After years of musicians making the jump from songcraft to celluloid, the past couple of years have found a number of releases from the other side, as actors including Russell Crowe, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon and Dennis Quaid have been popping up from Austin to New York to play gigs. Unlike many actors who turned to music after big-screen fame, Billy Bob Thornton's unlikely backroad trip to Hollywood stardom was actually preceded by a lifetime surrounded by music: from listening to family members spin classic platters to fronting Tres Hombres, an early-Eighties ZZ Top tribute band. As it turns out, Thornton was a professional tunesmith before Slingblade earned him an Academy Award.

With a hyper-busy 2001 behind him -- during which he recorded and released his debut album, Private Radio, as well as three films, Bandits, The Man Who Wasn't There and Monster's Ball -- Thornton can now return to his plan of taking that album out on the road, a plan that was nixed due to the flurry of junkets, premieres and other sundry tasks that accompanied the films' releases. On May 17th, Thornton will begin an eight city tour in Los Angeles. And he's already plotting additional music projects, suggesting that -- for the first time in a long time -- his dual pursuits may share his energies. He shared his thoughts about television, ZZ Top and his new rock & roll lifestyle in between a few interruptions from his wife, Angelina Jolie.

You brought a broad stylistic range to the album. I assume it reflects your various musical interests?

One of the things that Private Radio means, besides the obvious -- which is that these are stories and songs from inside my own head -- is these days with the radio formats as they are, you don't get a variety of music. You kind of have to create your own radio, because everything is so alike.

The album doesn't feel overly fussed over.

We did it all in about a five-day period. When you're trying to do music that's not monkeyed with, it doesn't take as long. A friend of mine was telling me that there's only one person he played it for who didn't get it. And she said, "Well there's no technological breakthrough on it." Next time, I guess I'll have to get some new machines.

Did you grow up in a musical household?

My mother was just a huge music fan. The earliest stuff I would hear was the Sun Records stuff or easy listening. One of my personal favorites was Dean Martin. And Elvis, of course. My uncle was a country musician/alcoholic/carpenter. He was a great guy, and they would play at my grandmother's house on the weekends. He got married several times and he always married women who could play bass. That's the truth. Instead of asking him, "How's your wife?" you'd just ask him how's his bass player.

Was Malvern, Arkansas, conducive to an aspiring musician?

It was strange, for a little town like that, we had more bands per capita. When I was in grade school, some of those local bands were like the Beatles to me. There was a group called the Sand Pipers, when the British invasion happened they changed their name to the Yardleys, because that sounded British [laughs].

It seems like a lot of people who grow up in a country music environment drift away and return fifteen years later.

Isn't that funny? When you're growing up, you take it for granted. You rebel against it, because that's what your parents like. You follow the rock & roll route. And you grow up and think, "My god, I like listening to George Jones."

Can you talk a little about Tres Hombres' beginnings?

It was actually the last group I played with, in '82 or '83. I'd come to California in 1981, and spent a year there. Some guys called and said, "We got some dates if you wanna come back." So we went back to playing as a group we'd used to play in called Nothing Doing. A guy saw us backstage and said, "You guys sorta sound like ZZ Top -- how'd you like to be a ZZ Top tribute act?" So we did that for awhile. We opened for a lot of name acts in that time, and we eventually played our own material. The last concert I played was in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where we opened for Humble Pie. So when I go back on the road it'll be the first time since 1983.

So how does record label press compare to a film junket?

You know, I like it better, because it's not what I'm accustomed to and I talk to different people. I've been in movies for a long time, and its kind of weird to think of myself as a veteran, but I am now. And I talk to the same people for years. And you've got the ones who are real friendly to your face and then write some shit about you [laughs]. Once you've done that for like fifteen years or so, it's hard to smile and go, "Hey man, how've you been? Great!" And, "Yes, I love this movie blah blah blah," when that's same the son of a bitch that said I was a goat rancher or whatever, I dunno. [Pause] Angie says there's nothing wrong with being a goat rancher. I guess that was a bad example. This is nice, because I don't know who the enemy is yet.

Did releasing this album make you more nervous than a film opening?

Aw, sure.

If someone doesn't like it, they can rewind it.

[Whispers] Exactly. And then not like it again. I was so nervous, I gotta say, terrified to put it out there. I like it and I believe in it. But I've got some friends who have never sold bunches of records, and they're just classic, like John Prine -- certainly not that I put myself in his category, I'll never be a songwriter like him -- but he's a happy person. And he writes the music that he wants to. Says what he says the way he wants to say it.

Was the tour delay a disappointment?

Yeah, we really wanted to get out there, but with two junkets and everything, it was the right thing to do. It's like when you're a teenager and you're begging your dad for a $400 car. And he says, "Well, listen, if you save up and get a $1,200 car it'll run." And you're like, "No, I gotta have a car right now." So you get the $400 car and a few weeks later it's sittin' up on blocks in the front yard.

Are you looking forward to life on a tour bus?

Yeah, because I like people. Even though I have a fear of crowds, but if I'm playing music I kind of don't have it. I do have it at movie premieres. It's kind of embarrassing to have people yelling your name out. Especially when you grew up like I did. It's like, that kind of attention makes you feel oddly guilty and embarrassed.

So will there be another album in the near future?

I already finished the second one, and I'm already working on the third one. I love music, I wanna keep going. One of 'em is going to be similar to Private Radio, and the other one is going to be a whole record of covers. It'll really just a tribute to the songs that made me wanna be in a band when I was a kid. And it spans the spectrum between Andy Williams and Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Did you find the writing process at all similar for songs and screenplays?

To tell you the truth it's pretty much the same thing. I'm sort of a stream of consciousness writer. I don't think it's a different process at all, really.

So there's no punching the clock at the office?

No, I don't go to the office except to get my coffee. But the office is in my house, thank god. But if a song doesn't come within a few minutes I just have to wait 'til later. There's just too many distractions around. I like to write where there's noise around. If there's something really good on television I'll watch that and get distracted and not write anything -- if Andy Griffith's on. My wife and I watch a lot of television. We're just so fond of television. You know what one of my favorite shows is? People think I'm just making a joke, but I'm serious -- I love Saved by the Bell.

Really? You know, the creator of Saved has a whole series of Saturday morning shows.

Really? I didn't know about that. That's fantastic. [To his wife] Hey, he says there's like four hours of shows that are on Saturday mornings by the same guy that does Saved. We'll look for it, we usually watch TV Land and the Game Show Network, but that sounds great. Sometimes we'll watch Diff'rent Strokes when it's on rerun until we almost explode, but for awhile it's so fascinating you can't turn it off.

ANDREW DANSBY
(March 27, 2002)