Interview: Craig Robertson talks about Chris Knox: Not Given Lightly

Craig Robertson grew up in Dunedin becoming a Flying Nun records obsessive in his early teens. He organized underage gigs before writing about music for Rip It Up, putting out a music zine, and writing a university honours thesis on the “Dunedin Sound.” He left New Zealand in the mid-1990s and now lives in Boston, where he is a professor of media and communication studies. Chris Knox: Not Given Lightly is his third book.

Tell us more about the genre you write in and what draws you to it.

I write non-fiction, usually histories of objects that are scholarly books – I’m a university professor. But this book is something different for me. The scholarly part is still there in the research (people who’ve read it keep talking about all the details . . . in a good way, I think!). The style is far removed from the academic writing I have done, which was a fun change. And the genre is biography which is something new for me (truth be told, I’m actually not a fan of biographies, especially “rock bios”).

What inspired you to write your book?

My book is a biography of musician and all around creative person Chris Knox. I grew up a fan of music from the Flying Nun record label and Chris was a key person in the early years of the label. I’ve long believed Chris is an important cultural figure. Initially I thought about using his life to write a cultural history of New Zealand from the 1970s on but my research made clear that Chris needed a biography and that a biography could in its own way also say some things about the country’s cultural history.  

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

I write books and articles for my day job as a university professor. So, for more than half the time I was researching and writing this book I was actually writing another book, as well as academic research articles. Therefore my process primarily involved finding time to write this book in evenings and weekends and on (supposed) holidays. As a result, it took almost ten years from beginning research to the book coming out this year.

What did you most enjoy about writing this book?

I interviewed over 80 people for the book. In that way I met a lot of incredibly interesting people all with their own great stories. It would be wonderful to put together a book with short chapters in which each of them tells a story about growing up in New Zealand or what it meant to be a creative person in the last decades of the 20^th century. Sadly, it won’t happen but it’s a reminder of the stories that exist out there in people’s everyday lives.

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

There are many moments worthy of celebrating in the process of writing a book: signing the contract, submitting the draft manuscript, submitting the copy-edited manuscript, seeing the final cover, and of course getting to hold the book. I’ve celebrated each of those along the way. For me the main celebration will be in late November when I’m finally able to make it to New Zealand for a series of book events throughout the country where I’ll be in conversation with authors I admire and hopefully some people will play covers of Chris’s songs.

If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.

When you write a biography of a musician it comes with a built-in soundtrack – in this case almost 400 songs that Chris released as a solo musician or with different bands. I research and write wearing noise cancelling headphones with music playing so Chris’s music fitted right into my writing routine. Sometimes my research involved listening to the music when I would give it all my attention; other times it played in the background as songs from specific periods of his life helped get me in the right space to write.

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

I like this question because it allows me to celebrate the writing of a friend. With no hint of bias I can say Pagan Kennedy’s The Secret History of the Rape Kit: A True Crime Story is my favourite book of the year so far. Pagan is an incredibly gifted writer who writes about a disturbing/uncomfortable history in a sensitive, engaging, challenging and provocative way (the book began life as a New York Times feature article).

What’s next on the agenda for you?

I’ve vowed never to write another book so we will have to see how long that lasts!

Auckland University Press