If you’re driven to be a truth-teller, you might, at some point, find yourself blacklisted. I’ve only been blacklisted once (that I know of), and it was after I did an interview with a band that went very, very south. I wove what happened into the article — a risk to be sure, and one that was met with both praise and a smidge of industry blacklisting. (In retrospect, it could’ve been way, way worse. But I had never dealt with that at the time, and the whole ordeal made me want to disappear into the nearest cave.) The thing about being blacklisted, though, is that while it absolutely sucks in the moment, it is nonetheless a defining moment. It lets you know who your real friends are, and where you should go moving forward.