No book about rock music in 2017 has generated more conversation than Lizzy Goodman’s Meet Me In The Bathroom, a wildly entertaining and unrepentantly gossipy oral history of the New York City music scene from 2001 to 2011.

Among the dozens of interview subjects in Goodman’s book is Sean Tillmann, a.k.a. Har Mar Superstar, the tongue-in-cheek R&B singer who became a tour mate and confidante for many of the scene’s kingpins, including Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Paul Banks of Interpol, and Jack White. Tillmann’s unique perspective — he was an insider with just enough perspective to take note of the party-addled insanity that many of those bands were living in — comes in handy in Meet Me In The Bathroom, particularly when it comes to funny/sad backstage anecdotes that helps to humanize the book’s subjects. Because I loved his stories, and knew him a bit as a fellow resident of the Minneapolis area, I invited Tillmann on the podcast to talk about Meet Me In The Bathroom and his memories of the era. He did not disappoint.