By Joshua Ryan Hall

You might think you do, but you don't know diddly-squat about Billy Bob Thornton. I sat down with the Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor and director recently at Image Jungle studios in Hollywood. We didn't talk about his endless stream of critically acclaimed films, working with the Coen brothers, Halle Berry naked, or even his high profile personal life. (Sorry folks, no tabloid fodder here.) What we talked about was music.

As it turns out, Billy Bob's films aren't his only critically acclaimed creations. Jim Farber of the New York Daily News called his debut album Private Radio a skillful evocation of '70s hard country.

J.R. Griffin of Alternative Press magazine wrote: "Thornton's set of moody rock, blues, R&B and country recalls dark wanderers such as Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and Tom Waits. The album plays as if you're simply hanging out with Billy Bob as he weaves Southern Gothic tales of troubled loneliness … [and] too much partying …"

He also contributed to the album Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit CD for the Wildlife Waystation animal sanctuary, recording one of his brother's original songs, "Island Avenue." He recorded a rendition of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" for country legend Earl Scruggs' upcoming release, and he appears on Mercury Records upcoming Hank Williams tribute album, in which he performs "The Lost Highway."

Media accolades aside, Billy Bob has found himself in the dubious position of being known as an actor who wants to be a rock star, even though he was touring as a musician 20 years before Slingblade transformed him into Hollywood's "hillbilly Orson Wells." Though I personally had trouble deciding whether to soil myself or scream like girl when I learned I would be interviewing him, I found myself wondering if Billy Bob's music was the real thing or reminiscent of "Party All The Time" and "Heartbeat" by Eddie Murphy and Don Johnson respectively. Aside from Jason Schwartzman's Phantom Planet, I had yet to find an actor's odes palatable. Billy Bob changed that for me and, in case you're wondering, I decided to go for the "scream like a girl" option.

"The unfortunate thing is that someone will do an article in a magazine and they'll say, 'Why are all these actors trying to be musicians?' and they'll show my picture bigger than life," said Billy Bob during our interview. "In the article it will say that I'm the real thing or that my album is actually good. But still, here's my picture up there so people see that initially. That's been a hard thing to overcome."

Billy Bob walked into Image Jungle studios alone wearing black jeans, a tight black T-shirt and a stocking cap with merlot-colored rhinestones that spelled Private Radio. He carried a guitar case, but he didn't need it. He oozed rock star and he would have stood out even on Sunset Boulevard at midnight, just a few blocks away. He later told me that he has always chosen rock-inspired threads and that it's not a fake image thing for him. He commented that he thinks it's funny to see today's pop stars playing dress up and trying their best to look just like the last 19 year old that stepped in a hit song. "These are the same clothes I wore when I was their age," he said. He also told me I couldn't print this part of the interview, but I'm 2000 miles away and I don't think Kaiser blades are readily available in the Midwest.

After rock-n-roll photographer Dana Rossini finished with him, Billy Bob was all mine. I was hoping he'd ask for a smoke break because I thought it would be cool as hell to join him and say that we put a dent in a pack of no-filter something or others while rapping about guitar riffs and the creative process, but he didn't. Just black stuff from The Coffee Bean, but I digress.

"How did you decide it was time to cut the album?" I ask.

"Well, I knew it was time to make the record because it was just time," explains Billy Bob. "I just felt it. I've been playing off and on for a long time. Even when I was doing movies I used to still jam with some of my old buddies. I was kind of preparing for it all the time and I always write. People at Mercury Nashville heard my demos and wanted to sign me up based on the music and not my name, so I said okay.

"My next record is a little different from Private Radio. It doesn't have as much Nashville in it. It's a little bit more of my moody rock side, which is the biggest part of me, mood-wise. But they are still story songs, or singer/songwriter songs.

"Fortunately for me, being an actor, and not everyone knowing I was a musician for years and years before, as well as a roadie and a lot of things, for those people, I think when Private Radio came out it got a lot more respect than a lot of other guys who were actors doing it. That was very fortunate … I think one of the things that helped us overcome that this year was the tour of Europe we did. We did some headlining gigs and we opened for Elvis Costello and Little Feat. I think the Europe tour and the time we put in has made it easier for us to get more respect, even from the critics. So, I feel real good about it right now."

You mentioned "story songs" and I think when it comes to a song I identify with or really connect with, it's because it's a good story. Above everything else, the music, the lyrics, whatever, it just tells a good story. Do you set out to do that, to tell everyman stories, or are story songs just what come out of you?

"It kind of just comes out, yeah. I never set out to make Private Radio. I never set out to make a record of story songs. Now on the new record, there's something more purposeful about it. This new record is really a concept album. I mean, it has musical interludes and reprises so it's kind of a … maybe sort of an Arkansas Tommy. It's kind of like that."

I know that you collaborated with Daniel Lanois on the score for Slingblade. Have you collaborated with others on film scores?

"Oh yeah. I worked with Marty Stuart on a couple of movies. He did Waking Up In Reno, which is coming out soon, and All The Pretty Horses. You see, when I'm directing I don't like to just hand it over to post production. I like to be a part of it from beginning to end. Some directors will just say, 'OK, movies finished, send it over to X, Y, or Z scoring person.' I tend to collaborate with people who don't score movies … I love that process. I really hope someday to have my own record label where I can do my own records, discover new artists, and maybe even revive some artists as well as do movie scores and soundtracks. I'd like to do all that stuff."

Your biography states that you jammed on the set of Slingblade with friends and crew members …

"Oh yeah," interjected Billy Bob with excitement.

"Well, when we were doing Sling Blade we used to play for the crew out in this barn every weekend. It was actually the barn of a guy I played music with when I was growing up. We shot the movie in the town where my band used to rehearse. We would play on the weekends, and there were nights when I can remember jamming with the guys from Widespread Panic, and Vic Chestnut, and Colonel Bruce Hampton and Dwight (Yokum) and Pete Anderson, all those people all at once, you know? That was pretty cool.

"The barn is still there. That was in Benton, Arkansas. Yeah, Benton, Arkansas. People get that mixed up with Bentonville. I think that's where Wal-Mart started - Bentonville, Arkansas. We shot Slingblade in Benton, Arkansas. I've only directed one rock video, and that was for Widespread Panic. We did that in Benton, too.

"So anyways, yeah, I've jammed with a lot of people over the years like Brady Blades. I've also written songs with Jewel and Shelley Wright and jammed around with Robbie Robertson and Billy Gibbons, a lot of people."

Have you ever jammed with any of your costars?

"Not really. I never really worked with people who were musicians other than guys who were already musicians like Dwight. Dwight was in Sling Blade. Vic Chestnut and Colonel Bruce Hampton were actually in Sling Blade, but those were musicians that I hired to be in the movie. So no, I've never really jammed with any actors. I never have. I know there are some other actors who really play. I know Dennis Quaid plays and Jeff Bridges has a record that is very good, very good."

When actors come out with albums, the critics aren't eager to say anything nice. Do you think that fact shies actors away from pursuing music, even though they may be good?

"It Could. Yeah, it definitely could. And it works in reverse, too. Musicians get a hard time for being in movies, but not as hard a time. For some reason the critics and the public are harder on actors than they are on musicians being in movies. I'm not sure why that is."

Yeah, Mellencamp got quite a bit of attention during Falling from Grace and I don't remember him getting raked over the coals for it.

"He didn't. It was actually a pretty good movie. You know who else was in that? John Prine. I put in a movie too. John's a dear friend and he's amazing. He's one of my heroes."

Tell me about your early musical influences.

"My first influences were from the folks at Sun Records - Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and Cash, and Charlie Rich and all that. My mother always listened to radio because we didn't have a movie theater where I grew up. It was way too small of a place. We listened to the radio. My mother also listened to everything from Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Then, when I was in the third or fourth grade the Beatles came out. I saw them on the Ed Sullivan show. I was lying there on the floor watching it in black and white when it happened. So, the British invasion really turned things around for me and that's what made me get into a band. I got into a band when I was in elementary school and played drums. We named our first band after William McCovey the baseball player for the San Francisco Giants. I'm a Cardinal fan, but none of the Cardinals' names really sounded good for a band. I always liked Willie McCovey, so we called our band the McCoveys. It was the thing to do at that time. Everybody had a band called "The" somethings. We were "The McCoveys."

"We played music by the Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermits and Jerry and the Pacemakers and the Beatles. The Animals, especially, and The Kinks.

"Those were my big influences early on. I think probably The Kinks and The Animals were two of the biggest. Then I started listening to "avant garde" music, which was the early Mothers of Invention, Frank Zappa's early stuff, Captain BeefHeart, and the Bonzo Dog Band. I listened to all these strange groups that nobody else listened to like General Giants, the Strobes, and Fairport Convention. I listened to everything. I'm pretty rooted in American music to tell you the truth, and I think the British thing, that's really American music because that's where they got it. The British Invasion was just them listening to Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison and turning it around and putting it out in pop format. American teenagers loved it and they didn't even realize all along it was there own music."

Who are your top five bands of all time?

"I'd have to say the Beatles and the Allman Brothers and probably Led Zepplin. Yeah. Beatles, Allman Brothers, Led Zepplin, um. Now we're just talking about bands, right? Not like individual artists and stuff like that? I'd like to throw in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers but no, that's too current. Tom is still going. I'll list his influence - The Birds." (He later added Cream and The Band.)

Do you know what's in your CD player right now?

I have Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas Music, the score from The Man Who Wasn't There, a movie I was in, I love that score, and The Allman Brothers Band, Live at the Fillmore East. That's exactly what's in there."

I'm not trying to go 20/20 or get you to trash anyone on tape, but what is your opinion on the state of music today?

"I think it's pretty bleak, you know? I'm bored by most music now. If you try to do something different and you don't fit into the formats, it's impossible. People say, 'Oh, well that's what your dad said about the Beatles' and they accuse you of being a dinosaur. But not really, not if you look closely. Who can you name from the last 20 years who will live in history, like hundreds of years from now, who'll be known as like geniuses or innovative rock people. You could probably count them on one hand.

"But if you look at music from the 50s through the mid-70s, there's not enough paper to write down the people who will be remembered forever.

"But that's not to say I don't believe there's some good music out there. I hear some really good music sometimes. Now I'm not really big on rap, but I like Mos Def. I think he's terrific. So, I'm not against people and my opinion on today's music isn't a jealousy thing or that I wish my record sold as many as theirs. It has nothing to do with that. I want music to be good, because I love music. All I can say is that when I make a record it's all honest. I'm writing the songs and they're from my heart.

"I'll tell you what most of the bands that are pretty good today are just copying the Eagles. Man oh man … the Eagles. I went to their concert in Seattle back in the day. I'm friends with Joe Walsh, and Joe invited me up to the concert. And they do a three-hour show, and I have to tell you, every song is a hit. I mean the Eagles are the country rock version of the Beatles. Because, those guys can't just have one greatest hits record, they had to have like three of them.

What instruments do you play?

"I was born and raised a drummer. I play guitar well enough to write songs, but I don't play guitar live because I have guitar players who are so much better than I am, so why would I do it? And I played bass in a band when I was a teenager."

Didn't everybody?

"Yeah, I think everybody did. All the guys who wanted to be guitar players and couldn't, we always ended up playing bass in a band.

"Did you know I collect guitars? I have a 1972 Gibson Dove acoustic guitar, which is one of the best sounding acoustic guitars you'll ever hear, and uh, I've got guitars from 1958 to early 70s. I've got '61 Strat, a '58 Les Paul Jr., and a '64 335 which is amazing. I've got some pretty cool guitars."

Tell me about your songwriting process. How does it all come together?

"On Private Radio, pretty much everything started with lyrics. On the new album, I started most all the songs on guitar and the words came kind of simultaneously. I'll have an idea in my head of what the song is about already and if I don't get the song down in a few minutes, I don't write one at all. I can't sit around very long. If I start constructing and trying to think of what next, that always turns into my worst stuff."

The last thing I want to talk to you about is Klipsch. Do you remember the first time you heard Klipsch speakers?

"Well, I've known Klipsch my whole life because of the whole Arkansas connection, but I had friends growing up who used them for stereo systems and swore by them. I'm talking about stereo freaks, you know?"

Real HI-FI.

"Yeah, real HI-FI. And they wouldn't use anything else. And so then, to be cool, I said, 'Oh, I gotta get some of those," and then I realized I was a pretty poor kid. But as soon as I could afford them, I got them. And now I use Klipsch everywhere, at home I have Klipsch surround sound with my TV and I use Klipsch in the studio, too. I've worked with a lot of studios and people who swear by Klipsch. They are just great sounding speakers. There's just no two ways about it. You can't beat them. I mean for stereo and television, just for people's home use, they're insane. They're incredible. And then for recording and monitors, you know, using the stereo monitors, they're amazing. I need more and more Klipsch speakers. They're so rich but yet things cut through. That's the great thing about Klipsch - you get everything, you know? There's nothing muddy... EVER, you know what I mean? It's just great sound."

I'd just like to point out on tape that I did not prepare you to say those things.

"Oh no, no, no."

What you just said is exactly what we strive for.

"Well, that's what happens. Everything cuts through. It's just an amazing sound. Absolutely. I'll always be there for Klipsch."