Nina Blackwood is best known as one of MTV’s original veejays back when the “M” in MTV still stood for music. Blackwood and her fellow veejays transformed popular music and popular culture in the 1980s and collectively are as important as the musicians were during the era. Blackwood has also established herself as one of the best rock interviewers of all time, so as an interviewer, it was quite an honor to talk to her. Blackwood proved to be just as excellent an interviewee and she was an interviewer. Her answers are candid and insightful and shed light onto one of rock music’s greatest eras.
Thom: Let’s start with what you are doing now.
Nina: Well I am on Sirius XM 80’s at 8 seven days a week and I have two syndicated shows through United Stations radio Network. One is Absolutely 80s and the other is New Wave Nation. This summer I hosted Nina Blackwood presents at the Freemont Experience in Las Vegas, we hosted concerts every other weekend and this weekend it’s going to be Howard Jones. So I have been really busy.
Thom: I guess you have! I love Howard Jones, he is one of my favorite artists from the 1980s, do you know him personally?
Nina: Oh yes, he is one of the kindest souls you will ever meet. Exactly what his music signifies, that is what he is like in person. Just a really nice guy, I am really looking forward to seeing him. It’s been awhile, I have known him since the early days.
Thom: That leads into my next question, the early days of MTV. I suppose you are sick of answering some of these questions but people really loved MTV back in the 1980s. When you started there, did you have any sense that it would be a long-term thing or that it would become so big?
Nina: I thought that video music would catch on but a twenty-four hour station that played just music videos, that was anybody’s guess. Everybody from the executives to the veejays, it was a gamble. When they started out and were trying to get advertisers people would say ‘a twenty four hour what?’ and then it took off like wildfire.
Thom: Did the veejays ever have a say as to what videos were played?
Nina: The veejays did not, we wanted to but the station had an acquisition committee that decided what would be played on the channel. We could choose to talk more about bands we liked, for instance when INXS came out they were a band that I particularly liked so when I talked about their videos, I might give it a little more emphasis. But as far as picking the music, we did not have any say at all.
Thom: Did you have to sit through your entire shift or just record your parts?
Nina: We just did what we called the wraparounds.
Thom: You have always mentioned Frank Zappa when asked what your worst interview experience was but you never go into detail and the video is not on YouTube.
Nina: I am glad of that! It was one of the first concert events on the network with a veejay and everything. Frank Zappa played at The Palladium every year for a Halloween show. They had me host the event and he was just as condescending and as rude as possible to me. In hindsight they probably should have put J.J Jackson with him. I have compared it to a bully on a playground beating up a girl. It wasn’t funny, he just did it for his own amusement and it was awful. It was just a horrible experience.
Thom: That’s a shame because even though you were the most attractive veejay on MTV, you knew your music, you didn’t come off as unintelligent.
Nina: It had nothing to do with that, it was just how he was, condescending for his own amusement. He wound up looking like a jerk when it was all said and done. He thought he was being cool but he wasn’t.
Thom: On the other end of the spectrum, did anyone surprise you at how nice and humble they were in spite of being a huge star?
Nina: With the exception of Zappa, everybody I have interviewed has been wonderful. Some people are shyer than others and you have to draw them out, but other than Zappa, they have all been wonderful experiences and I have interviewed a lot of people. Interviewing is one of the things I enjoy doing the most.
Thom: And Nina, your interviews are great.
Nina: Well thanks.
Thom: You were right in the thick of things at Live Aid in Philadelphia.
Nina: That was a historic event and we worked hard on the coverage. When you look back at who performed there it was amazing, all of us felt very fortunate to be a part of it.
Thom: How much of the performances did you even get to see?
Nina: That’s a good question, because where we were set up was parallel to the main stage, so if we wanted to see we had to bend over a railing. I actually wound up seeing more of the performances from England because we saw them on the monitor. We didn’t have a good vantage point in Philadelphia.
Thom: With all the natural disasters and things going on in the world are you surprised they never tried to put on a concert of that magnitude again?
Nina: Well Bob Geldoff tried it six years ago with Live 8, but Live Aid was a mammoth undertaking in two countries. I’m not surprised nobody has tried it since. There have been big concerts, like the concert for 9/11, but something on that global a scale is really hard to pull off. I think it aged Sir Bob Geldof by ten years. (laughs) I love Bob Geldof.
Thom: What is the stuff you listen to on your personal time?
Nina: I love music from that era. I love U2, I loved them even before they were on MTV. Mellencamp, I have loved following his career. Bruce Springsteen, Chrissy Hynde and The Pretenders. I am a huge fan of Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. Even though he isn’t from the 80s, my favorite of all time is Ray Davies and The Kinks. Ray Davies is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Thom: I saw The Kinks live three times, what an amazing band they were live.
Nina: Oh yeah, Ray Davies can do no wrong in my eyes.
Thom: “One For the Road” is one of the greatest live albums of all time, not a bad second on that one.
Nina: Well if Ray Davies only wrote “Waterloo Sunset” that would be enough. It is a brilliant piece of music. I love The Kinks
Thom: Well here is the question you must be sick of answering. What the heck happened to MTV? It used to be a great station, a wonderful avenue for new music. Now it’s just awful and people from my generation wish they would change the name and stop being associated with such an important part of our youth.
Nina: It’s funny you say that because a friend of mine and I were on vacation recently and he asked me why they didn’t just change the name. I guess even though it has nothing to do with music it is still a name that is internationally known. I don’t know what happened. Never in a million years would I have dreamed they would have drifted so far away from music. I’m sorry but I just can’t get behind the garbage that is on there. I don’t like reality television in the first place. It’s not reality and it shows humans at their worst. I guess Jersey Shore is their most successful program of all time, so from a business standpoint I guess they are doing well, but I don’t in any way feel associated with MTV as it is now. It just isn’t my cup of tea.
Thom: Well you have to wonder if they will ever go back to the basics. Sometimes things come back in style, but right now, I just think they ruined a good thing.
Nina: I was long gone before they went in that direction, but who knows. It comes down to money, somebody watches that crap. I watched MTV not for the television aspect, it was the music. MTV was like an FM station on television. I don’t know why they have the VMAs, they don’t show music videos anymore.
Thom: That has become a reality show as well.
Nina: I know, the big story on the VMAs this year was whether Lady Gaga was wearing a fake penis. Come on! I realize she is an artist, but that is ridiculous. I like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and Adele, but MTV doesn’t break artist anymore.
Thom: Satellite radio seems to be filling that void.
Nina: I agree, I think satellite radio is great and I am not getting paid to say that.
Thom: Well thanks Nina for all the great years and making my youth a lot better.
Nina: Thanks Thom, that was very nice and I wish you luck in all you do and thanks for thinking of me.
We would like to thank Danny Sheridan from the Music Group for helping to set up the interview with Nina. For more information on everything Nina Blackwood, please go to: http://angellesmusic.com/ninablackwood/index.html.
