TerikKing.com

Today is the end of a 5-day work “marathon.” Last Wednesday, straight from The New School, I ran to a midtown club to see a performer who I wanted to interview on OPEN YOUR MIND. The set started at 8pm, and didn’t end until about 11…a VERY long set for a club gig.

This is a performer who has gained national attention for being charismatic more than being a vocal dynamo. Yet I, for a number of reasons, found this guest fascinating. So it was a good time to meet the guy and pitch him on appearing on my show. The challenge was not to get plastered while having cocktails during the show. (Mission accomplished.)

What struck me about this particular performer, as I watched him work, was how absolutely fearless he is.  It takes a lot of courage to do a cover of "Purple Rain" in a small club, and to do "A Song for You" when you're not Donny Hathaway or Whitney Houston. You just don't do that. But he did. If I had his courage, I might still be working as a singer.

My desire was not simply to be “another” interview. My desire was to get this performer to open up and show us what lies beneath the veneer that the world had seen of him on television. My rule of thumb was that if I had heard a question asked somewhere else, I would avoid it.

Apparently the pitch worked, because he said yes. The rub, however: rather than recording it sometime between Monday and Friday of this week, I had to do it on Sunday, which never happens. Especially when I had an interview already set for Friday. So essentially the days that constituted the rest of the week all bled from one into the other. On Wednesday night I landed the interview. On Thursday I had to (in addition to going to class) prep the interview that I conducted on Friday. After coming out of the interview on Friday, for Friday night through the entire day on Saturday, I was prepping the interview on Sunday. Sunday morning, first thing, it was head into the studio and set up for Guest X, who was due to arrive at 3pm.

It all went off without a hitch. I think it was one of the best interviews I’ve ever conducted. I came away with a great admiration for my subject, coupled with an almost big-brotherly feeling of protectiveness toward him. The music business is tough. Guest X is a poetic soul in the classic sense.  He’s about to take on one hell of a machine. And I’ve got his back.

So the interview with Guest X will be online within two weeks. It was orginally scheduled to air the week of 9/28, but I might switch things up and put it online next week instead. Obviously the picture with this image, blurred face and all, is a teaser. Can you figure out who Guest X is?