Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Greg Locke: Are you still living in Louisville? Will Oldham: Right now I’m in Louisville. I have a house in Louisville that I’ve been based out of for the last 10 years most of the time.

GL: Okay. I’d heard Philadelphia from a friend? Is that …

WO: I made a record there. I made the EP Ask Forgiveness there with Greg Weeks and Meg Biard in Philadelphia at a studio there. That’s the longest time I’ve ever spent in Philadelphia - a couple of weeks.

GL: I talked to a friend of yours, David Berman, recently and he said that you spend a lot of time in Nashville …

WO: Yep.

GL: From things I’ve read it seems that you get around - speaking of travel here. Aside from Louisville, where have you been spending your time lately?

WO: My mailing address lately has been in Sausalitio, California. I was living a national park - Marine Headlands National Seashore.

GL: Surfing or working or …

WO: I didn’t surf at all. There’s an arts center there and I got what is in the fine arts world called a residency. They gave me a residency there at a place called the Headlands Center for the Arts.

GL: Speaking of the arts, I recall seeing that you were cast in Kelly Reichart’s follow up to Old Joy; for our listeners, that’s a film you stared in two years ago. Did that film wrap up or what’s the status on that project?

WO: It’s wrapped up and had it’s premier at Cannes a couple of weeks ago on the 22nd of May. It’s called Wendy and Lucy. I had about a day’s worth of work on that and also did music that I think is the end titles music.

GL: Kelly seems like a talented, subtle storyteller …

WO: Yeah!

GL: How did you come to start working with her?

WO: Are you familiar with Alan Licht?

GL: No.

WO: He’s a musician and writer. He writes about music, but in a pretty special way in my mind. He’s a musician, though. He used to be in a band called Lovechild and then a band called Runon. He’s done lots of collaborations. Anyway, he’s a friend, and he’s a friend of Kelly’s and he lives in New York and she lives in New York. I think, if I remember right, which is unlikely, she was looking for music for her movie before Old Joy called Ode - a revisionist’s look at Billy Joe …

GL: Okay.

WO: [Kelly] was looking for music back then, and so somehow we got hooked up - I’m pretty sure through Alan. We became friends through working on that. I think when Old Joy came around she specifically called me because she knew that I like swimming and I like hot springs. I like to find hot springs when we’re on tour. So she called me to see if I knew of - she wanted to shoot that movie in North Carolina - she wanted to know if I knew of any hot springs in North Carolina. Good locations to shoot. We kept talking about that and then she sent me the book that Old Joy was based on and then eventually she was just like “Would you want to play one of these parts?” She wanted me to play the other part but then she couldn’t cast the Kurt part, so she put me in that part.

GL: Sticking with film for a moment, a lot of people - average listeners who maybe know your work - might not know it, but you have a history with film dating back to John Sayles’ classic 1987 film, Matewan, an Oscar-nominated film that you played a noticeable role in. I guess to the keen eye it would appear that you were and actor before you were known as a musician …

WO: That’s very much correct.

GL: What’s the history there? Did you come out of acting and, if so, how did you come to focus on music?

WO: From when I was little I pretty much assumed from what I could gather from what I could figure what acting was that that was what I wanted to do - this based on my experience from going to the theatre here in Louisville to going to the movies, especially, because I have a deep relationship as a movie-goer. So I studied that pretty intensely from when I was eight or nine until I was about 18. From there I did that movie, Matewan, and lots of theatre here in Louisville and other kinds of jobs. Matewan was really exciting because it maintained the illusion that acting was an interesting profession. Also during that time all my friends were involved with music. I wasn’t, but all my friends were in bands and playing shows and making records; it was a super exciting time for music because it was a time when popular music was at a low point - at it’s greatest point of disconnect with people who needed things form their music. Independent music was so exciting then. There was some interaction going on for us with some of the stuff that was going on in New York and Hoboken and Chicago and other places that we were traveling back then. I left Louisville and at one point and someone said “You should go to Los Angeles,” so I went to L.A. and started to learn what the life of a professional actor was truly like - being in movies and being on television and all that scene. It was very disheartening and I felt completely at a loss at that point because all this work I put in and … you know, it was something I just didn’t want to be involved with at all.

GL: Yeah. Wow. Unbelievable …

WO: So there was a couple of years where I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I started to play music and, through some rough times, I learned that through acting and writing and putting plays or film shoots together or observing it that I could combine all these thing I’d learned firsthand with music. Music audiences were an audience I had a far greater connection with. Music was always very solitary. As a music appreciator I was able to learn the mix of solitary and communal … back and forth and back and forth. So I gave up the acting and started gradually working on music. Then one summer I was living in Wilmington with a friend, Todd, he was in the music program there so we had access to the studio … we sent some music to labels … the … what’s that thing? Matador, Homestead, Drag City and Interscope, asking if they wanted to do a 7”. Matador and Homestead - even though I knew those guys since I was, whatever, 14 or 15 - they didn’t respond, but Drag City responded very positively and Interscope responded with a very kind letter saying that they didn’t do 7”s. I didn’t know what Interscope was … I was under a rock.

GL: I’m going to get to the new record here in a minute. I became a follower of yours when Ease Down the Road came out. I had I See a Darkness but it hadn’t really clicked with me yet. So sometime around 2001 I started really digging in and buying all the Palace stuff and explored all your old stuff and have since bought more of your records than I should probably admit to …

WO: [Laughs]

GL: There’s so much!

WO: [Laughs]

GL: Drag City has really been supportive of you. How have those guys played into your career, especially early on and then again when you were gaining new fans when Ease Down the Road came out.

WO: Yes. I can’t even express how vital Drag City has been to almost everything music-related I’ve done. They showed interest right away with doing a 7”, within a few months they were saying “So when do you want to do a record? When’s the record coming out?” I was like, “A record? Oh my God, a record! They want a record.” Within a month or two of the record coming out they sent me a royalty check for the 7”. The day I got that I decided that I wasn’t going to do many other kinds of work … at that time I was working for a guy here who would buy old houses and fix them up. I had tried to go to school a couple of times but gave that up when we had our first show in May or June of 1993 in Columbia, Missouri - Dan Koreztky of Drag City came to that show. As soon as we got off the stage he said “As long as you want to put out records, we’ll put our your records.” They’ve been essential and exciting because they’re constantly enthusiastic and receptive to ideas, as well as challenging to ideas. And they’re aggressive and passionate and obstinate in ways that I sympathize with. I’m speaking generally when I say “they” because there has been a rotating staff over the years; but essentially there has always been Dan Koretzky, Dan Osborne and Rian Murphy through the whole time I‘ve been with Drag City. And other people.

GL: Yeah, they do very good work …

WO: There’s a strong group of people there, specifically right now. Anyhow, there was a couple of years, to be brief of discrete or whatever, there was a couple of rough years at Drag City there at the end of the 90s that led me to go out - with no experience other than what I knew from working with Drag City - to start our own label, Palace Records, with my older brother and his band, The Anomoanon. For about a year and a half we put out our own records, then everything at Drag City got back in order and we’ve been holding on with them since then. Everyday, though, everyday we’re dealing with stuff. For the first five or six years - back before e-mail, of course - we would have daily conversations. Lengthy daily conversations … discussions and arguments. It was really exciting.

GL: I interviewed one of your fellow Drag City songwriters, Bill Callahan, last Spring after his Woke on a Whaleheart album came out. I mentioned that I spoke with David Berman of the Silver Jews recently … both guys are on your label …

WO: I sent Drag City my music in the first place because someone had given me the first Silver Jews 7”, the “Dime Map of the Reef” 7”, I guess. I liked everything. I liked the music, how it looked - it was visually beautiful. I hadn’t heard any Pavement at that point but I’d heard some Royal Trux.

GL: Well, I’m a fan of all three of you guys - Berman, Callahan and you. They both mentioned you when I talked to them, which is exciting for a geek like me - just to hear you guys talk about each other. Just the ideas of contemporaries in general is fun for me. Stephen Malkmus, who you kind of mentioned, won’t really talk about people in the media and I don’t think Dave [Berman] usually does either, so it was cool to hear him mention you.

WO: Yeah, definitely.

GL: Speaking of other musicians, it seems like you’ve kept certain people around for years - your brother for one. And I know you worked with Steve Albini once on Viva Last Blues …

WO: We did Arise, Therefore together, too …

GL: Yes, that’s right. I remember reading where Steve said that you don’t like to rehearse before recording; is that true? Is that still how you …

WO: It’s true to some extent. Every record is different. The new record … essentially … trying to remember here. I can’t remember. We rearranged all the songs when we got to Nashville. We went in, started, stopped, rearranged then went in the next day. For me, listening to my records in the future, I like listening to the musicians thinking on tape. It’s a selfish thing for me, so I can be excited. I really like the sound of that urgency and it gives me something to decode for years to come …

GL: There’s something about that approach that makes your recordings a document, too …

WO: Precisely. I think of a recording session as a super, super special event in my life. A Thanksgiving holiday or something, but extended. A time where I get to be with these people and make a record. The document of that is the record. Listening back I can think to when she did this or he did this. It helps records stay mysterious and exciting for me for a long time.

GL: What exactly is the story with the new album, Lie Down in the Light? It was like I heard about it out of nowhere one day and then two or less weeks later it was in my hands.

WO: Yeah, I’ve been fortunate with Drag City. I’ve never understood the rule of releasing the album to the press three months in advance. That’s the rule. I’ve just always thought, you know, what’s the fun of the release date? Don’t writers like the fun of the release date? I grew up where part of the fun of a record coming out was the release date. If the writers don’t want to be part of that fun then what good are they? What good is their experience and what good is their writing if they don’t even appreciate the thrill of a release date? I remember calling record stores and asking “Is it here yet? Is it here yet?”

GL: Yes! Yes! I know, me too!

WO: In general, writers have a bogus approach to writing reviews because they have to come up with something within 24 hours or a week of hearing something. Who is going to write something they can defend in that short period of time?

GL: Yeah.

WO: Also, I don’t like giving away records for free. Drag City is a profit splitting record label, so I make my living off of selling records, not advances or anything like that. So, ideally, the writers and anyone involved in the music world are going to be smart and interesting people who are part of the audience. If you give them your record then you lose that part of the audience. I hope that there are people who are active members of the audience who work within the music world - writers, promoters and everything. I don’t want them to be privileged over the rest of the audience. And now we have this added thing where as soon as one person has the record thousands of people can have it within, you know, an hour.

GL: Yeah, I know.

WO: Also, I like the artwork of a record. The narrative of getting a record. If someone is interested in the artist and knows that a record exists and you can get it and it’s out there, of course, you know, of course they’re going to get it. The idea with this album, is, I guess, that everyone gets the record on the same day. The release day is everybody’s release day, and not just people who go to record stores. A lot of people don’t even go to record stores. So it’s a new fangled way of reviving the excitement of a release day.

GL: I worked at record stores for nine years and I saw that excitement of release day die from the time I started to when I moved on …

WO: Yeah. We don’t have to accept that, we just have to find different practices.

GL: And there are websites now that compile every review a record and calculate a score. So I guess all these writers who turn these reviews around really quickly are deciding who should buy what. The idea of putting the album out quickly without any reviews circulating is great, I really love the idea. I’d been bugging Drag City for a while about you, so she kept me up to speed and I’ve thus been on the album from day one and really enjoying it. It’s so sweet and at times so happy, which is different for you - you’re known for darker music. What brought on the change from a darker album like I See a Darkness to Lie Down in the Light?

WO: Yeah. Well … wow! I guess there are two significant things that allowed the new record to sound the way it does. One is that there has to be a saturation point for expressing fatalism in bleak terms. There’s no reason why at a certain point you can be just as fatalistic but, you know, in less bleak terms. There’s also … I make these records with the idea that there’s an audience out there for the record. That’s the idea, that there’s an audience that can complete the experience of the songs. Over the last 15 years that has increasingly happened. I’ve found a really strong, really vibrant, really interesting, really rewarding audience - that’s something to be incredibly joyful and grateful about. That’s going to ideally find it’s way into the music eventually, something that expresses that the gratitude and support is strengthening and can be strengthening to an individual … and can be recycled back through the music to the listener who gave you that strength. The difference is that I know today - and I don’t expect this to last the rest of my life, and I don’t know how long that will be anyway - but today I fell infinitely, significantly, immensely less alone than say, when I See a Darkness was recorded 10 years ago or so. I think it’s important to reflect truth like that in the work that you do.

GL: And, really, your music isn’t really the kind of music that is easy to appreciate in full right away. It’s music that you need to live with and grow with - that makes it so it’s never a fickle art, but is something you have to stick with. And we’ve seen your fanbase grow so much in the last 10 years and continue to grow. And you said something in Surfing Magazine …

WO: Did I? [Laughing.]

GL: Yeah, I’m pulling out a weird one here. You said something about how when a person reaches a certain level of notoriety they sort of become public property …

WO: Right.

GL: But you seem to be really good at keeping your personal life obscured from the media and general public. Is that a conscious thing for you?

WO: Somehow I’ve worked it out so that I feel pretty much in the dark about my existence so much so that I know no one else will understand it more than I do - what goes on. I think part of it has been a subconscious goal. If the danger is to be vivisected to ensure that … you know, to make that impossible. With the end in mind, the goal is to keep working on music and keep working with people. It would be more of a challenged or just less possible and exciting if everything was an open book - if everything was available and all information and motivation was right there in a huge point font or something. It’s kind of self-perpetuating now. I’m completely mystified by my life most days and surprised by things that happen. That helps me keep going, you know. Like when someone says “How did you end up in ‘Trapped in the Closet’?” I just thinking, you know, I couldn’t really tell you in a way that makes sense. Things like sitting in a room with Johnny Cash and conducting his vocal performance on a song I wrote - the whole time that was happening I was just like “This isn’t the reality that I’m familiar with. This isn’t what I understand life to be, but I have to go with it and it becomes reality … but it’s not something I understand at all.”

GL: You’ve had your share of these experiences, too, from being in the Kanye West video to Junebug …

WO: Yes, it’s wild. These are all big, obvious things to a broader public. But I can say to someone like you that, similarly, when David Berman’s voice comes in at the end of “No More Workhorse Blues” on the Greatest Palace Music record … to me, when I hear his voice on there I’m just like “I’m not going to question it.” Every time I hear him I could think that I don’t deserve that or it shouldn’t have happened for it couldn’t have happened … but I don’t think that because that’s closing doors to things that could happen. If I say “That was real,” then it’s real and I didn’t deserve it, but I’m in such awe and wonder of it that I can continue to strive towards deserving it.

GL: We’ve mentioned David Berman multiple times here and he’s - just as far as plain words and lyrics go - he’s a favorite of mine and someone I follow closely …

WO: Yes!

GL: I asked him about Bright Flight, which he called “The weakling of the litter,” which is sad for me because that one has probably become my favorite of his. Anyhow, I thought I heard your voice pop in there on one of the songs. True?

WO: No. But I love that one. I don’t know why he thinks that’s a stinker. That might be my favorite. I did contribute guitar to Tanglewood Numbers, which was wild. At the end of the takes he’d say “That’s great. You’re a great guitar player!” And I was just like, “Oh, okay.”

GL: Do you have any plans to play shows in support of the new record?

WO: At a certain point the craziness was getting overwhelming, so I made a determination to not play any shows for a calendar year. The last show we played was a show here in Louisville where we played the whole of I See a Darkness …

GL: Yeah, I remember that. Wasn’t that for a comic book store?

WO: A video store. My friend Todd who was on the first Palace Brothers record and Slint before that runs the store and they were celebrating their 10-year anniversary. We opened for Blowfly …

GL: Man, we almost drove down for that. A friend and I …

WO: It was a really fun show. Part of that was just making it a celebration and also, because I kind of think the lame trend of doing their record and charging a lot of money for it is … if people like to do it then they should know that they’re seeing a weird reenactment that people are doing for various reasons, and we were doing it for fun. I think there was a $5 cover that went to charity. It was fun because we are all friends. Anyhow, the year is almost over and we’re gonna tour. We’re gonna go over to Europe and play Eastern Europe and Scandinavia and a Portuguese. But this record, Lie Down in the Light - which we abbreviate erroneously as LIDL, pronounced “little” - because it’s just a little record … there’s not a lot of touring or anything, it’s just coming out. This because I wanted a year off from touring and thinking about promotion and worrying about touring. You have to plan a tour three or six months in advance. I wanted the year to be about maybe making new music and living in the present, which I think a musician doesn’t get to do too often.

GL: Yeah, on that note, when I describe you to someone who doesn’t know your work, I often find myself using the expression “hardest working.” There’s always something going on with you, be it an EP, an album or a tour or something completely unpredictable. A friend and I were talking about this huge trail of records you’ve already left behind, wondering, you know, is this guy really going to keep this up for 40 years?

WO: [Laughs.] I work under the assumption that “it isn’t gonna happen.” That there will be some kind of end. Whether it’s the end of distributed music, the end of the world, the end of my consciousness and existence or the end of my physical and mental health. And if for some reason Drag City folded I’m not sure that I’d want to make records on a consistent basis with any other label because I’ve had experiences with other labels and it’s just not as rewarding. Really, I don’t know when or how, but by applying things in such different ways, I guess … you know, there are ways of refueling while participating at the same time. Like doing that Kanye thing with Zach Galifianakis or doing the record with Tortoise or the covers EP with Meg and Greg. It’s still getting to play and sing and record and learn from other people while just completely pretending that I’m not involved with writing music at all. That’s really freeing, and in a way it kind of allows space and breath into certain kinds of … into the writing time. For when the writing comes up for whatever reason.

GL: So having that mentality that you never know when the end is coming keeps it exciting, right? When the album actually is done and does come out it remains exciting. From Arise, Therefore to The Brave and the Bold or even Superwolf and the covers records - all albums very different from each other - you find a way to make it new every time.

WO: That’s so much thanks to everyone who is ready and willing to get into this - to collaborate. Even though I have fantasies and heroes - someone like Merle Haggard or Prince - I have fantasies to someday do the same thing all the time. Playing the same venue for two or three months running. Or putting out a record every six months: Bonny Billy sings the Ramones; or Bonny Billy sings Barry Manilow; Bonny Billy sings Richard Hell or whatever. How many of these will we sell? Oh, we might sell 1,000. Just getting into a groove at some point where it isn’t different for some reason or another. As I mentioned before, I might not have the capacity to - mentally or physically - to handle the different and the change, but still want to do something that’s musical.

GL: Yeah, great. My next question is out of place but is just something I’ve long wondered about pertaining to you work. There’s this long history between songwriters and politics and social commentary. Everyone knows that we’re all of the sudden living in this era that’s going to spawn a chapter or two of false history added to history books about things going on right now … and also I was just watching that Bob Dylan film that Julian Schnabel made … or, wait, not Julian but Todd Haynes …

WO: Yeah, Todd Haynes …

GL: There was a line in that film where someone said “Live your time” to a character about songwriting. Live your time. Is there anything you feel passionate about especially when writing? Are there any issues? Do you try to document your times in your work or is that something you consider much when writing?

WO: Yeah, it’s there. I think the goal of documenting your times in such a way that is useful to your peers that live in the times is potentially something that could be useful to people in the future who are living their times … because there are things that carry over. I get frustrated with … I make records more often than a lot of people do, but historically not more often than people have. I’m frustrated by the infrequent tendencies of most recording artists these days. There’s a tendency to make records on such an infrequent basis, which effectively documents nothing for the audience. You can’t get intrigued by an artist who makes a record every two or three years - you can have a relationship with that given record but you can’t have a relationship with the way the artist works - their process, their development - because you don’t have access to it. It’s super frustrating and often time it leads me to lose interest in someone who doesn’t have interest in fortifying their interest in me as an audience member. As a member of “these times,” I feel like - and I don’t impose this responsibility on anyone else - but I feel a responsibility to document a narrative with at the very least my perception of music … not that my perception is special in any other way than that I pay attention. Lots of different kinds of music are very important to me - and lots of musicians. By working with people who to me are the great - whether it’s my brothers or Matt Sweeney or Steve Albini or whoever - ideally it both reveals to people right now who they live amongst - it reminds that there is no shortage of incredible persons living, breathing and working amongst us. But it also shows people in the future who was around and what they were doing - if only for a weekend or a week or a day or a show. And politics and religion are … [sigh] … To get into something specific about politics or religion is to assume that we as citizens or as subjects or whatever have anything resembling fair perspective on those issues, and I don’t believe that we do. I don’t believe that we do to the extent that we can comment definitively. I’m a firm believer in the exception proving the rule, and sometimes it gets too strong and you do … you do … you need to make some sort of comment about the state of things morally or politically - but the rule is to fortify the foundation of everyone’s believe system … fortify the things that you fell will help people make better decisions in the future, rather than guiding it.

GL: Whoa, I just realized that we’re about out of time. I should ask you before we go if there’s anything you want to talk about or anything you want to mention. Any secrets you want to tell us?

WO: We’re gonna do these shooooows and … I don’t. Shooooows. I don’t remem … you know … I don’t have massive RAM. I can only think in specific terms at any given moment.

GL: Well are there any projects or bands? Music stuff …

WO: Yeah, I just practiced last night with this local sort of bluegrass instrumentation band that my friend Oscar has put together for this show here in Louisville at the end of July at this guy’s lake, then we’re gonna take that band to San Francisco in October. That was my first practice with this band and there will only be two bands with this show - so it’s exciting. Oh, and then I hope to - since I spent a year away from playing out - I hope to … ehh … I hope to record again. This was a good year for writing time, so I hope to record again. Then I hope to do the longest tour of my life next year - longer than any I’ve done and any I’ll ever do again … so I can say one time we played almost everywhere.

GL: You had a live album earlier this year, right? Wilding in the West. Is that import only, because I was only able to find an import version …

WO: My brother Paul came out and recorded some shows in California then sent the tapes to Neil Haggerty to mix and, uhh, create … to create a record using his wizardry or warlockery. And he did it. Part of the destination for that was Spunk in Australia … and other Japanese and Pacific Rims labels, sort of as a way - by giving them an exclusive release - it was a way to say “thank you.” So, yeah, it’s available as as an import only. Probably the third of the trilogy of live records is called Is It the Sea, which will come out on the Domino label later this year. It’s a live record from a tour I did … I can’t remember when … but it was in Scotland and it was funded by the Scottish Council for the Arts. Me and drummer Alex Nielson playing with a Celtic traditional band called Harum Scarum. We toured Scotland and Ireland playing these slightly different sounding versions of a bunch of songs.

GL: I really like how the songs are so different on your live albums. The songs from Master and Everyone, for example, are really fleshed out on the live records.

WO: Yeah, and that’s kind of why I like touring. I do like touring and playing a lot but it’s impossible to play anywhere near everywhere in the U.S. in a year and do it in a way that I think is satisfying to both the performers and audience. But we do get a lot out of the way we do it. The Drag City lie record actually came out on C-Note … they could be … I don’t know … I love them but I don’t know what others think of them. If someone in Sicily is thinking “I wish he could come so Sicily” he could then hear the live album and say “I’m so glad he didn’t come to Sicily.”

GL: These guys like Dave Matthews keep putting out the same live album over and over again. Yours are much more so essential to fans …

WO: Yeah, Bob Seger has two live albums and I always get ‘em mixed up because they aren’t essentially different in any way.

GL: We’re out of time but I definitely recommend the new album to anyone listening or reading; it’s getting some good reviews and …

WO: Hopefully it deserves more good listens than it does good reviews …

GL: Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Will!

WO: Yeah. Thank you!