A while back, I had a show scheduled with celebrity-led blues rockers Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters. I was excited for the show and was looking forward to seeing what Billy Bob could do in a musical context versus his movie format.
Now to be clear, I’ve been a huge fan of Thornton’s movies and TV appearances —Slingblade, Goliath, Fargo, Bad Santa (who didn’t like that one?), A Simple Plan, Armageddon, Monsters Ball… the list goes on and on. However, I had no clue about his musical acumen.
A Confluence of Histories
During his appearance at my theater, I got an opportunity to spend a lot of time talking with Billy Bob over two days. His history not only fascinated and astounded me but also put us in a relative confluence of histories with six degrees of separation.
Of course, the conversation started off about his movie experience, and how he moved to Hollywood with a friend and $500 in their pocket. They were poor young blokes, all of 22+ years old, trying to make headway into the L.A. music scene. Serendipitously, a new acquaintance gave him a pass to attend an acting class in the area. Billy said “Sure, what the hell, I’ll go” as he didn’t have anything else to do, besides, he said, “women went to the class.” Being completely ignorant of the acting world, he was given an assignment for the next class to deliver a 3-to-5-minute monologue in front of the class. He recalled in detail; “I had no f*cking idea what a monologue was,” so at a loss, at the next class he proceeded to act out a scene from Othello (may have been Hamlet — I don’t recall), all of it, from memory. He said he finished, a bit longer than 15 minutes, and took a seat.
After the class, the instructor held him behind and informed him what a monologue was. Once he got the picture, upon departing, the instructor told him he’d never had anyone in class with zero acting experience that he knew would someday win an Oscar for his skills. Therein set the motion of his movie career. When Billy was describing this story, his humility and the humanity of just how insane the whole conversation was really struck me. He was hoping for a gig, and instead went back to class a second time, and the rest is history. Shortly after that, he wrote and started hawking to studios a screenplay he had written, and by a twist of fate, he starred in the movie, Sling Blade — my favorite of his movies, of which he won an Oscar for Best Writing. He would go on to win numerous awards from many different factions.
An Unlikely Locale
This entire discussion took place in a town called Livermore, CA. Surrounded by the wine country, this town is a mix of scientists from the Livermore National Laboratory, cowboys from multimillion dollar farms, elite and start-up vineyards and regular folk coming out to see Billy Bob. He was by far a gentleman, and a heck of a nice guy.
Now, onto the confluence of histories. We started talking about how many times we had both been married. He beat me by one. He asked me about my history, how I got here, etc., and I in turn asked him about his roles and what made him form a band. Turns out Billy Bob always had a musical component to his talent, but I was astounded by how we ran parallel lives as to our histories.
When younger, both Billy Bob and I played in bands — him in Arkansas playing in groups at a young age, as was I in Milwaukee. However, we also decided we liked eating and paying the bills more than being legends in our own minds and both moved to the production side of the business. He found work as a tech and monitor engineer at a company in the south and started out mixing sound and providing P.A.’s for local, regional and nationals — as did I. He recalled numerous stories of hilarity that left you saying, “can’t make this sh*t up,” and “only in the music business.” I in turn, humored him with some of my zany situations and outcomes.
Billy Bob became a monitor engineer and worked some regional dates and one-offs with acts such as Molly Hatchet, Skynyrd, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Black Oak Arkansas, Commander Cody, Elvin Bishop, Marshall Tucker — you get the idea. We had many stories to share, he was engaged and thankful in hearing early stories from my side of the tracks working with acts like Dire Straits, The Plasmatics, Gang of Four, The Police, Albert Lee, The Guess Who, Mellencamp, The Cars and so many others. We spent a few hours trading stories and laughs. Considering the geographical differences, him from the south, me from the north, my side was more sprinkled with rock and power pop bands, his was southern rock, but we crossed genres on numerous instances. He was once good friends with Black Oak Arkansas backup singer Ruby Starr who enjoyed a solo career in Milwaukee. I had mixed monitors for her a couple of times, so therein was our six degrees of separation.
We eventually got around to talking about the intricacies of mixing, the personality types we had encountered and the mechanics of doing shows. I then told him about a book written by a friend of mine named Michael (or Mike) Babcock called Surviving the Hot Seat, The Guide to Mixing Monitors for Touring Bands, which I edited for Mike. To me, it was an excellent must-read for anyone breaking into the fascinating world of being a monitor engineer. I purchased several copies and made it required reading for any new trainees I had the pleasure of developing. I spent years behind a monitor console before my brother (who built a company called Clearwing Productions) ever relinquished a FOH position to me. It was a wonderful experience and taught me a lot. However, I never arduously pursued being a monitor engineer as a career choice, regardless of how many gigs I did as a monitor engineer in the years after. Yet, the lessons I learned in that position were perfectly personified in Mike’s book about mixing monitors.
Surprise, Surprise!
This piqued Billy’s interest in the book, and he asked if I had a copy, as he’d love to read it. I had multiple copies and was delighted he wanted to read the book. As I walked away to dig up a copy, he said “if you find one, will you sign it?” I replied I didn’t write it; I only edited it, and he said didn’t matter — I was part of it, and if you edited it, you must have lived some of it. I agreed and went to fetch him a copy, signed it and he was very congenial and thankful for the copy.
We then went about our pre-show processes before he played the first show. I watched intently as his band ripped through a bunch of great music and I was gently surprised at the tight band and his outstanding vocalsd. It was a great show — one of my favorites of the year. Although because of our interlude, I may be biased. I do like bands that I like, personally.
On the second day, I saw him outside his bus, and we again got into conversation along with my partner Kellie who was with me. He was very kind and hospitable to her as well. We spent the few hours talking about the personal side of our lives learning about how we navigated multiple marriages, raising kids on the road, managing affairs from afar all the delightful obstacles that come with the nomadic lifestyle we chose to live. Again, parallel lives, except he married Angelina Jolie and I didn’t. He was a star, and I wasn’t. Other than those two differences, there were no differences.
The next day, Billy Bob told me he’d read the whole book overnight and thanked me again for the book. He found it a delightful read and it took him back to his years as a monitor engineer and the personalities he encountered before jettisoning himself into Hollywood royalty.
I was left with the impression he was just a normal guy who related to people (or at least me) as a peer or equal regardless of his statues and status. He engaged me asking me about my life, my interests, how we both loved motorcycles, the bikes we had owned and listened intently when he asked Kellie to recall her history. All in all, it kind of restored my wavering faith in stars and showed me that he was an extremely approachable and engaging down to earth cat.
Bonus of the Story: I walked away with this tale of the only “star” who ever asked for my autograph.
