Eminem Covers Jan/Feb Issue Of Complex
In the issue Eminem talks music, drugs, and porn –> my favorite topics!
CLICK HERE to watch behind~the~scenes footage of the cover shoot.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
You’ve had about five months to sit with your “comeback,” Relapse. What are your feelings about it now?
Eminem: I was happy with it when I put it out—but honestly, I haven’t given it too much thought since then because I’ve been so busy working on Relapse 2.
So the sequel won’t reflect your reaction to the first one and its reception?
Eminem: Well, when I finished Relapse, I had a whole album of material that didn’t make it that I wasn’t ready to throw away, so that was going to be Relapse 2. But then I got with Dre in Hawaii and started recording more, and now the new material has knocked out all the old songs. But yeah, the new material is definitely different. Making Relapse, I was still working the drugs out of my system, so there was a lot of…just jokey shit. It was a lot of punchline-y, funny, shock value—kind of going back to The Slim Shady LP. And that was cool, but I’ve kind of flipped the page. Now I’m going for songs instead of one-liners. I don’t want to make shit that you hear once and then the joke’s over; I want to make records that you could play a hundred times, a thousand times.
So you’re stone-sober these days?
Eminem: Yeah, it’ll be 18 months on the 20th [of October]. I realized I can’t touch anything, and that’s why I’m clean right now and why I’m going to stay clean. My brain just doesn’t know when to shut off. When I do something I have to do it all the way—that goes for music, with a high-hat, a snare drum, a rhyme, everything. I have to push it to the extreme. That’s how I realized I have addictive behavior. Somebody told me this once, that the thing that makes me bad is the same thing that makes me good at other things.
So much of your best music was born of your addiction, but your writing is clearly inspired again. Where do you draw inspiration from now?
Eminem: [Long pause.] I don’t know, that’s a hard question. As far as the everyday inspiration to write? I guess I draw it from everywhere—conversations, something I saw on TV, whatever. But as far as inspiration to make music? Of all the albums I’ve made, I still don’t feel like I’ve made the perfect album. I’ve had ones that touch on this, and others that touch on that, but never one that’s just perfect and fully relevant. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it, but I’m certainly trying every day.
So you’re saying you still buy porn on DVD, then?
Eminem: Um… PR: There’s a lot of free porn on the Internet, I think, is what Noah’s trying to tell you. Eminem: Oh, is there? Maybe I should go on the Internet.
[Laughs.] There’s something called Spankwire…
Eminem: What? Spankwire?
Imagine a YouTube of pornography.
Eminem: Really?! I know what I’m doing for the rest of the day when this shit is over. [Laughs.] You can look up anything?
Yup.
Eminem: Nostril fucking?
(cover source)
