\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tThe memoir ends in the early Eighties, right when your film career is starting. Why did you decide to cap it there?<\/strong> Tom Petty was responsible for that door opening, while you were conducting interviews for the 1983 doc Heartbreakers Beach Party.<\/em><\/strong> Each chapter here is like a snapshot of profile subjects.<\/strong> You also tell your family history here. I imagine that was therapeutic in a way, since most people only know the fictionalized version of your family in Almost Famous<\/em>.<\/strong> \n\tWe all know about your mom, Alice, and your sister, Cindy, who were portrayed in the film. Did you ever think to include your father, or your late sister, Cathy, in the movie?<\/strong> \n\tCathy was a huge Beach Boys fan. Knowing that now, I view that \u201cFeel Flows\u201d scene in Almost Famous<\/em> differently.<\/strong> \n\tThe book begins in 2019, when you\u2019re at rehearsals for the <\/strong>Almost Famous <\/em><\/strong>musical. You\u2019re on the phone with your mom, and you scream, \u201cI want my old life back!\u201d What did you mean by that?<\/strong> \n\tYou write that you didn\u2019t see a lot of rock & roll excess at first. At what point did you witness it?<\/strong> \n\tIf you don\u2019t do the drugs that you see, you\u2019re not there to party with them, and you send that message, which is cool. The huge excess was kept from me a lot, though I saw the hint of some of it around the edges. Sometimes, you can say a lot in between the lines. Grover Lewis did that big profile<\/a> of the Allman Brothers Band [in 1971] before I did mine<\/a>, and he just went right into a kind of procedural explanation of the drugs everybody was doing. I didn\u2019t want to do that, because that felt like a police report.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a case-by-case basis. Some [musicians] are like, \u201cYeah, write about anything!\u201d or you sense that about them, and you do. Other people you feel like, \u201cI just want to write about the creative process, and I\u2019m not interested in partying with you until two a.m., so I\u2019ll leave at midnight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tYou did indulge sometimes, though. You write that you had a Pimm\u2019s cup with Ron Wood, and planted some seeds from Bob Marley\u2019s weed in your backyard.\u00a0<\/strong> \n\tThis is a good time to talk about your baby face. You write that you were kicked out of clubs for being underage, but it also made musicians trust you. I see it as a blessing and a curse.<\/strong> In 1975, you got a Rolling Stone <\/em>assignment that was a bit different from your usual beat. It was <\/strong>an essay<\/strong><\/a> titled \u201cHow I Learned About Sex.\u201d<\/strong> The call was instantaneous. He was like, \u201cThis is what you should be doing. This is real writing. I laughed my ass off. Wow, this is embarrassing.\u201d The embarrassing stuff is what people always love. Be personal, but don\u2019t overtake the story, was the lesson I took from that at. And you never got it back.<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Neal Preston*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tYou got to witness now-legendary songs in concert when they were brand new. Material from Led Zeppelin\u2019s Physical Graffiti<\/em><\/a>, the Who\u2019s Quadrophenia<\/em>, and Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s \u201cSimple Man.\u201d Did you have a feeling at the time they\u2019d become classics? \n\tYou went fishing with Van Zandt in Hawaii. Was he any good?<\/strong> Mistakenly, I\u2019d recorded a little bit of that, and heard it back in the context of a mixtape that I didn\u2019t even realize had them recorded on it. This was some time ago, but I was in the kitchen listening to this mixtape. It was like, Paul McCartney and Wings\u2019 \u201cBeware My Love.\u201d And there was Ronnie and the guys from Lynyrd Skynyrd from years earlier fishing, laughing, talking about music, and it all came back. And then with a click, it went back into \u201cBeware My Love.\u201d And I was just like, \u201cFuck, man.\u201d And I\u2019ve not let it in because I have been so sad since Ronnie died<\/a>, but I started listening to Skynyrd again after that.<\/p>\n You also interviewed Gram Parsons and Jim Croce, who both died a day apart, in Sept. 1973.<\/strong> \n\tWhat about from the Eagles\u2019 <\/strong>Glenn Frey<\/strong><\/a>? I know he loved to pass down his wisdom to you.<\/strong> \n\tYou once left your wallet in the bathroom at CBGB\u2019s, and Dee Dee Ramone helped himself to $75. Did you ever tell him you knew he stole it?<\/strong> \n\tYou also had an unpleasant encounter with Lou Reed while in New York.<\/strong> \n\tWhat advice do you wish you could give your younger self?<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Neal Preston*<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tDo you ever regret jumping straight into adulthood as a teenager and missing out on that period of your life?<\/strong> So yes and no. When I really think about it, I wouldn\u2019t trade the life that I was able to have in those years, and I was very happy to write the book and share the highs and lows of that whole period. So I think some people think like, \u201cYou had a charmed life, you got to do all that, and you were doing stories when you were young.\u201d It\u2019s like, \u201cNo, there were a lot of hills and valleys.\u201d But it was worth it because you should do the thing that you can\u2019t say no to, and that was writing about music, particularly in that time. \n\tWhat about if you\u2019d stayed writing for <\/strong>Rolling Stone<\/em><\/strong>, and hadn\u2019t moved onto directing? Do you ever think about what would\u2019ve happened?<\/strong> \n\tThe media landscape is drastically different now than it was in 1972.<\/strong> It\u2019s tougher now than it was, but it\u2019s more immediate, which is great. You can immediately find out about last night\u2019s show with Neil Young. You can immediately find out how the set lists are changing. So media is really wonderful that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tDo you think that social media has robbed rock stars of their mystique?<\/strong> \n\tWhat\u2019s the best and worst part about success?<\/strong> The hardest part about success is \u2026 I don\u2019t know, it all feels like a gift. When I was first starting to write, James L. Brooks told me, \u201cBuddy, think of the privilege we have. We got the greatest job in the world. We get to tell stories.\u201d And I still feel that every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhat did you learn from the Almost Famous<\/em> musical?<\/strong> \n\tI\u2019m sure the negative reviews were hard to swallow.<\/strong> \n\tThe memoir is a great way to introduce younger audiences to your writing, who are mostly familiar with you as a director.<\/strong> Who was that?<\/strong>
That was when a new door opened \u2014 the door to making movies and taking a step into this really unknown world. That, to me, feels like a whole other life happened. But everything I\u2019ve done has a very obvious road to music.<\/p>\n
He says, \u201cPick up the camera and film this.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cThere\u2019s no director around.\u201d [He said] \u201cPick up the camera!\u201d And he does this song, \u2018I\u2019m Stupid<\/a>,\u2019 right into the camera. I\u2019m like, \u201cThis is amazing. This feeling doesn\u2019t happen when you\u2019re transcribing 12 hours of interviews in the middle of the night. This is going right to the center of the creative process.\u201d Cut. He goes, \u201cCongratulations, you\u2019re a director.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah. It\u2019s kind of like, let them be singles that amount to an album. I\u2019ve always loved the books that you could carry with you in a backpack and just pull out at any given point when you have 20 minutes, and flip through it and get a feeling. You just want to keep them close. They\u2019re not huge coffee table books or anything. They\u2019re always kind of like Patti Smith\u2019s book [2010\u2019s Just Kids<\/em>]. It travels well. You really feel like you got a friend in that book. That\u2019s what I was going for.<\/p>\n
Yeah. There was a happy\/sad quality about growing up in the desert in Palm Springs, and later in San Diego, where music really suited that. I hadn\u2019t written about Southern California at that time ever before. It\u2019s such a vivid memory, and that\u2019s a part of what I love about music. It\u2019s one of those places that you go to in your heart and your mind. It\u2019s like Joni\u2019s song, \u201cMy Secret Place<\/a>.\u201d To write about that world was really satisfying.<\/p>\n
No. My oldest sister has always been there on my shoulder. She\u2019s been such a huge presence, and she\u2019s been gone for a long time. Obviously when you\u2019re 10 years old and you lose a sibling who\u2019s 19, it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, they were an adult.\u201d So I always thought of her as an adult. And then you get older and you realize she was a teenager. She never got out of her teens. She was living in that world and she loved Brian Wilson. Brian Wilson was that nearest faraway place and she gave that to me. Over time, I realized how much I owe her, and my sister Cindy. The book\u2019s a lot for them.<\/p>\n
I had heard a story from someone who had gone to see Almost Famous<\/em> in the theater, and when the movie was over and the lights came up, there was somebody crying behind him. And my friend turned around and it was Brian Wilson. He said, \u201cHey Brian, why are you crying?\u201d He goes, \u201cBecause that\u2019s my brother. That was my brother singing that song.\u201d And that to me was like, \u201cWalk away.\u201d If this film burns in a lightning blast five minutes from now, I\u2019m good. Those are the little victories along the way, where the music person inside of you was like, \u201cYes.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I was directing and doing everything myself, and looking forward rather than potentially looking backward. And the richness that could be mined from looking backwards in a format that I didn\u2019t know, which was musical theater. So it was kind of that cry for help that was supposed to happen unheard by anyone else, but one of the crew was just a few feet away smoking a cigarette and heard everything. So I wanted to write about that in the book, too. The act of looking back is very dangerous.<\/p>\n
Being backstage interviewing Steve Marriott from Humble Pie. I come from a school teacher mother. Drugs are the enemy. He has a green Heineken in his hand and he\u2019s in the locker room of the San Diego Sports Arena, and the conversation\u2019s going really well. And then from his other hand comes the biggest hash joint I could have ever imagined. It was out of a Robert Crumb cartoon. It was so huge, and I was like, \u201cWhat do I do if he offers it to me?\u201d And he did, and I was like, \u201cNo thanks. Not today.\u201d He\u2019s like, \u201cSmart, more for me.\u201d And I heard that forever, since that day.<\/p>\n
[Laughs.<\/em>] Thanks. There was a siesta hour from time to time, but mostly, you\u2019re never going to get the story done or delivered in time if you\u2019re that guy who is there for a dual purpose. And I think there\u2019s a kind of journalist that gets filtered out of the process pretty quickly if you realize that they\u2019re there to make friends more than write something from the heart.<\/p>\n
I grew some facial hair in the early Nineties when I was living in Seattle<\/a>, and that was really a mistake. People that saw that were like, \u201cNo, no, no, no, that look is not you. Just stop that, here\u2019s this razor, go get rid of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ended up putting this in the book at the last minute, too. Tim Cahill was an editor that worked with me a little bit on the Allman Brothers story. He called me up and said, \u201cI want you to do something that\u2019s not about music.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cSounds great!\u201d And he said, \u201cIt\u2019s the men\u2019s issue.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cFantastic!\u201d And he goes, \u201cThe subject is how you learned about sex.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cGr\u2014great!\u201d And then proceeded to die on the vine trying to write this story. At the last minute, I just spewed out a lot of the embarrassing stuff that I never wanted to tell anybody, and sent it in.<\/p>\n
You wrote cover stories on <\/strong>Led Zeppelin<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>Joni Mitchell<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 musicians who weren\u2019t exactly fans of Rolling Stone.<\/em> The former is particularly impressive: you convinced Jimmy Page to do the cover while he was eating a bowl of cereal.<\/strong>
I\u2019m telling you, I\u2019m still shocked it happened. That was a line that was never supposed to be crossed, Led Zeppelin appearing in Rolling Stone<\/em>. But it was the music fan in him that really helped that happen, because I had a bootleg tape of a Joni Mitchell interview from Canada, and he\u2019s a fan, and he wanted to hear it.<\/p>\n
I never got it back. I finally got another copy of that interview a couple of weeks ago, so it came home to roost in some way or another.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cameron-and-Jimmy.jpg?w=690\")
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<\/strong>That\u2019s a really good question. It felt classic in the moment. [Photographer] Neal Preston and I would go back to the hotel room and recap at the end of these wonderful nights. You just wanted to take those little moments and treasure them. How much better can it get than Lynyrd Skynyrd at Winterland with Ronnie Van Zandt barefoot? We had that feeling a lot: \u201cIf it\u2019s this good now, how good is it going to be? This is one of the best rock shows ever.\u201d And it was. That thing \u2014 that white-hot moment for rock \u2014 was never the same in that way again.<\/p>\n
None of us caught anything, but he was a really good fisherman. He reminded me of Duane Allman on the cover<\/a> of one of those archives albums, where you\u2019ve never seen a guy more comfortable holding a fishing rod. This is what this guy is meant to hold in life. And most importantly, he knew how to have fun catching not one bite. It was just a wonderful afternoon.<\/p>\n
You tend to really be imprinted by the first people that you knew who died in your life. They took the time to really bond. Jim Croce even more than Gram Parsons, but you have this indelible time where they reveal part of themselves to you and trust you. That was so vivid to be 15 and have Jim Croce say, \u201cThis guy is here to interview us!\u201d And I was just sitting in the wrong dressing room. But the guy ended up just telling stories, and I ditched school the next day and there were more stories. I just felt like, \u201cI\u2019m meeting people that get me as opposed to some of the people at school.\u201d And then he died, and Gram was gone in an odd, mystical way. So there was a feeling at the time of, \u201cGrab this time around your heroes, because there\u2019s a danger and sometimes there\u2019s a body count in this business of people in their little planes.\u201d I was always scared of little planes.
What\u2019s the best piece of advice you\u2019ve ever gotten?<\/strong>
Act like you belong until you do belong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh, man. I put that into a scene<\/a> in Fast Times at Ridgemont High<\/em>. It\u2019s spoken over a cardboard cutout of Debbie Harry, which is like, \u201cIf they can\u2019t smell your qualifications, move on.\u201d I felt like Debbie Harry when Glenn was telling me this. He was such a student of how to slip into a room and make everybody part of your sport, which is, \u201cLet\u2019s all do great stuff together.\u201d That was the sport of Glenn Frey. And along the way, if somebody tries to hold you back, move on. Don\u2019t let it get you down. If they can\u2019t smell your qualifications, fuck them.<\/p>\n
No, I did not. I don\u2019t think people would really imagine that I would\u2019ve been around the Ramones when the Ramones were first starting. It\u2019s kind of like, \u201cWhat happened? Why didn\u2019t he stick with the Ramones?\u201d But I was moving back to California, and I think it was a little bit like I was leaving their wonderful land, their wonderful kingdom, never to return, when I was moving to California again. But being around them at that pivotal time was amazing. I felt sad that he had to steal some money from me, but I knew that if people were able to appreciate how unique the Ramones were, that things would be okay, at least for a while.<\/p>\n
And apparently it continued throughout his entire life, because I spoke to somebody who was friends with him, and I was like, \u201cYeah, I always wondered what he thought of Almost Famous<\/em>, when Philip Seymour Hoffman and Patrick Fugit debate the relevance of Lou Reed and his association with David Bowie.\u201d And the person I was talking to said, \u201cOh, let me end the mystery. He didn\u2019t like it and he wasn\u2019t a fan of yours either.\u201d I\u2019m sorry to Lou Reed [Laughs.<\/em>] It didn\u2019t go his way in that scene.<\/p>\n
Keep everything. Because one day you\u2019ll be able to look at this souvenir that means so much to you, whether it\u2019s a tape of somebody talking or something somebody gave you, and it will all come back and you will have this moment again.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cameron-Crowe-c-Neal-Preston-high-res.jpeg?w=715\")
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I do. I miss some of those things. Some of the things I\u2019ve been able to go back and check the box on. That\u2019s a thing that I\u2019d always had as a conversation with my sister, Cindy, because she had a message for me, which is, \u201cTake time to be an adolescent.\u201d Take time to live the life of the people that are in those audiences while you\u2019re lucky enough to be in those crowds. Did you ever want to have fun like them as opposed to having to run home and transcribe and have a story done within days? Will you miss one day, the other life?<\/p>\n
<\/strong>You were briefly in a high school band, the Masked Hamster. Do you ever think about what would have happened had you not gotten kicked out, or was it just a hobby?<\/strong>
[Laughs<\/em>] Do you know how amazing it is to be asked that question? The Masked Hamster is actually a band we can talk about. Maybe that was my dream. I don\u2019t know, man. If I had been able to play \u201cI Can\u2019t Explain\u201d properly with a band, I may have never written another word. I was so happy in that moment, but I guess I just summoned that pleasure in another way, because I was really not meant to be a musician.<\/p>\n
I do a lot, because [film] barely happened. Fast Times <\/em>was definitely put on the most back of back burners by the studio, and it really was like a death march to the movie being released. So those dreams did not exist. When people started showing up in Spicoli Vans, it was like, \u201cWhat? This is a miracle.\u201d But I would\u2019ve kept on writing. I think I would\u2019ve written stories like Ray Bradbury, because he had wit and soul to him, which was the stuff that I always loved. When there was a little meat on the bone, but it was also fun. Ray Bradbury would\u2019ve been my guiding light.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Journalists are being laid off hugely all the time, and it\u2019s tragic. So that\u2019s a reason to wave the flag for journalism. You are a journalistic hero. You\u2019re out there doing stuff at a time when it\u2019s hard to spend a couple thousand words writing about Judee Sill<\/a>. So there is a nobility to that, but it\u2019s also just like being a journalist has been trivialized as a job. They\u2019ve been the butt of jokes lately, and it\u2019s ridiculous. If this book does anything, I would really love for it to get across the joy of what it is to be a journalist when things are really cooking and you are there exploring something that\u2019s near and dear to your heart, and you can write about it, that is a hugely important thing.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Absolutely. There\u2019s so many outlets and a million podcasts. To find an artist who shrouds themselves in just a little bit of mystery is a beautiful thing, but it\u2019s so hard for them to drop an album. There has to be a campaign. And once you\u2019re campaigning, you\u2019ve lost mystique. So the ball game is to keep people interested in that magic thing that happens when you capture a feeling, and not talk about it and dissect it and sell it so much that it loses its power. So this is the daily battle that we wage.<\/p>\n
The best part of success is that people can know that you have a voice and you can meet with an actor that you\u2019re interested in working with or call and ask for access to an artist that you know or appreciate or want to write about, and they might know your work. That\u2019s the best part.<\/p>\n
In San Diego, it was a smaller, heartfelt thing. It ended up being something that was completed by my mom dying, which I\u2019d never thought would happen. The emotion of her dying just bled through the cast. They took the baton of everything that had happened, and did it for my mom. And then Covid happened, and it was rolling the boulder back up a very bigger hill. And I think we learned, once again, what we already knew, which is the most personal and passionate version of the show is the show to do. There\u2019s going to be a performance of it in Connecticut in October. So we did some more work on it, just to use what we learned from the Broadway experience<\/a>. It\u2019s a living, growing thing, and I learned a lot.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah. I just will always remember Casey Likes the day after, when a lot of the reviews had hit. Here comes the kid who\u2019s playing you as a young guy, an optimistic young warrior. Here he is leaping down the street, literally jumping, saying, \u201cThis just makes me want to do better and better and better!\u201d It was an amazing moment that I\u2019ll never forget. These things all take time. Scripts take time and plays take time, and bands take time and songs take time. It\u2019s the beautiful journey.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Led by this thing that I did grow up with, which is, \u201cPut on your magic shoes.\u201d Everybody always says \u201cyou can do anything\u201d to a young person growing up. I actually believed it. There was only one person in the whole time at Rolling Stone<\/em> that ever said, \u201cYou\u2019re too young to be able to write about me.\u201d Everybody else was like, \u201cOkay, sit down. What else you got?\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Miller.<\/p>\n