PETER Grant has a rather uncomfortable audience with the legendary Lou Reed.
PETER Grant - aren't you dead ..?
It's not the most comforting of interview introductions - but then when you get the chance to speak to a laconic living legend, rock icon, artist, poet, theatrical producer and photographer you have to be prepared for the unusual.
And they don't come more enigmatic than native New Yorker Lou Reed who has spent four decades at the top of his profession.
This 62-year-old American singer-songwriter, who was awarded France's Order of Arts and Letters in 1992 to add to his countless collection of grammys and gold discs, is playing mind games.
Lou continues: "Peter Grant - he was Led Zeppelin's manager. And he's dead."
I give a sigh of light relief, but there is a deadly silence on the other end of the trans-Atlantic line before a very slow laugh emerges from Lou.
He is enjoying an afternoon meal in his New York city office while conducting a rare interview. Rare, because he doesn't like journalists - especially English ones..
His 'people' stateside clearly treat him with the respect such a megastar of massive global status deserves.
Lou laughs a little louder this time as he takes up the plot. And I manage a nervous laugh, too, because he has been known to butcher hacks with his acute ability to turn interviews - and interviewees - on their head.
Lou Reed is a tough man to tie down. He doesn't do what he doesn't want to do. He doesn't read reviews or press articles. He is busy on projects as diverse as electronic music to theatre productions and collaborations on the work of Edgar Allen Poe called POEtry.
