Lou Reed always had a standoffish reputation, and that seems to be confirmed with this newly discovered Lou Reed interview footage from 1987. Released by PBS as part of their Blank on Blank series, Reed shared some thoughts about The Beatles, The Doors, and his own music.
In the interview, Reed says, “I never liked the Beatles… I thought they were garbage. If you say, ‘Who did you like?’ I liked nobody.” He continues, saying, “From my point of view… the other stuff couldn’t come up to our ankles, not up to my kneecap, not up to my ankles, the level we were on, compared to everyone else. I mean they were just painfully stupid and pretentious, and when they did try to get, in quotes, ‘arty,’ it was worse than stupid rock & roll. What I mean by ‘stupid,’ I mean, like, The Doors.”
Talking about his own music, Reed felt that the Velvet Underground’s purpose was “to elevate the rock & roll song and take it where it hadn’t been taken before.” Ultimately, “what [he] wanted to do [was] write rock & roll that you could listen to as you got older, and it wouldn’t lose anything… It would be timeless, and the subject matter and the literacy of the lyrics.”
Watch the interview below: