Why Cameron Crowe wears 'uncool' as a badge of honor | Fresh Air

What this episode is about

Cameron Crowe's new memoir, *The Uncool*, reflects on his teenage years as a music writer, detailing his unexpected rise to prominence in the 1970s rock scene and the challenges he faced with his family regarding his unconventional career. The narrative intertwines personal anecdotes with insights from his interactions with legendary musicians, revealing how his “uncool” experiences shaped both his life and his acclaimed film career.

Key takeaways

• Cameron Crowe's life reads like a rock 'n' roll fairy tale: a teen journalist mixing with legends.
• Crowe's parenting struggles mirror many: loving control, intellectualism over indulgence—an ironic twist for a rock critic.
• Saying 'no' to drugs made Crowe a respected observer, proving authenticity trumps excess in music journalism.
• Sometimes, the best stories come from real life—Crowe's family dynamics provided rich fodder for his films.
• Navigating adolescence amidst rock gods, Crowe learned: convincing parents can be the ultimate backstage pass.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Terry Gross (Host) · 14 min speaking
• Cameron Crowe (Guest) · 21 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe, Chris Kristofferson, Fast Times at Ridgemont High
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Almost Famous
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Lester Bangs, Almost Famous, Chris Kristofferson
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Lester Bangs, Greg Alman
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Almost Famous, Penny Lane
6. 25:00 – 30:00: Penny Trumbull, Almost Famous, Lester Bangs
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Almost Famous, Lester Bangs, The Uncool
8. 35:00 – 35:38: The Uncool, Cameron Crowe

Notable quotes from "Why Cameron Crowe wears 'uncool' as a badge of honor | Fresh Air"

• Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for best screenplay. It's the story of a…

  about Almost Famous · at 0:07

• So Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lester Bangs in Almost Famous and I want to play a scene where he gives you some very interesting advice. But first I want to explain who Lester Bangs is. I.

  about Lester Bangs · at 13:17

• A little bit. I've I've talked about Penny quite a bit. Penny Trumbull is a open book. She always said at the time when she got older, she wanted to use whatever money she'd saved to put together an old folks home for old rock.

  about Penny Trumbull · at 25:10

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Lester Bangs — Person · 7 mentions · first at 13:17
• Penny Trumbull — Person · 3 mentions · first at 25:12
• Cameron Crowe — Person · 2 mentions · first at 0:03
  This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Cameron Crowe is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won.
• Chris Kristofferson — Person · 2 mentions · first at 0:46
  Of his life and more, including his adventures and misadventures, writing about musicians like Greg Alman, Chris Kristofferson, Jimmy Paige, and David Bowie. He also writes…
• Greg Alman — Person · 2 mentions · first at 0:46
  Of his life and more, including his adventures and misadventures, writing about musicians like Greg Alman, Chris Kristofferson, Jimmy Paige, and David Bowie. He also writes…
• Penny Lane — Person · 1 mention · first at 24:34
  Band because we love their music. The name of the character in the movie, the leader of these girls is Penny Lane.

Books & papers

• Almost Famous — Book · 9 mentions · first at 0:12
• The Uncool — Book · 4 mentions · first at 0:38
  That may sound, it's based on Crow's own life as a teenage music writer. His new memoir, The Uncool, is about that period of his life and more, including his adventures and…
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:05
  This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Cameron Crowe is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry…
• Jerry Maguire — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:09
  The screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for best…
• Say Anything — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:09
  The screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for best…
• Vanilla Sky — Book · 1 mention · first at 0:09
  The screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for best…

Companies & orgs

• Cream — Company · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Cameron Crowe is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for best screenplay. It's the story of a 15-year-old who in 1973 manages to become a rock critic and somehow get backstage interviews with important musicians. By the age of 16, he's published in Rolling Stone and even writes a cover story. As improbable as that may sound, it's based on Crow's own life as a teenage music writer. His new memoir, The Uncool, is about that period of his life and more, including his adventures and misadventures, writing about musicians like Greg Alman, Chris Kristofferson, Jimmy Paige, and David Bowie. He also writes about what life was like in his family when he was growing up and how reluctant his parents were to allow him to go on the road with

0:59 musicians before he even graduated high school. Let's start with a clip from early on in Almost Famous. The Cameron Crow character William is about 11 listening to an argument between his mother played by Francis McDormund and his older sister played by Zoe Desanel. The mother speaks first.

1:19 You've been kissing? No, I haven't. Yes, you have. No, I haven't. Yes, you have. I can tell.

1:25 You can't tell. Not only can I tell, I know who it is. It's Daryl. What you got under your coat?

1:36 It's unfair that we can't listen to our music. It's because it is about drugs and promiscuous sex.

1:41 Simon and Garfield is poetry. Yes, it's poetry. It is a poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on pot. First it was butter. Then it was sugar and white flour. Bacon, eggs, baloney, rock and roll, motorcycles. Then it was celebrating Christmas on a day in September when you knew it wouldn't be commercialized. What else are you going to ban?

2:06 Honey, you once rebel against knowledge. I'm trying to give you the cliffnotes on how to live life in this world.

2:11 We're like nobody else I know. Cameron Crow, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to talk with you again.

2:18 Thanks, Terry. Um, was your mother at all like the Francis McDorman car character and how unusual she was and how opposed to rock and roll, even Simon and Garfuncle, who she probably hadn't even heard yet.

2:32 Well, first of all, hearing that clip, I it's uncanny how much Francis McDorman is my mother. I mean, the dialogue was straight out of our family and our home, but somehow

2:43 I'm just going to interrupt by saying your mother died. I think it was last year.

2:47 She died in uh 2019. 2019. Yeah. And September 11th. Born on the 4th of July and passed away on September 11th, two days before Almost Famous the musical opened in San Diego. So, it was

3:00 a dramatic exit from from the Earth from my mom. Yeah. So, I didn't mean to interrupt except I just wanted to express my condolences.

3:08 Thank you so much. She's a huge character and completely inspiring. But listening to that clip,

3:16 it just made me appreciate how sometimes real life is the best writer. And it was just lodged in my head forever as this classic thing that happened where my mom made us believe that she could tell if you've been kissing. And of course, it was a stunt to get the truth out of us or my sister in that case. But just hilarious how life kind of puts in front of you the best stuff to write about

3:39 with a mother who was so controlling in terms of like food and vehicles and not even listening to rock and roll were just kind of banned in your house. You had to sneak it in. How did you manage to get away at the age of 15 and start going on the road with bands so that you can write cover stories about them? She was, you know, all about as a teacher and a and a counselor who had many great counselles who loved her so much. She always respected intellectualism. If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a weigh in. So to go on the road with Led Zeppelin at 15, I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as like music that's based on Tolken. This is like lofty material that's like good for the soul. Ultimately, I think she she said because we loved the interviewer Dick Cavitt in our family.

4:37 Go and take this journey. Put on your magic shoes. Call me every night and don't take drugs. And that was my ticket out.

4:45 Don't take drugs is like the [snorts] refrain of the movie. Like your mother's always calling and anytime you call her, it's like don't take drugs.

4:53 Cuz it was about brain cells. It was about brain cells. Oh, you had to stay smart. Yeah. Yeah. Did Did you end up taking drugs?

4:59 I'm sure you offered them all the time. I was offered drugs for sure. And I I learned early on, Terry, that like the best response is no. Because the person offering you the drugs generally then says, "Smart kid, more for me." And that's that made me um I don't know, [clears throat] it made people know that I wasn't there to join the band, party with the band. I was I was there with a notebook full of questions based on loving music. And that really swung the door open.

5:27 Was the writer aspect of being a music writer what your mother approved of because that is a more intellectual pursuit.

5:36 Exactly. And it was true. You know, I really felt like the best of the music that we loved that did sneak into our family had its roots in wonderful writing. For example, Joanie Mitchell, Simon and Garfuncle. There was something about the song Mrs. Robinson that rubbed my mom the wrong way and I think it was the way they said totally you got it.

6:00 She thought it was sneering and she did. She pulled out the bookends album cover and showed us the pupils of Paul Simon and promised us that he was high on pot. And the funny thing is when the movie came out with that scene in it, uh I think it was on CNN, somebody was interviewing Paul Simon and they said, you know what about this movie Almost Famous holding up the book ends album cover, you know, Francis McDorman saying they're on pot. He's like, we were.

6:27 So I think she's right. I think she's also right of being like a sneering song about middle-aged women.

6:34 Absolutely. So she saw clearly. Um, and it was inevitable, I think, that music was going to come in, you know, underneath the door or through the window. Somehow the power of rock was going to find my sister and me. And it did. To this day, that's that's our our favorite language with each other, sharing music and the things that happen when music kind of takes over and transports you and gives you that feeling that you really can't get any other place. The first concerts you went to, including a Bob Dylan concert very early in his career, you went to with your mother. Yeah.

7:12 That could be a very wonderful or a very embarrassing experience with both mother and child being uncomfortable. Oh, yeah.

7:19 The child doesn't want to be seen as needing to be escorted by a parent and the parent feels like a hundred years old compared to all the kids that are there.

7:27 Yeah. What were those experiences like for you? I was just knowing that she hated rock and roll.

7:32 Yeah. Well, Bob Dylan, you know, we were pretty young and he was appearing at a gymnasium at the college near where we lived in Riverside, California, and uh she had read something about this young protest singer that uh had something to say. And so she came to us and said, "Let's go see this protest singer." And brought a a a blanket for us to sit on the floor of the gymnasium. And we did see Bob Dylan in 1964, like right after he had written Times They Are Changing. And he was kind of a Charlie Chaplan type figure. I remember like he just kind of like was a little jaunty and these loose- fitting jeans and he was funny and serious at the same time. And that affected us for sure. But Real Rock was banned for the longest time because it was, as she said, a vehicle for sex and drugs. And you know, sometimes it really was. But um I was able to go to another concert which was Eric Clapton, Derek and the Dominoes with her and it

8:39 was so electrifying that even she kind of understood what the power of of rock sometimes could be. And after somebody sitting next to her offered her cocaine, which was, you know, striking to see, but she, you know, politely turned it down and everything. But when the concert was over, we were walking out and she said, "You know what? Your music is better than mine."

9:00 Wow. And that that was my mom. She was a truth teller. So that was her truth. And that was another moment where the door swung open a little wider.

9:09 When you were 15 writing about bands, the bands were older than you were. Yeah.

9:13 But looking back now, they were probably mostly in their 20s. I know. Which is really young.

9:19 Really young. So what's your take on some of those musicians now thinking of them as young people and not as older people?

9:25 Yeah. Well, I thought they were, you know, seasoned adults at the time. And you're right, they were 22, for example. And being 15, you know, the distance between 15 and 22 is enormous. It's like a generation.

9:40 But really, we were all kind of young together and rock was young. There wasn't video assists and all the bells and whistles and dancers and stuff. It was really just a naked stage and people playing songs. The power of the songs was the power of the concert. And what I thought as a young guy led into some of these dressing rooms to glimpse how bands prepared for a show or how they struggled to figure out, you know, who was right in an argument about how to play a song. I started to see a dynamic that was so human that it was kind of beyond what I had been able to see as a high school student. For example, when my mom had skipped me two grades and later three, I didn't have a lot of friends, but somehow

10:27 Yeah. Cuz you were much younger than your fellow students, your classmates. But then, you know, somebody like uh Chris Kristofferson dains to give me an interview and tries to sneak me into a bar where I'm underage and then when we get caught, he he says, "Well, I'll I'll sit out here in this big red leatherrett chair and I'll do my interview with you as as fans and people stream by." He treated me like an adult and talked to me about the power of movies and music and all this stuff that ended up speaking to me so strongly later. But as a young guy, you're you're kind of in this position where, you know, this person is allowing me to ask them whatever I want to about music that I love. It was a blissful time and I still love writing about it.

11:16 So, how did you manage to convince anybody that at the age of 15, still in high school, that you were worthy of being taken seriously, that your opinions were informed enough and deep enough when deep enough to be a spokesperson for whether this album was good or not or to be worthy of talking to a band? I'm just laughing because so much of it was just where I lived. We lived in San Diego and San Diego is not a primary market. San Diego usually happens at the end of a tour after a band or an artist has been in, you know, San Francisco, LA, New York, big reviews they had to worry about. San Diego, it's like a it's surfers, you know, so they would just be partying early for the end of their tour a lot of times. And so here's a kid that comes to the door with a notebook full of questions based on the music that nobody was really asking them about in the hands of an older journalist. Here's

12:19 some guy with an orange bag full of cassettes like ready to talk to you about your album Aqualong. You know, they're like, "Get that kid in here. Come on. We're bored. Let him let him ask us those questions." And so many of the bands were just nice to me because they were bored in San Diego. And I got to tell you, going back and listening to a lot of those interviews because I kept everything, they really talked to me. They really opened up and uh that informed the life I was lucky enough to have later as a writer and a director in movies because I knew how people spoke. I transcribed all my interviews myself. So I knew that people don't talk elegantly, but they can pour their heart out in half sentences. So it was really [clears throat] one big magic carpet ride of learning about people and uh it started early. I'm I'm a lucky guy.

13:17 So Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lester Bangs in Almost Famous and I want to play a scene where he gives you some very interesting advice. But first I want to explain who Lester Bangs is. I mean, he was a really eccentric guy and such strong feelings uh and un unwavering in his confidence in his opinions about what was great and what was garbage. Oh, yeah. And he he he pretty much became a cult figure, you know, and and died young.

13:47 Um sadly. Yes. Yeah. So, when you start writing for Cream, he gives you some advice. So this is a scene between Patrick Fugat who plays your surrogate in the film. Yeah.

14:00 And Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays Lester Bangs. Once you go to LA, you're going to have friends like crazy, but they're going to be fake friends.

14:09 You know, they're going to try to corrupt you. You know, and you got an honest face and they're going to tell you everything. But you cannot make friends with the rock stars. Okay, if you're going to be a true journalist, you know, a rock journalist, you first you never get paid much, but you will get free records from the record company. Nothing about you that is controversial, man. God, it's going to get ugly, man. They're going to buy you drinks. You're going to meet girls. They're going to try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs. I know it sounds great. These people are not your friends, you know? These are people want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it, right? And then it just becomes an industry of cool. I I mean I'm telling you, you're coming along in a very dangerous time for rock and roll.

15:06 That's why I think you should just turn around, go back, you know, and be a lawyer or something.

15:14 I can tell from your face that you won't I can give you 35 bucks. Give me a thousand words on Black Sabbath.

15:21 An assignment? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you have to make your reputation on being honest and uh you know unmerciful.

15:42 Unmerciful. Honest and unmerciful. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that was true of Lester Bangs.

15:48 Absolutely. Were you capable of being unmerciful intermittently? Uh when I listened to that, I it takes me right back to when I first met him. He said almost exactly those words. And can you imagine being 15 or 16 and somebody enters your life who speaks that kind of truth with that kind of passion and treats you like an equal?

16:11 Yeah. And unmerciful isn't something you usually strive to be in your life. Yeah.

16:15 But as a critic, you have to be honest. And sometimes that means unmerciful, but that's still a harsh word to use for a 15year-old who's starting

16:24 in a very harsh business. Yeah. Um well, let me give you the context. His stance when I met him that day was, it's over. You know, it's gone. that passion, that thing, that flame that is true rock, true music, it's over. They've taken it over. So, I was like a straggler to something that was like a flying saucer and had left to him. So, he's telling me it's over, but here you are. And just watch out because they'll try and corrupt you, too. And I'm warning you right now because they already ruined rock. It it it was like a lot of information. But his thing about unmerciful was you got to fight back.

17:11 You have to fight back in the homogenization of something that is important to you. And that's why he used that strong word. And he was sometimes not unmerciful. Sometimes he was very kind. He was kind to me for example. But he was a politician for the soul of rock. And to me, he was legend instantly for that and many other reasons.

17:36 Lester Bangs also warned you about not making friends with musicians or or publicists. You probably really wanted to be the musician's friends. Um, but did you try not to be like, how did that work out for you? Well, I think generally I was able to witness people that would come through a tour or backstage and and you could tell the people that were there to like party and act like they're a rock star, too. And that person would leave the room and you'd hear how they were talked about by the bands and you just go, "Wow, okay.

18:13 Well, I get it." you know, I I don't play an instrument, so I'm not gonna be in a band or try to be in in this band, but generally I thought like um be the guy that's there to document it and when you're done, go home. Don't stay out or try and, you know, hang out in the hotel rooms. Go back to your room and transcribe the interview. I remember something, Terry, that happened early on. I was on the road with the Almond Brothers band and I uh I loved the Almond Brothers band and they were staying at the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles and I was covering them for Rolling Stone and after their show at the Forum they all came back to this kind of communal room to party and jam and so there's Greg Alman playing you know this blues song come in my kitchen and I'm just loving it. He's like 8 ft away and there's some people singing and there's another guy playing guitar over there and there was a guitar right next

19:12 to me and you know I only knew two chords but I picked up the guitar and I started to strum and I was thinking this is cool man. I am like jamming with the Almond Brothers band. And it was like hands appeared kind of behind me and lifted the guitar out of my hands. Almost like a a hand from heaven is just coming to like relinquish the guitar from my grasp. And I just felt like, oh, that's cool. I'm in heaven and there goes the guitar now. It's like, don't jam with the Almond Brothers band, particularly when you only know two chords. And I I thought that was the most gentle way to teach me a lesson early on.

19:56 You followed David Bowie around for, you know, off and on for a year and a half. Yeah.

20:02 And wrote a piece, you know. Was it a cover story? Yeah. It was a cover story in Rolling Stone. It was also the Playboy interview. And I did some other stories for like Cream and some other publications. It was It was a David Bowie factory I had going for a while because he wasn't talking to anybody else. I mean, you know, life life puts you at a crossroads and you go one way and it turns into 18 months with David Bowie. I had no assignment. He said to me, "Hold up a mirror to me. I want to see what you show me." So, like, spend some time around me. Ask me anything you want. I want to see the mirror that you hold up.

20:43 And that's what I did. I'm not sure he appreciated totally the mirror that I held up to him, but he did know that it was an accurate portrait of of what he was going through in those 18 months, which are kind of referred to as a lost weekend when he was living untethered in Los Angeles and not sure if he was going to become a movie actor for a while. He fired his manager and he was just kind of learning what was going to be next and trying to reinvent. And he was uh playing around with this character called the Thin White Duke. And one day he he put uh 12 pages of an autobiography in my hand and signed it and said, "I wanted you to have this."

21:24 And it was called The Return of the Thin White Duke. He never finished it. It's 12 pages. It's striking. And uh this was the time David Boy was trying to figure out what was coming next. And I was lucky enough to be around and I asked him all kinds of stuff. And he was both warm and engaging, steely and brilliant and um lost.

21:54 Well, you know, that kind of fits in a way with the fact that he had so many characters.

21:59 Yeah. That he embodied. And when he said to you, "I want to see the mirror you hold up." Do you think he didn't really know who he was in some ways?

22:08 He It's so funny that you asked that. I asked him at one point because his real name was David Jones, right? So I asked him at one point, "Am I meeting David Jones or am I meeting David Bowie, the creation?" And he said, "You're meeting David Jones who's aggressively throwing David Bowie at you."

22:28 Oh, wow. I know. I know. I know. He He He even I asked him at one point. I was like, "How do you think you're going to die? Do you think you'll die on stage?" Because Ziggy Stardust, one of his characters, I think, was based on somebody who had died on stage. And he said, "No, no, no. I don't think that's going to happen to me. I think my I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but he said, "I think my death will be an event, something that I manage and produce and make my own statement." And that is exactly what happened.

23:00 remind us how he died. Well, he died of cancer at a young age and he knew he was dying. Didn't tell anybody except a small group of collaborators and he did this album Blackar which is his statement about the death that was coming. And it's profound and it's managed and it is an opportunity that he did not throw away. And he also said in one of the songs, you know, I can't give you everything. So he kept a lot for himself. I think he found a life where he was in love and living in New York and he loved his family. And the mirror that I held up to him, Terry, was a glimpse of a time when he almost died and wasn't looking after himself and involved in in drugs and too many of his friends, he said, were drug dealers and he's lucky that he made it out alive.

23:59 One of the things that you portray in the movie Almost Famous is the teenage girls and young women who followed the bands and partied with them afterwards and went to their hotel rooms afterwards. And people would call them groupies, but the leader of the group of girls and Almost Famous says, "We're not groupies. We love the music. That's why we're here. We're band aids." A I D S. And you know, we're here to help the band because we love their music. The name of the character in the movie, the leader of these girls is Penny Lane.

24:38 That's what she was known by. It wasn't her real name. In your memoir, she's also using the name Penny Lane, but her really real name is Penny Trimble. In the movie, she's a main character played by Kate Hudson. In your memoir, she gets a paragraph in which you talk about her her importance in the band world or the the groupy world and her importance to you, but that's it. Are you trying to protect her privacy by not saying more?

25:10 A little bit. I've I've talked about Penny quite a bit. Um, Penny Trumbull is a open book. She always said at the time when she got older, she wanted to use whatever money she'd saved to put together an old folks home for old rock stars up in Oregon, which she did with a little bit of the money that she made, which wasn't that much, uh, to be able to use her story in the movie. We wanted to give her something which she definitely used for exactly that. So, she loved music and behaved exactly that way. I was pretty young at the time. And so for Penny and the Flying Garter Girls, who was like her clan, um, you know, who would fail at not getting emotionally involved with the bands, that her thing was like, "Watch out."

26:03 They all would fall for some of the guys and get their hearts broken, whatever. But Penny Trumbull was one of the ones that really opened up to me and told me what it was like emotionally to follow a band and to crave that experience of being in an empty arena after you'd seen the show that meant so much to you and you could still feel the spirits in the air of that empty arena. That's my favorite scene in Almost Famous when Kate Hudson is dancing in the in the garden of trash left behind where Stillwater has played. And that's what I was left with. Not trying to protect them. I think you know I I've written about it and you get the emotional carnage that can happen. That's an almost famous. But I [snorts] always felt that Penny Trumbull was an open book and was you know a friend as well as a kind of a you know flamboyant figure who was true to her word. She loved music.

27:01 But there's a scene in Almost Famous where Stillwater the fictional band Yeah. that your fictional surrogate is is following. Uh some

27:09 my fictional surrogate. Um so the members of of Still Water basically trade some of the girls

27:19 to another band for $50 and a case of beer. Yeah. I mean that is so condescending and so dismissive and so misogynist.

27:29 Yeah. Um was that based on something real? And what does that say about the way this the band sometimes saw the girls and young women who followed them around?

27:40 Well, not not everybody was and went to their hotel rooms with them after the show.

27:45 No, I I know I was uh horrified when I saw that. That was a road crew traded one of the women who had been following the band around. And uh I felt that that was kind of a a dark cloud that was passing over this uh thing that I felt so lucky to be covering and be given a backstage pass to see, etc. That was the ugly side of things. And uh it was heartbreaking to watch. Um, but you know, I I I felt at the time like this was a glimpse of the thing that I'd seen in movies sometimes, like in a in a movie like Carnal Knowledge that Mike Nichols had made. This is like emotionally violent. And uh, it frightened me what people were capable of. I didn't see it a lot. I saw it sometimes. And I think that's probably something that wasn't unique just to the world of rock. People mistreat people.

28:41 and I found it really powerful and when it came time to write about it in a fictional sense later I did.

28:50 I want to talk with you about the title of your book Uncool and about what cool means or what people think it means and what cool signifies. In your movie,

29:02 Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs, the rock critic is giving you advice again and his advice is is like always very astringent and coming from a very skeptical or or or cynical point of view, usually with good reason. And so he's talking with you about wanting to be cool and what that really means and why you are not cool. So here's Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Lester Bangs and Patrick Fugat playing your surrogate.

29:40 Oh man, you made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you as they want you to get drunk and feeling like you belong. Well, it was fun

29:54 because they make you feel cool. And hey, I met you. You are not cool. I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

30:06 Because we are uncool. No. While women will always be a problem for guys like us, most of the great art in the world is about that very problem. Good-looking people, they got no spine. Their art never lasts and they get the girls who are smarter.

30:29 Yeah, I can really see that now. Yeah, cuz great art is about the guilt and longing and you know, love disguises sex and sex disguises love. Hey, let's face it. You got a big head start.

30:45 I'm glad you were home. I'm always home. I'm uncool. Me too. You're doing great. You know, the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. I said, "My advice to you, and I know you think these guys are your friends, if you want to be a true friend to him, be honest and unmerciful."

31:13 So that was that was Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs. So, um, did you want to be cool? And what did cool mean to you? And I just want to start by saying too that Lester Bangs ended up personifying cool for a lot of rock critics and people who were devoted to reading rock criticism because he went his own way with such confidence and was so skeptical of the rockstar machinery.

31:39 Yep. He Terry he he said cool in a way that I think Philip Seymour Hoffman caught which is like cool you know it's like it's like the the derisive way of saying cool because that way of cool means you're trying to be cool

31:58 and when you're cool you're posturing. So I was always trying to figure out what cool was because as we spoke about earlier my mom skipped me too many grades. I got my high school diploma in the mail because I graduated as a junior and it, you know, the attempt to be cool or even cool was never going to pay off if you're if you're younger than everybody else. But what Lester was saying was exactly that when you're posturing, you're never there. And he said that they had done that to music. They had made music a a lifestyle posture, not the thing that's ripped from the soul of of everyone from Van Morrison to, you know, the guys who made Louis Louie. That's real. And everything else is just cool. And I thought, wow, so many of the musicians and the writers and the people that I came to love were not cool. They couldn't even be cool. It was like it was like a lost pursuit. But they found each other through music.

33:06 They found each other through this thing that that that gave you that feeling of being understood. So I called the book the uncool because it it it was the badge of honor that Lester put on me. You know, don't try and do it. be whatever is real to you. And that might be cool. But the distinction between the two was pretty clear when he first started talking to me. It's like he he was kind of a rumpled genius who did not look at himself as cool, which made him to me a legend.

33:44 Well, also he was saying like, I'm uncool, you're uncool. You're not part of like the rockstar tribe. Exactly.

33:51 So don't fool yourself. And and I maybe he was also implying you should be honored you're on my team.

33:56 Yeah. Exactly. And I got to tell you a tiny story because when when I wrote that scene when Lester and Almost Famous says, you know, we we are uncool, you know, and I met you. You're not cool. So I had this kind of scene written in my head of of like victory. You know, Lester would say, you know, we are uncool. you know, that's who we are. And uh when it came time to film the scene, this is the brilliance of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who Lester, I think, would have loved playing him. Philip Seymour Hoffman said like, "What what if we do this scene like we are the only two people awake in the world, me and the character William Miller, and I'm I'm going to tell him quietly who we are. We are uncool."

34:50 And it was that time as a director where you go, "Thank God I have like this person playing this part who takes your words that you wrote in a in a quiet room and and sends them into a whole other world of meaning." And that's one of the other reasons why I used the title The Uncool because it reminds me of like the lineage of Lester and what he told me. And it ended up in the hands of Philip Seymour Hoffman who landed it in a way that Lester truly meant as a gift to me, not as a warrior cry.

35:26 Cameron Crowe, it's really been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Really enjoyed this. Cameron Crow's new memoir is called The Uncool.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Why Cameron Crowe wears 'uncool' as a badge of honor | Fresh Air"?

Terry Gross (Host), Cameron Crowe (Guest).

What is "Why Cameron Crowe wears 'uncool' as a badge of honor | Fresh Air" about?

Cameron Crowe's new memoir, *The Uncool*, reflects on his teenage years as a music writer, detailing his unexpected rise to prominence in the 1970s rock scene and the challenges he faced with his family regarding his unconventional career. The narrative intertwines personal anecdotes with insights from his interactions with legendary musicians, revealing how his “uncool” experiences shaped both…

What is mentioned in this Fresh Air episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Almost Famous, Lester Bangs, The Uncool, Penny Trumbull, Cameron Crowe, Chris Kristofferson. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Why Cameron Crowe wears 'uncool' as a badge of honor | Fresh Air"?

The episode runs 36 min; the transcript is about 6,064 words in 91 timestamped sections.

More from Fresh Air

• All analyzed episodes
• Books mentioned on Fresh Air
• People mentioned on Fresh Air
• Topics mentioned on Fresh Air