Stephen Deusner Interview (Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers)
Stephen Deusner is a freelance music journalist whose work appears in Pitchfork, Uncut, and many other publications. He has also contributed longform liner notes to recent reissues by Pylon and the Glands, but his most recent project is the book Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers.
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
I get asked this question from time to time by young writers, and I always feel like I have the most unsatisfying and unhelpful answer. I kinda stumbled into this profession and fell up the ladder. It wasn’t because I lacked any kind of ambition, but I really didn’t know how to do any of it. Right out of college I started writing book reviews for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, back when local newspapers had book review sections, but my first record review didn’t happen for a few years. I was working at a company in Memphis that specialized in chamber of commerce materials, and one day I struck up a conversation with the guy in the next cubicle. His name was Chris Herrington, and he left that company to take a gig at the Memphis Flyer as the music editor. When he asked if I wanted to write for him, I said of course. Free CDs in the mail! Hearing albums before the release date! Who wouldn’t want that job?
I kept writing for him even after I left Memphis and moved to Delaware. I remember seeing an open call for new writers at Pitchfork, so I wrote a longform review and submitted it (on Lucero, of all bands… not your typical Pitchfork fare). When I didn’t hear back for months, I just gave up on it. Why would Pitchfork want me as a writer? I was living in Delaware at the time, and it seemed like everything was happening in New York and Los Angeles—not just people making great music, but people writing about that music. But eventually I did hear back and got the gig, after which I just stubbornly stayed on staff for years and years.