A couple of weeks ago, Rhett Miller played a free show in Austin at Shady Grove, which is kind of a family friendly, hippie burger place that’s been in South Austin since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Which was weird, because it’s not really the sort of place you expect to see even a moderate star like him.

Based on that show, though, I put together that he had a new record coming on (I wasn’t yet on his publicist’s press release list, and I’ve gotten lazy) and tried to set up an interview. I contacted his people and put it together pretty quickly, only to have my editor at Decider pass on it because “Old 97’s are such old news”. Which made me feel kinda silly, since they’re still one of my favorite bands. (Does that make me old??) But I’d already set the thing up, so I went through my list of potential homes for the piece, and ended up working something out with the editor of another city’s Decider site, who shared my enthusiasm for the dude and his band.

The other thing that’s weird is interviewing someone whose work you really love, and trying to figure out how to strike the right balance and tone for it. Because, like, I might not be with my wife right now if the dude hadn’t written “Designs On You”. (Long story, and I’ve told it a zillion times in various blog entries and wherever else.) And I’ve never really had to deal with that before – balancing being a professional and not, like, a fan, while still wanting the person I’m talking to to know that I’m not just some jackass writer who doesn’t give a shit what he does. It didn’t help that he felt like he got bashed by the Austin edition of The Onion last time he was in it – which has nothing to do with me, but still made me worry that we were starting on the wrong foot. So it was rough going the first few minutes. I asked him about something he’d said onstage at that Shady Grove show about taking the swear words out of a song on his new record, and I think he thought I was calling him out or something, so it took a few minutes to straighten out.

It also taught me that the best way to both demonstrate that you’re a fan who’s knowledgeable about a person’s work, and still a professional, is to express some thoughtful opinions about that work. Which makes sense, sure, but was kinda tricky to articulate – and to accomplish. You can’t just be like, “now I will be insightful!” But I did touch on something that he seemed to appreciate, and the interview got a lot more fun from there. It turned out well enough, in fact, that he even offered up a cool new perspective on his ancient-history feud with Ryan Adams when I made a crack about promoting his record by starting a Twitter beef with the guy.

It was definitely a neat experience. I’m still not totally comfortable in this music journalist role, but I did get to have a decent half hour conversation with someone whose work has meant a lot to me over the years. There’s nothing to complain about, for sure.