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What a douchebag! What a slimey line!

It’s slightly counterintuitive, but as an interviewer, I’ve always found that the richer and more successful a person is, the less likely they are to be an arsehole. They’re at ease with themselves, I suppose, and therefore usually at ease with you. (Also they have PR people who can squelch you like a bug.)

On Thursday night, I spoke to Dave Matthews, of the Dave Matthews Band, who are playing the Point next month. They’re not an act I particularly care for, admittedly. But he was a pretty cool, self-aware guy and there was one question I really wanted to ask him. I didn’t broach it till the very end of the interview, in case he get offended or tell me to go fuck myself…

[he’s talking about Mick Jagger playing piano for him once in a hotel room in Amsterdam]

If we could talk about something else that might have been slightly surreal for you. In John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s recently published book, Game Change, it is alleged that Senator John Edwards promised his mistress that he would marry her once his [terminally ill] wife dies… and that you would play at their wedding. Did you know anything about that?
No.

How did you feel about him saying that?
He’s strange. He’s always been a bit of a ‘Slick Willy’ for me. You remember that footage of him trying to get his hair straight? You remember that? Yeah, there was always a quality of niceness about him, I thought, that alluded to the possibility of something maybe not as nice lurking below the surface. But it was still laugh-out-loud-funny when I heard. Because my manager came up to me so seriously. I hadn’t heard about it and I’m glad he told me. But he said “I just want to let you know…” And then he told me the story, and I thought it was going to be something very serious, because he was sounding quite grim, but instead it was just really funny. I just laughed and laughed because it really made him [Edwards] sound like a douchebag. I mean, please… He’d have to pay me a shitload of money to do that gig. Because that is a weeny gig. “Uh, baby, the Dave Matthews Band is going to play at our wedding…” Good God… What a slimey line! Boy, you’ve gotta be more creative than that… (laughs)

See also here.