Q&A: Revered rock writer Ritchie Yorke

This weekend, a cadre of over 40 authors, musicians and commentators will take part in the inaugural Rock & Roll Writers Festivalin Brisbane. Arguably one of the most anticipated inclusions is also one of the most syndicated rock writers globally, Ritchie Yorke.

As an ex-Editor of Rolling Stone and Billboard in Canada, and as the former Senior Music Writer for the Brisbane Sunday Mail, a post he heldfor two decades, Yorke has interviewed and at times befriended some of the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll.

In the Q&A below, TMN chats to Yorke about his advice for emerging writers, how he found himself in the liner notes of a Normie Rowe track, his views on Australian radio content laws, what he thought of Hunter S. Thompson and more.

What matters most to you, conveying truth or drawing in the reader and striking a chord with them?

In my career the thing that has mattered the most has always been conveying the truth. I think the truth is always the most important aspect of all non-fiction writers and I have aspired to tell the truth wherever I could, even at the cost of friendships at times.

What advice do you have for emerging writers looking to write artist biographies?

What we’re talking about here I think is how to garden in the word world, which is where you’re dealing in this particular thing. You need to look for truth, look for roots, find more angles, look inside the subject matter. Like gardening, you’ve got to dig around the roots and see what’s happening there. Seek more opinions and outlets; look under every rock that you can; just dig, dig, dig and find out more. Information is crucial.

Your Wikipedia page says you contributed lyrics to Normie Rowe’s song Mary, Mary. Which lyrics were they and what was the inspiration behind them?

Mary, Mary was the B-side of Normie’s first single in England, the A-side of which was Ooh La La. Several people worked on the B-side, Robin Shaw, Mickey Keene and myself. I wasn’t particularly pleased with the lyrics they’d written for Mary, Mary so I suggested some changes and there upon I became one of the composers of the song and got royalties for a few years. The song was actually published, well co-published by Radio London Publishing, part of the pirate radio network. Those people were very actively involved in publishing B-sides of records that they played on their stations.

You were a public advocate for Canadian Content legislation in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. What are your views on Australia’s radio quota laws?

Australia apparently based its local content laws on the Canadian role model and it’s been interesting to see how it’s been developed here. I personally feel now that Canadian content was hugely important in Canada, without it they wouldn’t have a music industry to this day I don’t think; and I think it’s been very important in Australia. I think any country looking to get its local music happening should look at a local content law, I think it’s vital.

As far as Australia’s concerned, I think personally that they gave the licenses to the wrong people in Australia. Too many people have licenses that they’re not suitably paying back the country and the culture for the benefits that they get out of having those licenses.

Your career spans the US proliferation of Hunter S. Thompson; did his prose ever appeal to you?

I met him a couple of times on stories, he seemed to be a total nutter, which he obviously was. But it was his time, big time, on the map back then and he used it to the max and good on him. I admired what he was doing and I suppose secretly like all writers, wished I could get away with as much as he could.

Can you name any current gonzo journalists?

I read a whole lot of writers – that’s mainly what I do is I actually read news, read stories, read stuff. I’m an information junkie, I can’t get enough. My darling wife and partner has to spend every day dislodging me from wherever I’m looking up things, chasing down stuff… And just like John Lennon, who would have loved as Yoko tells me to live in the age of the net where you can track things down from afar on some magic box, I love that possibility and the chance of doing that.

So some of the people that I look to read regularly when I can are Tom Wolfe of course from way back, the writer’s writer, the man who started new journalism. Maureen Dowd writes a great column on great stuff in The New York Times. The New York Times really has some fine writers, even though it’s a straight newspaper, they really publish thinking of the people in my view. David Suzuki from Canada who’s just turning 80; a man who’s had some very, very moving thoughts and philosophy and the state of the environment. Michael Ware from Brisbane who was on the American news last week when we were over there, he’s got lots of things to say about Iraq and his experiences there.

From the music side of things I’m a fan of and enjoy the work of Harvey Kubernik, one of my associates in LA. John Oliver of course, Stephen Colbert, Bill Mayer, Robert Reich – a whole lot of people from that generation really impact on me and I just read countless people in that era.

Do you think music fans have high expectations of today’s music journalists?

Since I left the Sunday Mail in 2007, after 20 years as the Senior Music Writer, the net has changed the newspaper business along with the music business. There are many more options and they are harder to find. It’s hard to know what the actual expectations are now; I’m not sure anybody knows.

In your opinion, are there any Australian music publications that hold up under scrutiny?

In my opinion there’s nowhere near enough publications. Rolling Stone has a local update but it’s really like a general interest magazine, it could be a spin-off of Women’s Weekly, or Post – the magazines that I used to write for in the bloody mid-‘60s. Weird when you go back to that. So I suppose the only real music magazine, music publication, is Rhythms, which up until quite recently there was talk that it may not be continuing on, let’s hope it is.

As someone who’s contributed to Rhythms and actually wrote one of their cover stories in the last 12 months, a story on Robert Plant, I would certainly hope that Rhytmns keeps going because it’s an interesting publication not just about popular music but about all sorts of aspects of modern music. I’d like to see more of that.

I think Australia definitely needs more publications, more writers, more everything. That would benefit artists right across the board if we could get more publications going. Again we need more radio, more things that are punter and artist friendly I believe, and we don’t have enough and we should all clamour for more.

The Rock & Roll Writers Festival is to be hosted on April 2-3 at The Brightside in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.Tickets here