“…The most accurate thing about Almost Famous in regards to me was the loudness of my shirts …” In Conversation With Ben Fong-Torres

Ben Fong-Torres, a powerhouse and icon of music journalism, kindly lent some of his time to answer my questions. Fong-Torres undoubtedly has had a stellar career, as the Senior Editor of Rolling Stone. Chronicling the wide range of idiosyncratic, new and impressive music of the late 1960s and 1970s, his journalism has narrated an iconic period of music. Having first encountered Ben Fong-Torres’ career watching Cameron Crowe’s cult-classic, Almost Famous, I instinctively knew I had to learn more about this man. I became a fan of all of his work, astounded by the catalogue of huge names he had interviewed and the longevity of his journalism career. He became my journalistic hero and someone who really inspired me to delve into the world of music journalism. They say never meet your heroes. Yet, having the opportunity to ask one of my heroes the questions I never thought I would have the chance to - this is a moment I will remember for the rest of my journalistic career.

Ben Fong-Torres wasn’t just the Senior Editor of Rolling Stone. He was the Editor of Rolling Stone during a pinnacle point of music history. He has had conversations with some of the most infamous icons; Marvin Gaye; Elton John; Ray Charles; Bob Dylan; Jefferson Airplane; The Grateful Dead and Tina Turner to name a few. He was the last person to interview Jim Morrison of The Doors prior to Morrison’s death, an interview which moulded into a deeply introspective conversation about the future of music and music journalism. Annie Leibovitz even photographed his wedding. Beyond his success with Rolling Stone, he has maintained an astounding career as a radio presenter on Moonalice Radio. So, to put it bluntly, Fong-Torres has had an extraordinary and envy-inducing career. He may have interviewed a never-ending list of icons, but Fong-Torres himself is an icon. 

When I got in touch with Fong-Torres initially, I never expected a response. Beyond that, I never expected to be able to ask him questions, questions that I had always longed to ask. And so, when the opportunity arose to interview my hero about his wild and frankly unbelievable career, I jumped at the occasion. Putting towards an army of questions about his career and its many highlights, Ben was kind enough to answer all of my questions, even the extra ones I cheekily added for good measure. 

In the documentary surrounding your life, Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres, you described yourself as a “walking encyclopaedia of music”, has music always been a love of yours and something you have always wanted to write about?

A walking encyclopaedia of music, these days this encyclopaedia is on a walker, no, no, now I am old but I'm still able to get around. I guess that was true when I was in my teens and into young adulthood at Rolling Stone and on the radio. Music was my salvation as a kid, I was forced to work in our Chinatown family restaurant and forgo social activities or vacations, hobbies, other stuff the kids were able to get into. And so, radio was my way of getting music, we were not exactly able to buy records and go to concerts. So I love music, all kinds. 

Aside from your favourite interview, what interview had the most impact on you? Was there a specific interviewee who may have said something in particular that really resonated with you?

Actually, no. Obviously for each story, for each profile the interview subjects would say things that were relevant to themselves and to their points of view about what they were doing and about their hopes for the future and about gripes they might have with fans, or the media, or the business itself. But no, I don't think I got words of wisdom from them. And in fact, sometimes, there were a couple of occasions where performers had reached a level of success that there came to be some difficulties in their careers or in their relationships with fellow band members or again with the industry, and they would actually say that they got something from me, just from my responses or my opinions doled out during a long interview. So, freak things can happen in interviews.

Is there someone that you would have wished to interview or regret that you never got the opportunity to engage with? Who would that be?

I think I have to say my boyhood idol Elvis Presley. By the time I was at Rolling Stone, that would’ve been the early 70s, he was doing his larger concerts after his 1969 comeback special on NBC. And so there were times that I could've seen him. In one particular case, a well-known female pop-rock singer who I had become friends with invited me to join her in Las Vegas. She was visiting her friend, Elvis, and he was playing one of the big hotels, but I was tied up interviewing John Kay of Steppenwolf so I had to say no. I figured there’d be a lot of other opportunities, you know, but I said no. I did my assignment and then she came back and she said ‘you goof.’ We had a great time sat in the kitchen at the hotel and yapped all night long so that was that was my chance and that was what I lost.

You chronicled many of the music emerging from the 1960s and 1970s and the socio-political state which backdropped this period. How would you describe being a journalist in the period and do you think it differs from now?

At some point from where I stopped writing about music so much, probably in the 90s and today, things did change. I think popular music became more pop-oriented and there was less social commentary, less political messages, less protest songs and I don't know exactly why. I guess it just takes certain people with certain skills and levels of consciousness and communication to be able to turn music into messages. And for a while there, that didn’t happen, it was really more boy bands and high-tech stuff and electronics and then dance music and raves and like that. Of course, always there is a bed of socially conscious music there somewhere and the folk music movement, it was no longer a movement, but there still was folk music, it just wasn't up there on the charts, which is what is considered to be the most important thing in the industry.

Famously, you conducted the last interview with Jim Morrison of The Doors. What is so profound and interesting about this interview is that it is evidently a conversation between two music lovers, with Morrison asking you questions with interest. Was there anything that surprised you about this interview?

Yeah, nothing surprised me about this interview. The surprise was that Jim Morrison popped into the apartment and I never expected to do an interview. We had done an interview with him only a month before with our LA Correspondent Jerry Hopkins. And so, when he popped in I thought there’s no need for me to try to get anything out of him, we already had it. But I had heard things about him possibly going to Paris and about the direction of music that The Doors were taking and so it was just a casual meeting. He didn't know I was from Rolling Stone, early on in our interview he said that he thought from the introduction that our friend Diane gave, that I was maybe a foreign exchange student studying The Rolling Stones. And so, once he figured out that that was not exactly what was going on and I asked for a chat on tape, then we got into it. But that's exactly what it was - a chat. It was not set up to be an interview. I had no questions, unlike you, I was not prepared to do an interview. And so, we just kind of let it go and there were people sitting around the apartment, a couple of kids I think, you can hear the noise, and so it was as cas as could be. So, when it is described as the ‘last interview with Jim Morrison’ , well technically it's true, but it really was more of a hang out, a conversation, a chat.

You gave Cameron Crowe his first ever assignment for Rolling Stone, which would later inspire his cult-classic film Almost Famous. What was it like to be portrayed in a cult-classic film and does this story reflect your earlier career?

I have said this many many many many times, I feel like Cameron captured the romance he had and a lot of young people had with rock and roll, and beyond that with the people who made rock and roll, and then behind that the people who are behind the scenes, including what he hoped to be - a rock journalist, even at age 14. And so, he got that right, and I think that's one of the reasons that the film maintains its popularity today, what's that 24 years later? It is a beloved film, one of the favourites people have of the Cameron Crowe library. But I said to him directly that I felt like, or my friends and family felt like it was inaccurate to portray me as this humourless guy chasing him around the country and then falling for stupid lines about how it was going to be a ‘think-piece’ in the mid-assignment because Lester Bangs told him I would fall for it and that we did not believe his work when he came in and chose to believe the word of a rockstar and stuff like that. He needed, however, for things like that to happen for me to be kind of an antagonist and so it painted I think not the most accurate portrait of me or Rolling Stone or what happened to the kid, the real kid, Cameron Crowe. He hid behind this character, William Miller, while he had me as Ben Fong-Torres, mentioned about half a dozen times in the course of the film by full name. People seem to like to say my full name, well that makes one of us. Hey, yeah, so my throw away line is that the most accurate thing about Almost Famous in regards to me was the loudness of my shirts and I will stand by that.

As you have had an extensive career, how have you retained your passion for writing? 

Says who? I still enjoy writing, I can't say that I have a passion for it, probably as equal a passion for reading, absorbing media and information, and occasional writing. I’m still writing, that's true, I write my radio show on Moonalice Radio. I am working for the San Francisco State University magazine, the place I went to college, and I'm conducting Q&A’s with prominent fellow alumni for each issue of that magazine and I am called upon to write various freelance pieces and speeches, so yeah I continue to do it, but it's not the same as it was of course 40 years ago, nothing is the same.

Finally, what advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and kickstart a career in journalism?

Years ago, I addressed a journalism department upon graduation and said basically ‘get out, don't do this, you know, you're asking for it’, but journalism has had its heydays and then its tough days. We have now a president who is absolutely an enemy of the free press and it's tough times. Technology, the media landscape, the nature of media platforms has changed, people get their news and information in different ways than ever before, and where a journalist fits in, it’s difficult to say offhand. But there is still a call for factual reporting, there is still a need for content. And so, if you are interested in becoming a journalist, now I say go after it. But, try to be diversified and don't think of yourself as either a print journalist or a broadcast journalist or a podcaster or a self-made social media person who does your journalism and then puts it out over TikTok or something like that. Try to train yourself to be adept on the air and also in print and in all kinds of print, not just newspapers, but possibly magazines, and other online journals. And so, just be as varied as you can be. Do study the basic principles of journalism and try to abide by them. Write as much as you can. If you have a full-time job that doesn’t involve writing, then spend some weekend time, journal if that's one way for you to begin to get into the writing process. Accept small gigs, maybe even some unpaid ones, get your foot in the door, that's I guess one bottom line. 

Just after college, a roommate, I think, we had three roommates reading the very first issues of Rolling Stone in late ’67 and early ’68. One of my roommates, well, several of them were involved in music and media, but this one did sound and he had heard about a concert coming to town to promote a Dick Clark of American Bandstand fame production about hippies. And so I perked up at that news and thought ‘ah, maybe it's a little item for Rolling Stone, this newspaper’. So I called the office and got the assignment and that's exactly what it was, just a little item under the column called ‘Flashes’. But that was enough, I had done something for the paper. And then I began to get freelance assignments, and soon after that, one of the editors, who had known my work from San Francisco State suggested to the publisher, editor, co-founder, Jann Wenner, that they bring me in, there was a call for more help at Rolling Stone growing fast. And so, I did go in and got the job in mid-1969.