Back in early March, I stumbled across the work of Nicholas Gazin entirely by accident. I had just read an essay he wrote for Vice magazine titled “Disney Isn’t Punk, But He’s Punk Enough For Me.” Here Gazin proclaimed the late Walt Disney to be “America’s most important and best artist,” a sentiment I respected for how honestly he conveyed it. When I checked to see what other writings might be out there, I discovered that Gazin was also an illustrator who happened to be producing some extremely solid work. I decided to contact him.

My interview with Gazin is over at cpluv.com. He has some interesting things to say, especially about his obsession with finding new art and music. What I like about Gazin is his honesty. Maybe that’s because so many people are full of shit. For the last several months, I’ve been burned out by doing interviews. What Gazin reminded me was that compelling interviews require specific elements:

All good stories have a conflict and every interview should have some semblance of story structure. Conflict, questions, and open discussion is how you test out the strength of your ideas and opinions and find out what might be truth.

These sentiments are not new to me. But it’s helpful to be reminded of these things from time to time.