Will Oldham
Will Oldham
Will Oldham, better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music. After releasing material under his own name, he adopted the "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" moniker for the majority of his output since 1998...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth24 December 1970
CityLouisville, KY
CountryUnited States of America
You're hoping that it's going to be an extraordinary experience any time you create and/or listen to music with other people. I guess what I've been saying over the past few minutes is that it's hard to do that, to create that.
To me, recordings are little fourth-dimension artifacts, because they already are representatives of past, present, and future, just inherently in their existence.
When you're listening to a recording, you're supposedly listening to some aspect of the past in the present as you travel slowly into the future, but you also know there's a very strong likelihood that the future of that recording, whether you made it or whether you're listening to a Led Zeppelin record, is going to continue probably far beyond where you are.
I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, "The past is the present is the future." When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.
I valued the experience of making the recordings, and I value the performances contained therein, and I value so much of what they can represent. I also think they're a terrific listening experience. Putting them out this way was a way of trying to maintain and nurture the relationship with the audience and also shine a light on the recent past, because we are so apt to be forgetful as human beings that there was such a thing as a recent past. These are some of the reasons for making this record.
I get a lot out of a show when I know that I don't know anyone in the audience and don't think the audience knows much about the music.
In an ideal world, records would be filed in record stores by title rather than by artist, as they are in video stores. I think it's better to identify with the work rather than the people who make the work. You can put your faith in a piece of work, but not in a group of people you don't know.
I do an opening, and then I go up to the high balcony in the back and watch the bulk of the play, but then I have to leave my seat about seven to 10 minutes before the end of that final big scene...and it's a bummer.
I need to go someplace faraway that doesn't have telephones and doesn't have a record player and doesn't have movie theaters and people walking down the street in order to not do anything.
I think everybody works from a defensive position, for the most part, in the film industry.
What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music, listening to music, making records and singing.
As a kid you learn that there are thinkers and there are philosophers and there are theologian, and I'd hear little bits of the ideas that these people pursued or developed or created and I'd be really excited. Then I'll start to read it and I think, "Wait a minute, this is a rabbit hole. This isn't a gateway or a ticket to anything except itself."
Writing songs is a profession; so it's not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.
People are looking for fame or a focus, and I can't provide that.