After seeing Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney become the illustrious Superwolf as part of the McCabe’s 50th Anniversary Show, I decided to dig out an interview long since swallowed up by the Internet. Below is a Q&A from a now defunct magazine followed up a profile done a year later (for another defunct magazine). The intro to the Q&A isn’t my best, but I am happy with where the actual interview went.

From leading the various Palace projects (Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music) to his current stint performing under the Bonnie “Prince” Billy persona, Will Oldham never seemed to compromise his challenging music or disparate lyrics. For this reason (or, perhaps in contrast to this reason) his new Bonnie Billy album comes as such a surprise. Sings Greatest Palace Music finds Oldham revisiting some of his fan’s favorite compositions and reinterpreting them as Bonnie Billy. For newer fans it’s a slew of new songs and for older fans it’s Palace completely recontextualized into commercial country music. Like all of his projects, it’s a drastic leap from his past. And Oldham isn’t apologizing.
   Though one of the most renowned artists performing in the indie music scene, Oldham looks obtusely out of place in the luxurious suite at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, where he is currently conducting interviews. As a hotel employee brings in several platters for dinner, Oldham is confronted with the bill for the evening’s meal. “What do I do with this?” he asks perplexed.
Almost too snidely, the young attendant answers, “You can sign your name.”
-“And give it to you?”
-“Uh, Yeah.”
No tip appears to have been signed over, and the employee belligerently takes his leave.
As Oldham’s dinner slowly cools, the musician discusses not only his current album – Bonnie confronting the Palace repertoire – but also the state of independent music, working with Johnny Cash, and his aversion for empty chairs.

Antero Garcia: So you’ve gotten over your aversion to interviews?

Will Oldham: Everyone is a challenge. Everyone is different and we have different conversations. I got here yesterday and it was a good time to just decompress because New York was really really harsh. So many people and the time change and flying. Today I didn’t start until three and we’ll do interviews until 11 or 11:30. And then tomorrow I’m at KXLU and one other interview. Thursday I’m flying to Las Vegas to meet my girlfriend at a fashion convention – she sells clothes.

AG: Sounds busy, do you have any time to do some surfing while you’re out here?
WO: Yesterday wasn’t a very good day, it was cold and rainy and I heard tomorrow is a big storm. My friend gets back and he’s a good guy to go surfing with, so ideally tomorrow will be the storm and the next day we’ll go surfing all day. You surf?

AG: No, I kinda got this problem with swimming… I can’t do it.
WO: Really, you don’t swim?

AG: Nope, I’m like a lead pipe in the water.
WO: Wow. Where were you raised?
AG: In San Diego.
WO: Interesting. There’re nice beaches there. You like to put your feet in the water? Have you tried to swim?

AG: Yeah, it just isn’t going to happen.
WO: It WILL happen. You may not like it but you could make it happen. Someone should throw you in the ocean sometime… Because being in the water is one of the best things in the world. There are great things like a good nights sleep and great things like eating well and great things like records and movies, but swimming is above all of those things. That’s why I go surfing.

AG: Speaking of great records and movies, any fairly recent material you’ve been enjoying?
WO: I like that first Cat Power record and the last one. Dave Eggers … I didn’t like Heartbreaking Work [of Staggering Genius] but liked the other one…

AG: Hmm, I liked Heartbreaking Work more. I also really like the McSweeney’s stuff that Eggers has helped publish. Design-wise they all look solid.
WO: Yeah, the books look great and I didn’t know it was Eggers leading the ship…. It’s got that chair logo and it’s weird. A lot of people use chairs in art and it doesn’t mean anything to me, but so many people use it that it must mean something. Bill Callahan [(smog)] has used chairs on his records for years. Lots of people use empty chairs and I just don’t get it.

AG: Have you been to Eggers’ pirate store in San Francisco?
WO: Uh-huh. It was such a fun store to go into. There was one drawer that said “worries”… and it didn’t open.

AG: I know you’re a film buff too, anything you could recommend?
WO: Irreversible. It’s such a good movie – there’re some movies like Todd Solondz’s but they’re not good enough to merit being that dark. Irreversible is exciting as a movie.

AG: It’s not too gimmicky? Like would the movie work if it weren’t told backwards?
WO: It might still work, but that’s part of the form. It’s like would the Lincoln Memorial look good if Jerry Seinfeld was sitting there? It would still be kinda cool, but it wouldn’t be the same.

AG: … or just an empty chair!
WO: Yeah that would be my nightmare!

AG: Did you get caught up in any of the Oscar nominated movies?
WO: Really liked the Lord of the Rings movies. They showed the extended versions of the movie in the theaters, and I really liked the extended first one, but I fucked up and missed the second one, so I went and rented it.  The second one was a million times better extended. It was just a more satisfying movie. And then on the dvd they had a making of Gollum feature and watching that helped realize why the movie was so great: everybody giving credit to everybody else. It was a very team effort thing. Everybody complementing everyone else.  And it’s amazing how many people are into this. I went to see Return of the King like three weeks after it had come out in Baltimore at like one in the afternoon – and it’s packed! [laughs] All different ages and kinds of people. Nothing wrong with that, it’s great.

AG: Do books and movies have a big influence on your music?
WO: Movies do yeah, books not as much – the similarity between music and film being a time thing that the reader cant really control. Ideally you’re there until the end of it and the amount of people involved in the making of a record or movie and how important it is for everybody to contribute to what is going on is similar.

AG: How did you end up touring with Bjork on your last tour? Your music sounds different, but I think both of you share a similar aesthetic.
WO: Do you know the filmmaker Harmony Korine?

AG: Yeah, actually I was going to ask you about him. I was talking with David Pajo (Papa M) recently and Harmony Korine played your new album for him and was confused about what you did. Have you played him the album?
WO: I did briefly, but he was probably just being polite. We’ve been friends for a while and he’s made a bunch of films and has known Bjork for a while and introduced the two of us during the time she was in Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark. At one point he was like, “You should call Bjork.” We kept up correspondence and asked if I wanted to go on this trip. I agree; it’s a similar aesthetic if different genre.

AG: Would you want to record something with here sometime?
WO: I would like to and we talk about it… maybe we will.

AG: Do you ever try to work in a genre completely different from what you’re doing as Bonnie Billy?
WO: It depends on how you identify things as “completely different” – I see us [Bjork} as similar. Have you heard of Tweaker? It’s this guy, Chris Vrenna, who was a drummer and programmer for Nine Inch Nails and now he’s doing this solo thing as Tweaker. I wrote lyrics and sang on one song on his first album as well as on the one that’s coming out. And people would say that’s more like Bjork, it’s electronic.

AG: As far as the songs you recorded for Greatest Palace Music, how will you be performing these in a live setting?
WO: I don’t know what they’ll sound like the next time we take them on the road. I don’t think it’ll sound like this record, but in the spring we’ll have a big band, and my cousin who’s a piano prodigy will be there and maybe he can play some these piano parts.

AG: So did you arrange these songs in this new way?
WO: I made demos and sent them to one guy and he wrote these charts that Nashville players play. I’d heard of it before but had never seen it. We play them all the time live so it wasn’t anything different for me – it was different with these guys but something I was familiar with.

AG: Besides the new Bonnie “Prince” Billy record you also released the Seafarers Music EP. How did you end up doing that?
WO: The guy wrote me and edited in some music for a movie I had done a long time ago. He wanted permission but I couldn’t, since it was for another movie. The music worked, but he still couldn’t use it, so I said maybe I could make new music for it. He was excited and I knew what he was going for so we did the music for it.

AG: This is one of the few releases you’ve done under your own name.
WO: The guy asked me. He asked Will to do it. If he asked Bonnie to do it Bonnie would have recorded it.

AG: The EP reminds me a lot of John Fahey’s later recordings, were you a fan?
WO: Not as much of the later things… even some of the middle stuff. In terms of approach, it was coming from Mick Turner’s music.

AG: Speaking of Mick Turner, how did you and he get involved in doing Get on Jolly? Had you read Tagore’s work before the project?
WO: I bought the book Gitanjali because it looked good – like a great looking book I had found for 25 cents and started reading it and really liked it. Mick and I had talked about making music and he’d send me sketches and I thought what kind of words can go with this. It’s gotta be something kind of looped. So what else is looped and repeated? Well devotional kinds of things but you don’t want it strictly religious. The Tagore poems are pretty earthy and skip around. We changed it around so it’s not completely referential to Tagore.

AG: Are you conscious of your audience when writing out songs?
WO: I always have been, just because the songs are made for the audience. But usually only so much as I can call myself a part of that audience. I can make any sort of judgment call, but its worthless without the audience. I hope people like it

AG: When I was talking with David Pajo, he said you were one of the main reasons he decided to record Papa M songs where he sings.
WO: I think he should sing less. I do think that David is unparalleled at putting together intricate instrumental things. And singing, he’s still at a point where he’s paralleled. Know what I mean?

AG: I think so. As much as I like Whatever, Mortal it’s not my favorite Papa M release.
WO: He has done some of the best records ever made and then these new records are not as good as the old records because he’s 30 something years old and still learning to sing. When he was playing with Stereolab and King Kong it was a time I told him he shouldn’t play with so many people. It makes me angry. Why is he spending so much time with these bands – and God knows about Zwan? It was before he was Papa M. Later I was glad when he did the “Last Caress” cover and the Papa M Sings! EP, but the last album … I just feel like he wasn’t challenging himself – he’s hard on himself and for him making records can be a difficult process. Sometimes he does things that are easier and they’re not as great. I think parts of Whatever, Mortal are really great and some parts I thought he should have been harder on himself because it would have been fucking stellar.

AG: It was a pretty big shift from Live from a Shark Cage, which got him the most attention for Papa M.
WO: Completely shifted, yeah. When you talk to him he hears what he wants to hear. I’ll say that sounds good and he’ll feel like I’m telling him to do just that.

AG: David said he’s planning on doing another record. Would you work with him again for the next Papa M full length?
WO: I never talk about this much. It depends. With Ease Down the Road it was good, we worked really hard. Whatever, Mortal it was like, ‘You want to come and help me work on this?’ I came and played some stuff, did a few overdubs and some mixing and I left. He said we produced a record together and I was like, “Dude, we didn’t. I was just there for a little bit. It’s cool but not true.” I feel like I’d have to put my foot down a little harder if we do something else. There’s no reason he isn’t releasing the best music ever made. He’s got it inside him musically and emotionally. It’s about control. There were times with this record that were very difficult and times that were a pleasure because I was surrounded by such talented people with great musical ideas inside.

AG: Did Johnny Cash’s cover of your song “I see a Darkness” have an influence on you going back to the Palace songs?
WO: Maybe to some extent everything has an influence. I do know especially in the recording process. We recorded “I See a Darkness” at Rick Rubins’ house a couple of blocks from here. But the main engineer had been an engineer who’s worked with Johnny Cash for years. He’s probably in his 60s. Seeing how all these guys were approaching the music and the session was different from anything else I had done before. Just as it was with the first Tweaker session. When we did Master and Everyone we used a Nashville guy. He said we could make a record in the classic style on the musician and arranging level in this super streamlined level, without sacrificing expression or fun.

AG: How did the cover come about?
WO: My friend Matt Sweeney met Rick Rubin at a show and they said they had already cut it. Rick came to a show and asked if I wanted to play on it, and I asked if I could meet Johnny Cash. Rick introduced me as the guy who wrote “that song” and Johnny said, “I don’t know, I wasn’t happy with my vocal performance on that song, lets do that again.” And that’s probably one of the reasons it made it on the record, since there’s so many fucking outtakes.

AG: What really interested me about the cover is how Cash took a song not necessarily about death and made it sounds like it could be about nothing else but death. It’s kind of the same thing he did with “Hurt,” which was such a big hit for him on his last album.
WO: Not to blow my own crotch too much, but it was cool cause Rick Rubin was like, “It’s too bad you named your record “I See a Darkness” because it would have a made a good title for this one. And it’s true. What was that album called? “Solitary Man”? You know that is weird it’s a song about all these women.

AG: How’d you land a room at the Chateau Marmont?
WO: I have a friend who is friends with the manager. I thought it would be fun and fairly cheap. I have it for the night but I’m not going to stay here. I’m house sitting for a friend with three dogs. But that’s part of this. It’s fun. It’s like making this record with these Nashville dudes and bringing family and friends to meet them, and now you’ve never seen the Chateau and so you can come on up. I saw Liv Tyler and Leiv Schrieber. They were just in the lobby while I was checking in. I listened to Leiv Schrieber say what room he was in so maybe I’ll put my record by his door.

AG: That must be kind of a trip to see someone like Liv Tyler in the lobby.
WO: I was just thinking, “She doesn’t t look so fat”  – all the gossip magazines have been saying she looks fat. I saw pictures where she was headed toward Kirstie Alley-land, but she looked healthy.

AG: I found an interview online with John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats in which he says, “I think that Will Oldham should be asked ‘Why have you assumed this Southern persona? Why this kind of music for you? Why do you write these songs that are laden with these profanities -which seem to insult people from an entire region of the country?’ You know?”
WO: [Long pause] I don’t know … after the first record people said I had this country sound and perpetually saying it was like old country. And with those older records we thought that was bizarre. It wasn’t anything weird I don’t feel kinship with the south or southern literature or film anymore than I would Armenian music or films. It’d be like… I’m not sure… who does he think he is? A fucking rain cloud? That’s what he is, a fucking gray rain cloud with rain cloud shoes. You can’t say anything to it because it doesn’t make any sense.

AG: I see … I was –
WO: He impresses me as a man with a lot of energy and has to say something about everything. Does he write a lot? Have a web diary or something?
AG: Yeah, he has his own blog that is updated pretty frequently, www.lastplanetojakarta.com

AG: Besides Palace, are there any other artists you would go back and record as Bonnie Billy?
WO: Hmmm….Phil Ochs or Glen Danzig or Bob Marley, or Bruce Springsteen.

AG: Bonnie plays the Boss!
WO: Yeah! fucking A. … I like to play my older brothers songs too…

AG: You’ve said you grew up listening to the ‘80s underground, stuff like Husker Du. Does that still have an influence on your music?
WO: I think they were a huge influence. That whole time was a huge influence. Not only that music then, but being able to have a lot of human contact with those people and seeing how they developed. The way the underground functioned and matured. Where is Bob Mould now? Where is Paul Westerberg now? Where is Steve Albini now? Where is Ian Mckaye now? Where is my brother now?

AG: I recently talked with Ian Svenonius of Weird War he talked about how much the music scene has changed since ‘80s. Like the whole underground network isn’t really there anymore.
WO: He’s another big talker, but sounds like he has more to say than the Mountain Goats guy. He wrote this fucking great article in Index on how Paul McCartney is a great Beatle. I’ll never buy a McCartney CD but I’ll never think ill of him again. I don’t know if Ian is the same age as me or older or younger but we’re getting old. I’m sure there’s an underground. It’s not the same but I think its similar and he’s still an active part of it. I don’t know if he or I could be anything else. There are certain people in the ‘80s who were so great in the underground they could never be anything else.

AG: So you feel a close connection with the ‘80s punk movement. What about your contemporaries that play in the alt-country genre?
WO: No, I don’t. I feel like I’m more comfortable in the room with or listening to Ian’s records or Bjork records. I don’t know if a style makes a record.
AND THE SEQUEL!

Will Oldham profile [SORRY, I LOST THE ORIGINAL HEADLINE. I BET IT WAS GREAT]

By Antero Garcia

Will Oldham helped convince me to swim. A southern California native for my entire life, I feared water like the plague. I sank like a lead pipe in friend’s swimming pools and stayed as far away from the beach as possible.
It was Oldham’s bursts of enthusiasm for the water that helped me put my qualms at ease and mildly learned to doggy-paddle. He told me: “Someone should throw you in the ocean sometime… Because being in the water is one of the best things in the world. There are great things like a good nights sleep and great things like eating well and great things like records and movies, but swimming is above all of those things. That’s why I go surfing.”
That was a year ago when Oldham was staying at the posh Chateau Marmont in promotion for his then latest record– a lavishly created concoction of the songwriter’s songs from the early ‘90s under the Palace moniker. Currently, Oldham is waiting out the rain-sullied waters to hit the Los Angeles beaches before debuting songs from his latest album, Superwolf, out on January 25.

This time around, Oldham’s staying with friends and living a more modest Angeleno experience than room service and B-movie star watching. He’s decided to unveil his songs to a small audience at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, a venue he became enamored with earlier this year after seeing folk artists Espers play a knockout set at the quirky locale.
It’s a largely accepted fact among Oldham fans that he is a difficult man to talk to.  Although he seemed loquacious when discussing the ocean, he’s much more cautious when strangers try to broach other subjects or poke holes into his quiet past. In many ways, Oldham tries to let his music speak for him, but even that can be a clattering, difficult experience. Enter Bonnie Billy.

For most of Oldham’s latest recordings, he writes under the persona of Bonnie Billy, apparently deemed a “Prince” somewhere down the line.

“It’s easier to write,” Oldham explains about releasing music as Bonnie. “It makes it less limited because I don’t have to answer for it.”

For his latest “Bonnie Billy” album, Oldham worked along side guitarists (and former member of Zwan) Matt Sweeny. Oldham would write lyrics that Sweeny fit to music. The result is an oceanic opus; Superwolf finds Oldham’s haunting voice guiding a relationship between dangerous curves. The album is a travel-weary vessel not likely to reach its destination. At one point Oldham sings, “There is no God but God. God in your body, which is mine.”
And is Oldham a religious person?
“What do you mean? Do I believe in Jesus?” Oldham asks carefully. “No, I don’t believe in Jesus, no.”
He dodges specifics about feelings of spirituality and hesitant to make any firm political stance. And yet, the concrete specifics and lingering ambiguity is exactly what imbues Oldham’s folk songs with so much emotional depth. The songs’ alacrity led to a tribute album to the songwriter released last year helmed by artists like Iron & Wine and Calexico.
“Oh yeah,” Oldham quips, as if he had forgotten of the release, titled I am a Cold Rock. I am Dull Grass. “I didn’t think I had an interest in listening to it and the label sent me some copies so I listened to it. I thought it sounded really good. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but I did.”
Technically, the album is the second tribute to Oldham’s extensive discography. Last year’s album found Bonnie revisiting Oldham’s catalog of songs under the Palace name. Bonnie reinterpreted the stripped down and bleak songs into lusciously arranged commercially viable country standards.

In addition to Bonnie’s interpretation of Oldham’s past recordings, last year found Oldham acting in the upcoming film The Guatemalan Handshake, tour extensively with label mate Joanna Newsom, and even non-ironically cover a Mariah Carey song (“Can’t Take That Away” “I like that song a lot,” he explained).
As for continuing to make music, Oldham explains that his main goal is to make something sincere, at least from Bonnie’s perspective. He’s often frustrated with artists that rely on gimmicks to promote their albums.

“When people write on their records this was all recorded live or all recorded using analog equipment it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s not really very interesting. I don’t really give a shit,’” he says matter of factly. “Are you making an excuse for the record? Who gives a shit? You should make the record you want to make.”

Of course, nothing is ever cut and dry in Oldham’s (or Bonnie’s) world:

“At the same time, I have done concepts. I know that for me there are those kinds of concepts behind most of my recordings. We make the record the way we make them and then we present the song to you and the audience. The concept is nothing that we would want to share.”

Even keeping aspects of his music private, Oldham seems the opposite of pushing any kind of agenda. His songs don’t directly address current events, and the songwriter carefully considers what kind of a role his art inhabits in such tenacious times.

“Gosh, it seems like a good thing for people to encourage education and community,” he stresses as carefully as possible. “To the extent to which those things fall under advocacy, I think that’s important: just being sure your friend, your family, your neighbor is educated because you care about them and that the communication lines are open between people.”

And do either Oldham or Bonnie “Prince” Billy think those communication lines are open?

“That’s a good question. I think there are a lot of people trying really really hard and that is so inspiring. “

Oldham’s sincerity and ability to instill meaning into even the smallest couplet is what makes his prolific catalog also sincerely profound. It’s also what weaned me into a water lover. After his McCabe’s performance, Oldham congratulates me for the third time on my swimming accomplishment; a firm handshake from the man behind the Bonnie moniker.