Nardwuar the Human Serviette

Nardwuar the Human Serviette
Nardwuar in 2005
Background information
Birth name	John Ruskin
Born	(1968-07-05) July 5, 1968
Origin	Vancouver, British Columbia
Genres	Garage rock
Occupation(s)	Media personality, interviewer, musician, singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, keyboards
Years active	1986-present
Labels	Nardwuar, Alternative Tentacles
Associated acts	The Evaporators, Thee Goblins
Website	www.nardwuar.com

John Ruskin (born July 5, 1968), better known as Nardwuar the Human Serviette, is a Canadian celebrity interviewer and musician from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.^[1] He is the lead singer and keyboardist for The Evaporators and plays in Thee Goblins.

When asked to explain his name, Nardwuar has said it is “a dumb, stupid name like Sting or Sinbad;” and that “Human” came from the song "Human Fly" by The Cramps; and “Serviette” came from the fact that “in the U.S.A. they don’t have serviettes, they have napkins”.^[2][3][4]

He has a bachelor's degree in history from the University of British Columbia.

Early life

Nardwuar was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1968. His mother, Olga Ruskin, was a local journalist, high school history teacher and historian. She published a history of Vancouver historical figure "Gassy Jack" John Deighton. His mother exposed her son to local history by bringing him to historical society meetups. Nardwuar won a public speaking competition while in elementary school, where he was also a long-distance runner.^[5][6]

Nardwuar attended Hillside Secondary School in West Vancouver, where he was a member of the student council. It was through the student council that he began booking bands for school events, and conducted his first interview, with Art Bergmann of Poisoned. He was accepted into the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1986, the same year he changed his name to Nardwuar. He began volunteering at the campus radio station, CITR.^[6] While studying history at UBC, Nardwuar wrote papers on Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.^[7] He graduated in 1990.^[7]

Radio

Nardwuar got his start in media at the University of British Columbia radio station CITR 101.9 FM in Vancouver. His show has been running every Friday afternoon^[8] (3:30-5:00 p.m. Pacific) since October 1987. The program features a mix of eclectic music, along with interviews and commentary.

He also sometimes appears as a guest host and interviewer on CBC Radio 3 and started his own weekly program on freeform radio station WFMU in 2009.

Interviews

Nardwuar's interviews are frequently shown on MuchMusic's Going Coastal, or printed in Chart. Although Nardwuar's favourite targets are music artists, he has stated that he will interview any celebrity.^[9]

His interview style can be grating and confusing to those who have had no prior experience with him. A typical interview will begin with "Who are you?", followed by "From?" if the subject doesn't volunteer his or her affiliations. The interview will always end with "Keep on rockin' in the free world", and the "doot doola doot doo..." of "Shave and a Haircut", to which the interviewee is expected to reply with the final "doot doo!" before Nardwuar freezes with a wide smile until the camera cuts off.

A somewhat common reply has been "Fuck you!".^[10] Other notable replies have been "Help Me" (Tom Morello), "You're nuts" (Glenn Danzig), "You're bizarre" (Jeff Hanneman of Slayer), "Radio free fucking Europe" (Courtney Love of Hole),^[11] "Thank you?" (Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth), "Ka-Boom" (Jello Biafra), "Quack-quack" (Jello Biafra with The Melvins), "Mmm-hmm" (Jack White), "Massive Death" (King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers), "Um bye" (Faris Badwan of The Horrors), "Bang-Bang" (Ice-T), "Funk You" (Afrika Bambaataa), "Will do!" (Marc Maron), "Katmandu" (Daniel Johnston), "Keep taking the pills" (Peter Murphy), "Fuck the free world!" (Tyler the Creator of OFWGKTA), "Bukkake" (Hodgy Beats of OFWGKTA), "Goodbye!" (Pusha T), "Thank you, pleasure" (Dani Filth), "Thank you" (Henry Rollins), "Turn up!" (Flosstradamus), "Yeah, yeah" (Jay-Z) and "Lace up!" (Machine Gun Kelly).

Due to his upfront and eccentric style, he has been attacked verbally, physically threatened, and intimidated by people such as Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, (who stole Nardwuar's tam o' shanter), the band Quiet Riot, (who chased Nardwuar and crew down the street), Sonic Youth and Dave Rowntree of Blur. Alice Cooper, Henry Rollins, Travis Barker, Lydia Lunch, Harlan Ellison, Beck, Nas, and others have hung up on him or been verbally combative in interviews.^[12] Chris Fehn of Slipknot and Kid Cudi have both left midway through an interview.

Dave Rowntree of Blur apologized to Nardwuar in 2011 for his behavior during a 2003 interview,^[13] calling it "one of the things I'm ashamed of" and classified his actions as "bullying". Nardwuar accepted the apology via twitter.^[14][15]

Nardwuar's unorthodox approach often ends up in bizarre scenarios. Some of his subjects recognize Nardwuar's eccentric style and successfully manage to reverse the scenario on him, especially Iggy Pop, David Cross, Mudhoney, "Weird Al" Yankovic and Lil B. Some interpret his hijinks as intentionally disrespectful, including Nas and pornographer Al Goldstein. Henry Rollins found Nardwuar to be disingenuous, saying "I like the character that you're playing. I like that you can turn it on and off. That's cute."^[16] Nardwuar made several attempts at contacting Courtney Love, first in 1991 over the telephone, talking about Danelectro guitars and asking her about her P.O. box before she ended the conversation.^[11] He later was able to get full interviews out of her after sneaking backstage into a dressing room at a 1993 Hole show in Vancouver, B.C., and again in November 1994 backstage at the Commodore Ballroom. Love was also present during Nardwuar's interview with Nirvana in January 1994 at the backstage of the Vancouver Forum.

More often the experience confuses the celebrities. Members of GWAR tried not to laugh while in character. Jello Biafra was impressed with his guerrilla interview style, but became noticeably angered in a 2000 interview when Nardwuar began to cajole Biafra about former Dead Kennedys bandmates' lawsuit against Biafra.^[17]

Nardwuar does extensive research on the interviewee to confuse, scare or impress them, often bringing up minutiae about band members' pasts that they have a hard time recalling until he coaches them along. Frequently, he will also attempt to make connections, no matter how obscure, between the person or subject at question and Canada. A tribute to his research skills, while interviewing Josh Homme, he produced a grade school class photo of Homme mid-interview, who remained blasé yet clearly impressed. In 'Nardwuar Vs Skrillex', he produced the first CD Skrillex was ever featured on as Sonny Moore, Skrillex then questioned his manager and then-girlfriend, Ellie Goulding, during the interview who revealed she did not know that era of Skrillex's past.^[18] During an interview with Pharrell Williams from N.E.R.D., Nardwuar pulled out a vinyl record featuring the very first recorded track by Pharrell, causing him to pause and state "This is one of the most impressive interviews I've ever experienced in my life. Seriously." Pharrell would later go on in the same interview to say, "Your research is second-to-none. Second-to-none."^[19] During a 2010 interview with rapper Drake and his producer 40, Drake described Nardwuar's interview as the "best that I've ever done in my entire life".^[20] Similarly, following an interview with Nardwuar on October 4, 2012 before his show at The Queen Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Ed Sheeran walked back into his dressing room and told the next interviewers that he had just had "the best interview in my life". In an interview with Ludacris, Nardwuar mentions a high-school friend, Vanesha to which Ludacris replies, "You're crazy, you know that?" followed by, "How the hell did you find that out? What the hell is going on?" showing that Nardwuar does highly extensive research on people he is to interview.^[21]

Interviews with non-musicians

Nardwuar has also been known to be a "guerrilla journalist," often sneaking in to press conferences under the guise of a more normal reporter, to confront political leaders or other non-musical celebrities with surreal questions. He has asked Mikhail Gorbachev which world leader had the biggest pants,^[22] and Crispin Glover whether he owns a coffin full of tar.^[12] On another occasion, Nardwuar persistently asked faith healer Ernest Angley if there was a cure for "the Summertime Blues", to which Angley angrily replied, "Oh I wish you would shut up, man. You know you're not even funny. You're lucky God don't strike you dead."^[23]

In November 1997, he cut off all his hair and was able to sneak into an APEC conference to ask Jean Chrétien if he supported the pepper spraying of protesters outside. Chrétien, apparently unaware of the incident and not knowing what the English terms "mace" and "pepper spray" referred to, responded with a line that has become well known in Canada: "For me, pepper, I put it on my plate."^[24][25]

In June 2004, Nardwuar convinced an amused Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada, to play a quick game of the Hasbro game "Hip Flip" while he was on the campaign trail.^[26] After Martin won the election, Nardwuar commented on the great predictive power of the "Hip Flip," because neither of the other two candidates had performed the act. On a campaign trip to Vancouver in December 2005, Nardwuar concluded an interview with the late New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton—who, in their first encounter, had taken the instructions to the game and said he would practice for their next encounter—with a successful, coordinated, swinging of their hips. The 22nd Prime Minister Stephen Harper^[27] is the only major candidate from the 2004 election who has never performed a successful "Hip Flip" with Nardwuar. Nardwuar was escorted out by Harper's security while trying to initiate the game. In the 2015 Canadian general election, the first federal leader to complete the Hip Flip game was Justin Trudeau, who did so on September 10 after a press conference in Vancouver.^[28]

Tributes

At the 2013 South by Southwest Festival film director Brent Hodge and producer Chris Kelly did a retrospective of Nardwuar's career for Time magazine.

In January 2013, Brother Ali released a song called "Nardwuar", to commemorate his interview with Nardwuar; the song features a beat taken from one of the records which Nardwuar gave Ali as a gift.^[29]

The music video for the Korn song "Twisted Transistor" is a mockumentary which includes a (fictional) documentary filmmaker named "Rob Piner", whose behavior and appearance are based on Nardwuar.^[30]

In his 2013 mixtape Innanetape, Vic Mensa referenced Nardwuar in the song "Tweakin' (feat. Chance the Rapper)" with the lyric "Thumbs up to the camera like Nardwuar."^[31]

Health

On July 10, 1999, Nardwuar suffered seizures and temporary paralysis resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage (aborting his planned ambush interview of Courtney Love), but quickly recovered. ^{[32] [33]} On December 6, 2015, he suffered a stroke ^[34] and was released from hospital six days later. ^[35] On January 25, 2016, he successfully underwent heart surgery to repair a patent foramen ovale, the likely cause of the stroke. ^[36]

See also

• The Evaporators

References

External links

• Nardwuar.com
• Nardwuar's user page on Youtube.com
• An episode of Olga Ruskin's show, "Our Pioneers and Neighbours