In his new memoir, Your Band Sucks, Jon Fine looks back on his life as a guitarist in the post-hardcore band Bitch Magnet, which, like many bands of its era, never found commercial success but does at least have a Wikipedia page. Although Mr. Fine, 47, long ago abandoned the punk rock life to pursue a career in journalism, he remembers his years in the musical trenches with fondness. (Bitch Magnet reunited for a short run in 2011 and 2012 but no longer performs.) On Saturday, Mr. Fine, now the executive editor of Inc. magazine, is set to embark on a weeklong, country-wide book tour to promote his new work. In some ways, it will be a throwback to his days on the road with Bitch Magnet, if a lot more sedate. In a recent phone conversation, he discussed the nuances of the live interview, the allure of Chicago and the links between punk rock and journalism.
So you’re going on a book tour, and you’ve already done events in Boston in New York. Do you think it will be as enlivening as touring with Bitch Magnet in the late ’80s?
It’s funny you mention that, because Clint Conley of Mission of Burma was my interviewer in Boston. We were both standing on stage at this really cool place in Cambridge called the Lilypad, and he was like, “I’m kind of nervous,” and I was like, “Yeah, I’m really nervous, too.” And the thing is, we can’t just turn up really loud and drown everybody out. There’s nothing to hide behind. I can’t just know that there’s gonna be a big E chord with which I can completely overwhelm and drown out the audience. I’ve noticed even with the New York and Boston talks that my body and my adrenaline glands are kind of reacting to these events as if they’re rock shows, and there’s going to be this enormous release on stage. But there isn’t, and you’ve got to moderate for that. You have to be coherent and sit still.
Do you ever get to the point where you can get your adrenaline up during the interview, or do you just have to go out and get wasted afterward?
[Laughs] I’m not sure my body can really handle that on a night to night basis anymore. There is something performative about it. There are aspects of the exchange that are similar, but it’s not the same exchange at all. I’m really curious to see what it’s going to be like day after day.
You mention in your book that you love long car rides. Will you be attempting any on the tour?
The only place that I can drive, really, is between Portland and Seattle. And I’m so looking forward to that. But by the way, that’s two and a half hours. It’s nothing. I mean, that was like the rock tour equivalent of clearing your throat. That’s what you did before breakfast.
You’re headed to Chicago first. Do you have good memories of that city from your touring days?
Chicago plays a pretty important role in the last chapter of my book. Of all the major cities in America, I think there is the highest concentration of people into this kind of music—underground, punk rock, indie rock, whatever you want to say. We ended the last Bitch Magnet tour in Chicago in 2012. That town always takes a band like this in. It kind of makes me feel like an asshole for some of the less kind things I’ve said about it over the years.
Well, you could always go on an apology tour.
Good god. There would be a lot of places to hit, probably. I kid, kid.
Do you think there’s something about having been in a punk band—having absorbed that kind of anti-establishment spirit—that lends itself to becoming a journalist?
Well, I mean, journalists have to be comfortable asking people questions they probably don’t want to hear, pursuing stories they don’t want you to pursue, hearing from people after you write about them. I’m not at a breaking news place anymore, but the definition of news is something that someone doesn’t want someone else to know, basically, so you need to come at it with a certain level of aggression and a certain level of assurance. You have to understand that you’re basically going to be despised. It’s good practice to be in an unpopular band before becoming a journalist, because journalism isn’t a popular profession with the human race.
