Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Updated: Aug 8
I guess I didn’t pay much attention when I found out about this book and added it to my reading list, but I assumed it was an autobiography—or biography, I suppose, if Will Oldham is writing about his musical persona, Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Instead, it’s a series of interviews Oldham does with his long-time friend and sometime musical collaborator, Alan Licht. The result, in terms of what we learn about both Will Oldham and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, is probably more interesting, and more compelling, with the guiding hand and direction of Licht’s questions.
I came to Oldham and his music pretty late (well, I missed the pre-Bonnie era, anyway). Though I was living in Bloomington and attending college at Indiana University at the same time he was launching Palace in Louisville, Kentucky, and though I used to road trip at least once a month (probably more like every other weekend) with friends to see hardcore shows there, I didn’t “discover” him until a coworker turned me onto the then somewhat-recently-released I See a Darkness, circa 2000 or so. I wasn’t listening to punk and hardcore exclusively in the mid-to-late ’90s, but I certainly wasn’t listening to anything like the music Oldham was making.
Oldham doesn’t generally do interviews or press or traditional promotion for his albums, and he gives compelling reasons for why this is so, but he is a great interview. Licht clearly has topics on his agenda to uncover, but he’s loose enough to let the conversation go where it will. Oldham is as human, as real, as down to earth, as I expected. But he is also way more thoughtful than I expected. Not just in his consideration of Licht’s questions or the care with which he answers them, but in the fact that he thinks. He is a thinker who thinks about everything, sometimes obsessively or compulsively so, which has clearly been a drawback for him or prevented him from being as loose or as free in certain situations as he would like. But because he thinks, because he is thoughtful—intentional—about what he does and why he does it, and, more importantly, what and why those things are, that’s what makes him so … him. Oh, and he has a great sense of humor, and offers up plenty of anecdotes, too.
To quote Lloyd Dobler, “I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or by anything sold or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.” I think Oldham would say pretty much the same thing, but has made peace with the way he’s made a living out of—and made a life from—making music. That music may not always succeed (even Oldham acknowledges this), but with a better understanding of what he’s fundamentally trying to do, to capture, to experience, to create—in a word, community—makes me love the music he makes on a deeper, more intimate level. Whether you’re a Bonny fan or simply enjoy finding out what makes interesting people, well, interesting, this one’s for you.
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