Rescued Audio: Elvis Costello on his "Frasier" episode
After an unfortunate backstage incident where I felt as though I came off like a complete idiot, which was followed several years later by an encounter at the TCA tour where I kept my cool and felt as though I'd at least slightly redeemed myself, I finally had the opportunity to do a phoner with Elvis Costello.
I think I succeeded in getting it because I did something completely ridiculous: I did a Random Roles interview with him and focused solely on his acting.
Hey, it worked. Plus, he told his manager that it was one of the best interviews he'd done in ages.
Anyway, I thought this Frasier anecdote was a particularly fascinating moment, with the story taking a turn that I absolutely hadn’t expected. And to think that he asked, “Do you want to hear the weirder thing? Have we got time for me to tell you the weirder thing?”
To me, it was an absurd question, because A) obviously I wanted him to tell me the weirder thing, but B) at the point he posed the question, we were already beyond the amount of time his manager had told me he was available to chat, so any further anecdotes were completely at Elvis’s discretion anyway.
So he told me the weirder thing. And he was right: it was weirder.