There is a wide array of ways to
communicate your story in written form.

With a decade of experience to draw from, Toro Town Storyworks is here to help you with just about every written task you can imagine
– including the following:

• Copywriting and editing

 • Social media content

• Press releases

• Feature stories

• Opinion pieces

• Book projects

• Interviews

Scroll down to read full-length interviews
with David Byrne, Guns N' Roses
and Grandaddy's Jason Lytle

Toro Town Storyworks' Mikkel Elbech has been the Senior Copywriter at Have Communications, Scandinavia's leading communications agency within arts & culture, since 2010.

He started his career as a freelance writer in 2006, working as a journalist for Denmark's biggest music magazine, GAFFA.

Hundreds of reviews and interviews were produced
– including five frontpage interview features.

What do you do when the person you are going to interview is about to release a double-disco-concept album about the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, created in collaboration with Fatboy Slim and twenty different singers?

That is what David Byrne did in 2010. And the album in question was Here Lies Love.

There was only one thing to do: Study.

Every interview should be preceded by a significant amount of research, ensuring that the interviewee is not presented with questions he or she has been asked a million times before.

But in this case, it was simply not enough to study up on David Byrne. It was necessary to learn all about Imelda Marcos. To try and grasp why he had been drawn so much to her that he wanted to make a massive concept album about her story. And, also, to be able to relay the story of Imelda and president Ferdinand Marcos in a few short paragraphs, if the readers were to make any sense of the ensuing interview.

As it happened, Byrne seemed delighted at the effort to study up on the Marcoses, proving to be a most enthusiastic and frequently laughing interview subject.

Before the interview, which took place at some fancy London hotel, some colleagues from Belgium had eagerly asked: “So, are you going to ask him about a Talking Heads reunion?” It was never even considered. But maybe there was only one interviewer that day who didn’t ask such a question.

Read the full interview here.

Five interviews have been conducted with Guns N’ Roses members so far: Two interviews with founding member and legendary guitarist Slash, as well as three interviews – and one photo session – with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, who served as lead guitarist from 2006 to 2014.

Slash

A museum buff on his love of wildlife, Angry Birds, Obama and Twitter (2013)

If you get ten minutes with one of the world’s biggest names in music – who also happens to have a quarter of a century’s worth of interview experience – ask him questions he hasn’t answered two hundred times already. That was the approach to this interview.

Hospitable Guitar Legend (2010)

The occasion for this interview was the release of Slash’s self-titled solo album, which featured a wide array of guest vocalists – from Ozzy Osbourne to Fergie, from Iggy Pop to Chris Cornell.

As such, collaborations with other musicians became a natural starting point for the interview, but it soon moved on to topics such as stage fright, doing cover tunes, Slash’s favorite Guns N’ Roses song, the concept of doing 17 interviews in one day, and, not least, what Slash called the perpetual fascination of the press to keep up the image of a feud between himself and Axl Rose.

Bumblefoot

The three interviews with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal chronicle the guitarist's somewhat tumultuous time in the band quite well.

The Same Car on a Bigger Road (2007)

The Continued Adventures (2010)

All I’ve Got Is Precious Time (2013)

The first one was done after he had been a member of Guns N’ Roses for about a year. The second one was right in the middle of a quite heavy touring schedule. And the third one took place less than a year before what would be his final show with the band.

While all three proved to be very interesting and pleasant exchanges, the third one stood out, as Ron chose to open up about being treated like “absolute shit” by the other members of the band and the necessity to “get a little violent” with them, as well as attempting suicide while on tour in 2011 – and wishing he had died in the car accident earlier that same year.

“You weren’t expecting all of this, were you,” he asked, and then added: “I wasn’t expecting to say it.”

The interview was followed up by a quite impromptu photo session, from which this photo originates.

Three entirely different interviews that are ultimately very similar in tone, due to Jason Lytle's personality shining through quite easily.

The Return of Melancholic Pop's Finest (2009)

Jason Lytle put an end to Grandaddy in 2006. Three years later, he released his first solo album, Yours Truly, The Commuter. This interview took place shortly before the release of the album, and it became, in all probability, the most extensive that Lytle will ever do. As such, it is divided into four chapters:

• Chapter one: Looking back on Grandaddy
• Chapter two: Connecting the past and the present
• Chapter three: Heroes, colleagues, passions and guilty pleasures
• Chapter four: Jason’s favorites

A Song For The Reluctant Ones (2013)

Sparklehorse frontman Mark Linkous passed away in 2010. To celebrate his memory and his music, a wide range of artists – including Jason Lytle, Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips – came together to record a tribute album. In this interview, Lytle shares his favorite memories of Linkous.

The Facebook Interview (2015)

The followers of Grandaddy’s official Facebook profile were asked this question: What’s the one interview question you’ve always wanted Jason Lytle to answer? More than 150 questions were posted. This interview presents the 24 best ones – along with Lytle’s insightful and open-hearted answers.