Nick Hornby

Author Nick Hornby does not believe in guilty pleasures. The self-confessed music obsessive, who wrote the classics High Fidelity and About a Boy, shares his musical boy crush, the soundtrack to his teenage love affair, and his own work as a songwriter. Hornby was recently nominated for an Academy Award in the “Best Adapted Screenplay” category for “An Education.”

For More:

www.nicksbooks.com

www.sonyclassics.com/aneducation/

Tracklist

1.) Toredown - Rory Gallagher

2.) Debris - The Faces

3.) Had I Known You Better - Hall & Oats

4.) A Peak You Reach - Badly Drawn Boy

5.) That's Me Trying - William Shatner

Transcript

EL: Hi, this is Eric J. Lawrence from KCRW and I am here with author Nick Hornby. He's written a number of books involving music, including the classic, High Fidelity, and his most recent novel, Juliette Naked. And today we'll be playing some excerpts of some songs that he's selected that have inspired him over the years as part of KCRW's Guest DJ Project. Nick, thanks for joining us--

NH: Well, the first thing I wanna play is by the Irish blues guitarist, Rory Gallagher. And the particular recording you're going to hear is actually the first song I ever heard played live. We used to go, when I was a kid, to BBC concerts; they were free and you were in this tiny little venue and this was the first show I ever saw, and this was the first song he played at the first show I ever saw, and this was the recording from that show

NH: The next thing I'd like to play is a song called "Debris" by The Faces, off their album A Nod Is As Good As A Wink. This is another song from school days. In 1972, 1973, Rod Stewart meant a lot to teenage boys, especially if you liked football, which I did, because Rod Stewart was one of the only rock singers who ever showed any interest in the game. This song, I always used to ignore on the album because he didn't sing it -- Ronnie Lane sang it.

NH: I don't believe in the term "guilty pleasures" -- either you like it or you don't like it and if you like it then it's fine. This particular album, Abandoned Luncheonette, is a beautiful record. This reminds me of university and of being in love. I'd just met somebody at college and fallen passionately in love and all I was listening to was Sex Pistols and The Clash. I went to go see my dad in America -- my dad lived in Connecticut, my parents were split up -- and on the way home, I sat next to this pretty cool guy who I started talking to and he was the guitarist for Hall & Oates. He was sat in economy class and his singers were up at the front of the plane, but the band were in the back.

NH: I loved his first album --The Hour of the Bewilderbeast I think it's called. It is actually very cinematic, and when I was listening to it I thought he'd make a wonderful soundtrack. I never have the nerve to say what I want because it tends to be a waste of time, especially with studio guys -- they want what they want and that's the end of it. But the first time I met Chris and Paul Weitz, the directors of About A Boy, we went out for a cup of tea and they said, ‘We've had this idea that one guy does the soundtrack like Simon & Garfunkel for The Graduate,’ and they said, ‘We like this guy called Badly Drawn Boy,’ and I really couldn’t believe it and it seemed like an incredibly constructive and happy coincidence.

NH: A few years ago I wrote a book called Songbook which was essays about some songs that have meant something to me, you know, a literary version of what we're doing now. One of the songs I wrote about was a Ben Folds song called "Smoke," and soon after that Ben got in touch and we began an email correspondence that continues to this day. A couple of years on, he suddenly said, ‘Look, I'm doing this album for William Shatner, do you want to write a song for it?,’ which seemed like an irresistible offer.