It\u2019s January, 1994, and Nardwuar is standing on a toilet seat in a dressing room, waiting to ambush Kurt Cobain for an interview. But before he can get to the Nirvana front man, he\u2019s caught by security and removed from the Vancouver venue.<\/p>\n
The next day, he tracks the band down at the Four Seasons and convinces drummer Dave Grohl to put him on the guest list for the concert that night. But he\u2019s recognized for the previous day\u2019s shenanigans and is kicked out, again. Courtney Love, who met Nardwuar in 1991<\/a>, walks by with Cobain. She gets Nardwuar inside. \u201cI thought he was really annoying at first, but now I really like him,\u201d Love tells Cobain. \u201cHe grew on me.\u201d <\/p>\n That snippet appears in the resulting 21-minute interview<\/a>. And the viewer can see that while Cobain is confused by Nardwuar\u2019s knowledge of obscure details, such as bringing up his friend\u2019s dad\u2019s former surf band, he\u2019s also impressed. For Nardwuar, it felt life-changing. <\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it. I thought I\u2019d made it! I thought MTV would be the next thing!\u201d Nardwuar says.<\/p>\n Instead, Nardwuar \u2013 whose full stage name is Nardwuar the Human Serviette but was born John Ruskin \u2013 toiled in relative obscurity for another two decades. But he never stopped trying. <\/p>\n From college radio to MuchMusic to, finally, YouTube and social media, the 57-year-old has transcended Canadian cult hero status to become a global phenomenon. The bombastic, Vancouver-based, tartan-clad interviewer no longer needs entrapment tactics to score interviews. Now, A-listers seek him out. And his style has influenced a new generation of disarming interviewers, who employ random deep research and absurdity to startle celebrities out of their regular talking points. <\/p>\n Forty years after his first interview, Nardwuar is currently travelling across Canada and the U.S. for his Video Vault tour, where he screens interview clips and answers audience questions. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Nardwuar the Human Serviette is seen during an interview in Vancouver, B.C., in 2017.DARRYL DYCK\/For The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n As technology and media evolved, Nardwuar has adapted to every new format. Yet, at the same time, he has remained remarkably, stubbornly true to himself. <\/p>\n To the uninitiated, his interview style seems like an act, a type of performance art to rile up his subjects. With cartoonish energy and a trademark nasal voice, he bombards artists with obscure facts and the rare memorabilia he brings along, eliciting reactions ranging from bemusement to unlocking repressed childhood memories. \u201cWait, how do you know that?\u201d is the most common refrain after a classic Nardwuar reveal. He ends every interview by singing \u201cdoot doola doot doo,\u201d to the tune of the call-and-response riff Shave and a Haircut, refusing to end the conversation until he gets the reciprocal \u201cdoot doo.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cPeople would ask me, \u2018What\u2019s he really like?\u2019\u201d says Chris Nelson, his producer at MuchMusic for eight years. \u201cAnd I\u2019d say, he\u2019s about 85 per cent of the person you see on television. It\u2019s not a character. It\u2019s not an act. And when people get that, they realize he\u2019s just doing it to be curious, not to be mean and not to demean people. That\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Stars such as Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet have reached out to him directly for interviews.<\/p>\n The basement of Neptoon Records on Vancouver\u2019s Main Street is a narrow maze of records stacked floor to ceiling, leading to a small seating area with two worn couches and a seven-foot-tall statue of a man dressed in black leather, like a steampunk Minotaur in the centre of the labyrinth. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the location Nardwuar picked for our interview on a Sunday afternoon in early November, but his fans will recognize the space as the backdrop for many of his interviews, including with rapper Juice WRLD in 2018 and Prime Minister Mark Carney during the 2025 election. <\/p>\n Nardwuar is very busy. Aside from his Video Vault tour, in December, Nike is releasing a Nardwuar skate shoe<\/a> in tartan with a removable pompom on the tongue, the sneaker equivalent of his famous tam. <\/p>\n In an attempt at the Nardwuarian research methodology, I arrive with a first-edition vinyl of Oh God, My Mom\u2019s on Channel 10!, the first compilation he released in 1989, featuring tracks from his punk band the Evaporators, plus snippets of his interviews, including with former U.S. president Gerald Ford and Joey Shithead of the punk band D.O.A. <\/p>\n The record\u2019s title was inspired by his mother, Olga Ruskin, a journalist who had a cable access TV show called Our Pioneers and Neighbours, where she interviewed interesting locals in Vancouver. \u201cI\u2019d be confused, like, why are you talking to the next door neighbour? They don\u2019t have any story,\u201d says Nardwuar. \u201cAnd she was like, \u2018No, the next door neighbours have just as much of a story as a celebrity, but it\u2019s up to the interviewer to bring out the story.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Nardwuar with his first record (with zine insert) of interviews brought by writer Samantha Edwards.<\/p>\n In high school, Nardwuar was the \u201ctypical John Hughes quirky nerd,\u201d according to CBC host Grant Lawrence, a friend and classmate. As student council president, Nardwuar recruited local alternative bands to play school dances. <\/p>\n His first recorded interview \u2013 with Art Bergmann, front man of the punk band Poisoned \u2013 is at one of these school dances in 1985. The teenaged Nardwuar is hyperactive and dogged, at one point randomly pressing Bergmann on why he thanked his high school in his previous band\u2019s album liner notes. <\/p>\n At the University of British Columbia, he gravitated toward CiTR, the campus radio station, where he met collaborator Leora Kornfeld. She remembers looking at the programming schedule of the different shows and their genres \u2013 punk, folk, rockabilly \u2013 and under Nardwuar, it simply said \u201cNardwuar.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI laughed so hard when I saw it. Even amongst his peers, people got it right away,\u201d says Kornfeld. \u201cLike, don\u2019t bother trying to figure out or describe what genre he is. He is his own genre.\u201d <\/p>\n His weekly radio show was a curation of rock, underground garage and postmod bands, interspersed with his interviews with fringe characters, such as Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists or pseudo-doctors who claimed they found the cure for the common cold, says Kornfeld. <\/p>\n He credits his years at CiTR with fuelling his obsession with preparing for interviews. <\/p>\n \u201cThere was always people phoning in CiTR saying, \u2018You suck, this is boring!\u2019\u201d says Nardwuar. <\/p>\n He keeps mum on the specifics of his research methods, but he taps his network for intel and weird anecdotes, and keeps an eye out for peculiar vinyl and memorabilia that could one day prove relevant to a future interview. <\/p>\n In the late 1990s, TV producer Nelson stumbled across a VHS tape of Nardwuar\u2019s interview with Nirvana. He was transfixed. When Nelson landed an on-air role at MuchMusic in Vancouver, one of the first calls he made was to Nardwuar. <\/p>\n Nardwuar\u2019s freelance gig with MuchMusic opened more opportunities \u2013 and brought him to a nationwide audience \u2013 yet he still faced skepticism from industry gatekeepers and artists. <\/p>\n \u201cRecord label reps in Vancouver would rarely ever agree to an interview with Nardwuar because they were all expecting a certain formula to unfold in those interviews,\u201d says Nelson. No one knew what Nardwuar might do. <\/p>\n Countless YouTube compilations feature mash-ups of artists getting angry at him: Beck reportedly banned him from Lollapalooza; Sonic Youth shattered a seven-inch record<\/a> he\u2019d brought them as a gift; and, most notoriously, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree pulled off Nardwuar\u2019s hat and glasses before shoving him during a 2003 interview<\/a>. Rowntree apologized years later. <\/p>\n Chris Murphy of Sloan recalls storming out during his first interview with Nardwuar in 1992 on CiTR. At the time, the Halifax band was being courted by Geffen Records. <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know his shtick,\u201d says Murphy. \u201cThis was my big chance to make something of my life, and this guy was just making me look like a fool on the air.\u201d Three years later, they met again, and they\u2019ve been friends ever since.<\/p>\n A new cohort of YouTube interviewers has mimicked Nardwuar\u2019s use of a good gimmick and factoids to elicit genuine reactions from celebrities. During Sydney Sweeney\u2019s Hot Ones interview, host Sean Evans drops a random question about her high-school extracurriculars. \u201cYou\u2019re Sydney Sweeney \u2013 \u2018We have to know,\u2019\u201d Evans says, a reference to one of Nardwuar\u2019s catchphrases. \u201cShout out Nardwuar.\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n As his fame continues to ascend, Nardwuar remains a one-person operation.<\/p>\n In the 2000s, two interviews would change the trajectory of Nardwuar\u2019s career. <\/p>\n First, he interviewed Snoop Dogg, kicking off what he calls a decades-long \u201cbromance\u201d by bringing the rapper a plush doll of the American comedian Redd Foxx.<\/p>\n Then, in 2008, he interviewed Pharrell Williams, who proclaims on camera that it is \u201cone of the most impressive interviews I\u2019ve ever experienced in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n That encounter would launch a new era of Nardwuar interviewing rappers and hip-hop artists, bringing in tow a wave of young followers. The Williams interview led to an interview with Jay-Z; a Drake interview laid the groundwork for Lil Wayne. He spoke with artists as they were on the brink of breaking out, including Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott and Cardi B. Lil Uzi Vert and Logic have sampled clips of Nardwuar in their own tracks. <\/p>\n Soon after the birth of YouTube, he started posting his interviews on the platform, where he now has nearly 3.8 million subscribers. On TikTok, sound bites from his interviews regularly go viral \u2013 such as Future calling <\/a>cheesecake \u201csensational\u201d<\/a>\u2013 which feels surreal for Nardwuar. <\/p>\n \u201cWho would ever think that somebody would take a dumb stupid interview and turn it into a TikTok,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I first did the interview, I was like, \u2018Oh God, why did I post this?\u2019 But I just left it up there. Two years later, the people power got a hold of that.\u201d <\/p>\n As his fame has ascended, stars such as Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet have reached out to him directly for interviews. <\/p>\n Yet Nardwuar remains a one-person operation. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s brilliant, obviously, but he\u2019s very stubborn and he does things his way,\u201d says CBC\u2019s Lawrence. \u201cHe is like the epitome of DIY culture. He doesn\u2019t have an editor, he doesn\u2019t have a camera person. It\u2019s just literally whoever is around.\u201d <\/p>\n During our interview, Nardwuar says when he really makes it, which is when he interviews the rock legends who have eluded him so far, such as Paul McCartney or Neil Young, he\u2019d love to be a \u201cgiant multimedia corporation.\u201d Later, he brushes off the idea, saying he couldn\u2019t imagine what that would even look like.<\/p>\n He says his DIY ethic started at CiTR radio. \u201cYou\u2019re not just a DJ \u2013 you\u2019re an operator, you\u2019re a writer, you\u2019re a producer, you\u2019re in total control. You can do whatever you want. That\u2019s the way I\u2019ve learned to do media.\u201d<\/p>\n The other contradiction of Nardwuar is his penchant for digging up revealing details about his interview subjects, while sharing very little about himself. Again, he plays down the suggestion he\u2019s a private person. <\/p>\n \u201cThe personal life is completely boring. It\u2019s like getting on a treadmill, listening to podcasts, going to record stores, doing interviews and doing editing. There\u2019s no extra sort of stuff involved,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n Nardwaur is, after all, not a persona he turns off. He\u2019s just being himself. <\/p>\n