0:00
/
0:00
JCW ARCHIVE: Billy Bob Thornton Interview
JCW ARCHIVE: Billy Bob Thornton Interview
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
John Clay Wolfe revisits a classic interview with Billy Bob Thornton, focusing on his music career under the name W.R. Thornton and his experiences living in Slash's former home studio. The conversation touches on his band's unique sound, grueling tour schedules, and his reflections on acting roles in films like Sling Blade and Fargo. Thornton shares insights on balancing music and acting, the unpredictability of success, and his TV viewing habits, offering a candid glimpse into his creative life beyond Hollywood.
Topics:
billy bob thornton
music career
the boxmasters
slash's home studio
touring life
acting career
sling blade
fargo tv series
creative process
celebrity insights
Before Landman took off, John was chopping it up with the master thespian himself as W. R. Thornton while he was promoting his band, The Boxmasters latest offering. We find out what his recording process entails and what does John think of his take on rock n roll? They talk music, movies and cartoon recommendation's from what Billy Bob's been watching.
Thanks for joining us for this week's #JCWPodcast #FlashbackFriday. Please don't forget to Like, Share, and most importantly, Subscribe--to make sure you get the latest John Clay Wolfe Show materials as soon as they're released! So keep an ear out for that hillbilly music...and we'll see you Saturday
Select text to request an explanation
The John Clay Wolf Show has appeared on Terrestrial Radio for a really, really, really long time.
So we dug into our pockets, and on the other side of our d**k, we found something funny.
And yes, it's contagious.
Gather round as the wolf pack goes on this throwback adventure.
What it do is ya boi, DJ Pre-K with the John Clay Wolf Show.
Y'all know what's going on.
I'm in the archives.
This week, I'm taking it back to when we chopped it up with the OG Billy Bob Thornton.
Now this was before Landman got us Texans all riled up.
Our man, W.R. Thornton, as he prefers, was pushing the line on his band, The Boxmasters.
But you know we gotta talk movies, too.
I just wish we could've gotten some french fry potato recommendations and more about
Angelina.
Ooh, we.
Check this out.
So Billy Bob Thornton, actually I'm not gonna call him Billy Bob.
I'm gonna call him W.R.
Bud Thornton because he doesn't want to use his big name for his singing name because
he wants you to love him for his singing career.
It's kind of like Vanessa Williams, not the lady in the dirty movies.
You want to be known for your singing.
Billy Bob, I'll tell you what, my producer, Michael Turley, he came out to your house
years ago in like 2007 and did an interview with you and said that you live in Slash's
old house and that you had your music studio in there that slashes old music studio.
Yeah, I did have.
We moved from there about five years ago now, but five or six years ago.
But I had that house that I bought from Slash for about 13 years.
And we had a great time there, you know, while we were there, but we moved up in the woods
now.
So if you came to my house now, we live up in a canyon.
And once you get up there at our place, you wouldn't even know where you are.
You could be in Vermont or Oklahoma or wherever.
You'd know if you were in Oklahoma.
Easy on the Oklahoma deal.
Those guys are sensitive, too.
But where are you now?
Where do you live?
What city?
In the I&LA.
You know, me and Teddy and JD all live in LA.
So what was Slash's home studio like?
It just had to be as badass as badass can be, you would imagine.
Yeah, it was the old Snake Pit studio, you know, which was the name of his band there
for a while.
And it was a world-class studio, I mean, the real thing.
And, you know, we miss it in some ways, but in other ways, you know, we like to feel like
we're going to work.
We record over at A&M and have for years now.
And there's something about having your own studio where all you got to do is get downstairs.
You can become a little bit complacent sometimes.
But, you know, we like to feel like we're going to work.
So there's good things and bad things about having your own studio.
I listened, Babo shot me your new album.
It's called Speck, I believe.
Is that correct?
That's right.
And I listened to it for the past hour and I must say, sir, I like it.
I mean, I'm not kissing your ass.
I'm not trying to just be agreeable.
I mean, I was like, I like it.
Now, and Turley played a couple of songs for me of, you know, this is like your eighth
album.
Is that right?
That's right.
He plays some older stuff.
And it sounds to me like you changed your process in a little bit in your voice on this
new album.
Is that, would that be accurate?
I changed it on the first two.
Okay.
Those were, those were the sort of experimental albums that we were doing.
Well, we're trying to have a little bit of a mother's invention sense of humor by combining
British invasion with Hillbilly music, which is not the way we play.
We just did it as a stylized thing.
We just did those records for fun.
They were kind of tongue in cheek.
And, you know, the people that got it, got it very strongly.
They got the Zappa influence and all that kind of thing.
And then after that, we just started doing records the way we normally sound.
So are you off of a recent film project?
Are you just in the dead zone right now?
As far as film working, you're getting to focus on sounds like this is your love.
We're kind of masochists, you know?
We like to beat ourselves up a little bit.
So we had 16 shows in a row, and then we finally had a day off a couple of days ago.
And it's gone really well.
It's, you know, exhausting when you have that kind of schedule.
We have 41 shows in 45 days.
So it's pretty, pretty brutal, but we're kind of used to that.
We generally do that.
Like last year, we had 45 shows in 52 days.
So on days off, we don't know what to do.
We have a movie star extraordinaire, Billy Bob Thornton on the show with us
right now, and I checked this out.
This new album he's got spec is, I can tell you this, Billy,
it's better than Dennis Quaid in The Sharks, not by a little bit,
but by a long shot.
I certainly appreciate that.
I've got to ask you a couple of movie questions real quick.
So do you know when you've got a hit or to sometimes the ones
that you don't think much of surprise you in blast off and hit?
Like, I mean, I'm going to rattle off some of your big hits.
Sling blade armageddon, pushing 10, monsters ball, bad Santa,
Friday night lights, the Alamo.
I mean, do you know if something's going to hit or not?
Now, usually not.
It's you have no idea because you can't control what people think,
you know, and what their opinion or something is.
So all you could do is the best job you can possibly do.
And if you can sit back and be happy with what you've done,
then that's that's sort of the ultimate goal right there.
Because beyond that, you know, what what happens to it,
you know, in terms of the public, you can't control it.
You just have to get you have to get to a point in your life
where that you just leave that up to fate, you know, you can't can't do anything
about it. So you have to do the best thing you can do and then say,
I'm satisfied with what I've done.
Now it's up to people and you can't control it.
Yeah, you just you never can tell.
Did you have any idea that sling blade was going to hook up like that
and become a all time greatest?
Oh, no. Gosh, no, I never thought that one.
I could imagine sitting there doing all that weird stuff,
telling that weird story is in introspective as it is.
You're probably in the back of your mind, like there's no way to hell
this is ever going to work.
Yeah, I'm sure I did think that at some point.
But then again, I'm you know, I've always been down on myself.
I don't think anything I do is going to work.
Well, damn sure did that school.
We make fun of it all the time in that that scene with Dwight Yocum
when he freaked out and kicked everybody out of the house and all that.
I mean, how many years ago was that that you'll film that?
Was that 20 years ago?
I think it was in the I think it was in the mid 1930s somewhere there.
No, it seems like it.
Oh, yeah, it's been it's been 25 years almost.
You know, my favorite reintroduction to you as an actor
a few years ago and damn, I mean, I just loved it.
I don't know if you enjoyed doing it was Fargo.
Yeah, we shot that up in Canada.
That was a real good, real good time up there.
I enjoyed that when those people put together a really good thing.
Those guys know what they're doing.
Those guys know exactly what they're doing.
They sure do.
I was very proud to be part of it.
Speaking of a watching too much TV, everybody's into these series these days.
Do you have anything you suggest to people listening that are some series
that you think are great?
I just watch sports.
I watch sports and family guy in South Park and, you know, stuff like that.
I love South Park, man.
Still, that's about all I watch.
I don't I don't I don't much watch TV shows or anything like that.
We need to watch Fargo season one because it was good and you happen to be in it.
It was one of the best TV shows I've ever seen in my life.
All right.
Oh, I see you, man.
And Billy Bob Thornton in the Boxmaster.
Thanks for calling in.
All right, buddy.
Hey, thanks a lot.
Yes, sir. All right, y'all know what to do.
Hit us up on JohnClayWolf.com.
You can check out old episodes on there.
You know, stay up to date with what we got going on.
Get cool gear.
We got hats, shirts, all that.
Hit us up on Facebook, you know, search JohnClayWolfShow.
We're on Instagram, John's on Twitter.
You know, you can holler at all of us. OK, you know how to spell it.
OK, we appreciate you all listening.
Keep on rocking with us.
Request an explanation for:
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.