I’ve heard him interviewed before, by LaLa, IIRC, and I don’t think he’s being deliberately pretentious, I think he’s very dry, and that ‘dryness’ sometimes gets misinterpreted; I’ve worked with a bloke at three different firms over thirty-odd years, and there’s a similarity, Mike has really upset some people who took things he said at face value, when he’s actually joking, but it’s very difficult to tell sometimes!
I heard the interview while driving down to Bath for an X-Ray, and I was killing myself laughing at Stewart, he was really having problems. Sometimes I don’t think he really gets the joke, and is looking for an ulterior motive, when none actually exists.
Not as difficult an interview as one I heard involving J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr; monosyllabic barely covers it, and I think that might have been LaLa as well.