GROSS: It's funny 'cause I was thinking, like, is Howard going to give long answers? And I thought, no. But I don't know if I'm a good interview. STERN: And when she cuts me off, my ego is going to be destroyed 'cause I think I'm a pretty good broadcaster. So I said, oh, she's going to be cutting me off every minute. And then I got filled with dread because I don't know that I'm a really good interview, to be honest. And you said something about when you interview people that you cut them off quickly if they're boring or going on too long. It was as if you were talking to me.Īnd then I read a little further along. That's why I almost didn't write the book. And the first thing, like, literally that you wrote is, hey, when I was writing a book about interviews, I didn't know if they'd be good to read because, you know, people have heard them on the radio. STERN: So I - on my Kindle, you get a little chapter for free. And I went - oh, wow, I should have read this. STERN: And so - yeah - so I went on my Kindle account, you know? And here, you have written a book on interviewing, which is why I'm here talking to you. And the first thing I learned was that you had written a book. STERN: And I said to my wife, I'm going on the Terry Gross show. I just know some of them are like, what? (Laughter) But. But certainly mine, we seem to be pretty jacked up about it. So no, no, I - I don't know about your listeners. To hear you two guys together, it's going to be awesome, blah, blah, blah. Everyone was like, oh, she's the best interviewer in the world. HOWARD STERN: No, I actually got a really great reaction when I said on my show that I'm coming on the Terry Gross show. And some of your listeners probably think - public radio's so incredibly boring why are you wasting your time on public radio? You know, like, some of our listeners - I think just a few - but some of our listeners are outraged that Howard Stern's going to be on our show. His show was so important to building a subscription base for Sirius XM and he has such a devoted following that he was given two channels.
In 2005, Stern moved to satellite radio, where he didn't have to deal with the regulations of the FCC or the standards of local stations and he was free to say anything.
But he admits that his show still contains a fair amount of what he describes as second-grade humor.Īfter his show became nationally syndicated in 1986, its success, his subsequent books and the movie adaptation of his memoir "Private Parts" led him to crown himself the King of All Media. He's Howard Stern.īut he's the 65-year-old Howard Stern who's allowed himself to change over time and to move away from some of the crude sex talk and sexism of his earlier years and, in his interviews, to emphasize empathy over outrageousness. He's collected some of his best in the new book "Howard Stern Comes Again." I guess the title had to have some kind of sexual reference.
He does a comedy show, but his interviews can go deep. But we both do interviews, and in my opinion, his have gotten really good. And yeah, I know: we're kind of radio opposites.