proper with that
thankyou. Zane manages to make an impersonal medium seem very direct and
intimate to the viewer at home...
me - “You do seem as though you’re talking to us, for which I’d
like to say thankyou.”
Zane - “Ah, you’re welcome. Thanks for watching. It wouldn’t be on
air if you didn’t watch it.”
Bless.
me - “So is that the only working style you can work in ?”
Yup. Oh, very much yes.
Zane - “I’ve done a few things in my time for MTV where I’ve felt
- like I said - like I’m not really being true to myself. That’s when it
becomes a job. I don’t use an autocue for the specific reason that I don’t want
to come across as being really lazy. So I write all my scripts, and then just
go over them quickly, try and retain as much information as possible and just
let it flow out. It’s not live, so you’re never going to fully capture yourself
on there, but if you’re just casual and under-stated and honest about it... I
haven’t really answered your question, have I? No, I can’t see myself working
in any other way.”
me - “Good. Because I like the way you work.”
Zane - “No diggedy.”
me - “Oh yeah, we need more videos with musical puppets.”
Zane - “The new Scott 4 video’s got puppets in it, which is very
good.”
I mourn the swift-passing of the muppet Supergrass video, gone
from my MTV screens bfore I had a chance to tape it. Which prompts the
question...
me - “Do you have a huge video library...?”
Zane - “Videos are a pain in the ass, because they only come on a
one-track VHS. So you have twenty-five VHS’s with twenty-five songs. 
So unlerss they’re really good... I’ve kept about six
of them which I really like. We keep them all on Minicam anyway, so if you want
you get them out of the library. ( he perks up ) CD’s are the blag - when you
get an advanced copy of an album that’s when I get a kick out of what I’m
doing, that’s when I realise I’m in London and not in Auckland any more. Then I
feel really ( searches for the word ) ace, you know ? It’s not just because
you’re getting it before everyone else, it’s just... it’s nice to be the first
person to hear something, to actually gauge it.”
me - “It’s so nice that it still making you happy, that you
haven’t been tainted by it all and you don’t want to go and sit in a cave
somewhere...”
Zane - “There’s nothing to really taint me though, because I’m not
a Donna Air or Cat Deeley. ( swiftly ) I’m not saying they’re tainted at all,
it’s just... the tension that comes with being Cat, d’you know what I mean? I’m
friends with her, I’d go for a drink with Cat any day of the week, but I know
the attention gets to her sometimes. You have one celebrity boyfriend and do
one terrestrial TV show and then BANG you’re up there, and you can’t escape it.
Some people like that - if they play their cards right they’ll always be in the
society pages - and some people find a way of sidestepping it. Cat’s very good
at it, she can be very amicable to people she meets on the street, and at the
same time keep her distance and be very protective of herself. But some people
can’t. I don’t have that – brand;new’s not that kind of show and I’m not that
kind of person. What you see is what you get... All that attention, I’d hate
that. Believe it or not I’m quite a background person.”
Who just happens to be on MTV alla time…
>>> Part 2
Last revised: 26/07/01