I think it's safe to say that Mickey Rourke just doesn't give a f--- about things like health code violations.
Kurt Loder's here today dressed head-to-toe in black, ready for business. Or ready to interview Mickey Rourke and director Darren Aronofsky to promote their latest film, "The Wrestler," which critics are already calling his greatest performance ever and a definite Oscar front-runner. That's why Mickey's got more of a spring in his step than usual. Sure, he's got blond hair extensions, a tiny handbag dog, and glasses that might have been borrowed from Elton John might, but don't get it twisted: Mickey Rourke is not a dude to be messed with.
Check out Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky in the newsroom, after the jump!
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MTV has had quite a lengthy and, um, interesting relationship with Mr. W. Axl Rose — one that has spanned decades, musical genres (metal, pseudo-industrial, sorta rap-rock) and, of course, cornrows.
Our cameras have been there at basically every step of Rose's career: from Guns N' Roses' first appearance on "Headbangers Ball" in 1987 to their ascent to legendary status in '91 and then through the bevy of beefs, arrests and in-band bickering that eventually led to their demise. And, for the most part, one man has been in front of (or beside) those cameras: Kurt Loder.
So after combing our vaults to find the most Awesome Axl Moments on MTV, we decided to sit down with Kurt to get his take on the man himself — and luckily, he also had more than a few truly excellent Axl stories to share with us before the release of Chinese Democracy.
(More of Kurt's Axl stories, after the jump!)
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In the latest edition of "The Loder Files," we head back to 1994, when Kurt Loder spoke with Courtney Love in the wake of Kurt Cobain's suicide.
She talked about the long -- and nearly impossible -- road to recovering from her husband's death: "I don't know, I haven't processed things. I'm just working...I'm putting one foot in front of the other but I'm numb."
Love also talked about their daughter Frances Bean, who was only two years old when Cobain took his own life. "He prayed every night," she told Loder, surprising many Nirvana fans. "He taught our daughter how to pray." She wonders aloud if maybe having a son would have been even harder, since she feels that "the male progeny of a dead celebrity I think might have a harder time."
But most surreal of all is the moment when Love admits how hard it is to help a toddler process the death of her incredibly famous father. "Daddy's a little like Barney," she says, "because he's on TV. And there's videos of Daddy, so we can see Daddy on TV."
From Eminem to Ice Cube and Prince, check out Loder's interviews from the MTV News vault, in The Loder Files. More rolling out soon...
Hey, remember last week how we told you about The Loder Files? Those amazing moments in the MTV News archives where the legendary Kurt Loder (and still on top of his game, we might add) did his cool, smokey-voiced everyman interviews with some of the most interesting figures in music?
Yeah, well, we've arrived at Week 2 of The Loder Files and this one's crazygood. It's Kurt Loder at the home of a 20-year old Ice Cube (um, not in Compton but nearby), in 1989 (NINETEEN EIGHTY NINE!), right after the release of Straight Outta Compton.
Kurt and Cube talk about success, ride around the 'hood in Cube's jeep, and man, look at that cellphone! They were flossin'!
Also, Kurt and MTV News superproducer Tami Katzoff chose Ice Cube this week to coincide with the MTV-wide kickoff of the 20th Anniversary celebration of Yo! MTV Raps all month. Go to yo.mtv.com for more.
So one of the great pleasures of working at MTV is that my office is like 15 feet away from the office of Kurt Loder, who probably doesn't like to be called an ageless legend but DUDE IS TOTALLY AN AGELESS LEGEND. Like, when you and your friends sit around and bitch about how MTV doesn't play videos anymore, or how you want your old MTV back - THOSE WERE THE KURT LODER DAYS, MAN.
So anyway, Kurt's been on the movie tip for a while now, and still pleasantly says hello in the hallways and the john and the elevator even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't know who I am, even after five years of working here (I am not Aziz Ansari, FYI). But there are hundreds of excellent interviews he's done over the years, and starting today, and every week thereafter, he and MTV News super-producer Tami Katzoff will be unearthing clips from the archives, and Kurt will pen brilliant prose reflecting on funny and sometimes awkward or cool moments.
It's called The Loder Files, and the first installment is a 1999 interview with Prince. Click the link for Kurt's reflections, and check out a little clip from the original interview below.
