Our friend Randall Roberts, music editor for LA Weekly and former RFT staffer recently got a rare chance to sit down with an unusually relaxed Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy, at a cafe in LA for an early evening interview.
Here's how it begins:
In the Moroccan-tiled patio of downtown L.A.'s Hotel Figueroa, Will Oldham and a half-dozen friends and acquaintances have been drinking for a few hours now. One person's already gone to puke and returned to continue drinking. RTX singer Jennifer Herrema, who's on this trip for "moral support," leans on Oldham's shoulder while he relays a grotesque conversation he had with some fellow travelers as they cruised through the Hollywood Hills the night before. It was foggy, he recalls, taking a sip of his Patron tequila, and the car's headlights accentuated the mist in front of them. Oldham, who records his lonesome electric folk music these days as an oft-mascara'd character named Bonnie "Prince" Billy, recalls that the conversation started with an abstract, whimsical thought: "Imagine if men ejaculated not with a liquid, but with steam. Like, every time you came, it sprayed out instead of squirting."
From this earthy beginning, the article (read here) goes on to discuss Oldham's acting career and gives an insightful overview of his musical career, too, comparing him with Walt Whitman as an American commentator and constant reviser of his own work. So, in other words, even though the article begins with "spoo," it's a classy piece of music writing. Oh, yeah, and Roberts talks about seeing Oldham for the first time in Columbia, Missouri.
If this story moves you to emerge from your den tonight, tickets appear to still be available for Billy's show tonight at the Granada.
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