September 20, 2024 • 29 mins
Join @thebuzzknight for this episode with actor and musician Billy Bob Thornton and award-winning engineer and musician J.D. Andrew. They are touring the country as part of the band The Boxmasters and they continue to create new music.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When we were kids, when we heard a live album,
we wanted to hear something that was different from the
studio album. Maybe a different guitar solo, maybe they do
it in a different key, and you'd hear the screw
up set it, you know, But that's okay because it
tells you, you know, this is a live record, this
is what happened that night. So in other words, if
we screw up on stage, you'll hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast, where your host
Buzz Night talks with musicians about the inside story behind
their music. On this episode, our guests are actor musician
Billy Bob Thornton and Grammy Award winning engineer j D Andrew.
Currently on tour. They're the founding members of the band
(00:45):
The box Masters. The band started in Bellflower, California, back
in two thousand and seven, and two dozen albums later,
they're still out on the road, showcasing the unique brand
of music. Here's Billy, Bob and JD with Buzz on
can Walk.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, congrats, Billy, Bob and j D on the new
album Love and Hate in Desperate Places and the big tour.
Rolling on one of the dates is I know Friday,
October the eleventh at the Pollock Theater in Monmouth, New Jersey.
But you've got dates all over the place, guys. I
know some city wineries and many others, and I know
(01:25):
your fans can't wait to see you out on the road.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So, Billy Bob, I'm gonna start with you.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
What does j D Andrews bring out in you to
make you better as a musician.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, I think it's the thing we do for each
other as we we leave no stone unturned, So we
push each other very hard, and the best idea always wins.
And you know we've disagreed very few times over the years.
But you know, if JD thinks I can do something
(02:02):
better on a on a track, whether it's a harmony
or playing drums or a lead vocal, whatever it is,
he doesn't stop until he knows I got the one.
That's that's me, you know. And and plus JD is
our engineer, which a lot of bands don't have a
world class engineer who's in the band, you know, also
(02:25):
records the records. So most of the time it's just
me and j D of the studio playing everything and
singing everything. And so you know, it's a pretty relaxed
atmosphere usually and so and we have the time to
do it because we bought a studio a few years back,
(02:46):
almost four years ago, and it kind of came with
the house. But it's a very very good studio. For
years we recorded over at A and M and it's
an amazing studio. We miss going to work in some ways,
but in other words ways it's so much better. It's
(03:08):
a very creative place. Some places just have a creative
vibe and this this one has it. And but yeah,
in terms of what JD does for me, he just
he pushes me to be my best.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
And JD, how about Billy for you?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, I mean I think it's kind of the same.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I mean, you know, it's you know, like you said,
the best idea wins, you know. And sometimes I'm just
standing there, you know, I've got a bass or a
guitar in my hands and i have no idea.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
What I'm going to do.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
You know, Billy will be like, hey, why don't you
try this sort of part? And usually we'll call it
out like doing a Ronnie Wood part or you know what, Well,
we don't have a technical name for it. It's like
what would you know, a Paul McCartney baseline sound like
on this or a Ronnie Wood guitar part, or a
Keith guitar art or Roger mcgwin part. It's kind of
(04:02):
like what would one of those guys, you know, what
would our heroes do on one of these songs. We
just kind of try to channel those songs that we
grew up loving and get kind of the essence of
whatever we loved about that thing that we're you know,
kind of using as a touchstone. It's like, how can
we put that into this song? And you know, it
(04:26):
generally works out. We get an idea for something and
it's like, okay, great, and that might change the direction
of a song, you know a little bit. It might
just add a little you know, something special to it.
But to each other, you know, we really are you know,
pushing each other. It's like, let's make the best thing.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
It's there's we don't have any reason to only you know,
to half asset. It's like, you know, we've got the
time and we've got the place. We have to do
our best, you know, because if if we don't, kind
of what's the point. You know, there's there's no reason
to not do our best, and you know, thankfully, going
(05:05):
into our eighteenth year, every record that we make now
we feel like this is the best one we've ever made,
and we keep pushing each other to do better and
better and better, and to us, we're succeeding because we're
super proud of what we're doing and we're proud of
every record and you know, we work really hard on them,
(05:27):
so it doesn't feel like it's year eighteen of this band.
It feels like, you know, we're just getting started. We're
just hitting the road, playing you know, new shows for
different crowds, and feels like the momentum it just always
is going up.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know, we just keep doing it and keep plowing away.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
And if we didn't like it, we wouldn't do it
for one But you know, we love what we do
and we love making the records. But we love getting to,
you know, get our friends together to go on the
road with us. And you know, it's all guys that
we've known for you know, a number of years, and
we love hanging out with and when you're stuck with
ten guys in a bus, you better get along.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So if you guys had the ability to be plopped
into any year in music history, in any place in
time that was you know, fertile and music history, what
year would it would it be for you guys?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I would say sixty seven through seventy in there, JD
and I say it all the time. If this band
had been around in nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, I
think we would have songs in the top ten. I
mean just because that we play that kind of music.
(06:47):
It's original music. But we write these records based on
our love of those times. I mean obviously earlier, you know,
when the Beatles came along, and the Kinks and the
Animals and everybody were highly influenced by British invasion. But
our music isn't quite that old sixties sounding. It's it's
(07:08):
a little more like when it changed from rock and
roll to rock in sixty seven. It's when Cream and
Traffic and all those guys came along. And so I
would say, yeah, if we'd be plopped in anywhere, probably
nineteen sixty seven, and back in those days, labels didn't
drop you because your album wasn't a huge success. You
(07:30):
had time. I mean some people would have their first
three records flop, and that still be on Columbia or
RCA or whoever. They're wrong, and you know, they let
bands develop and now if your first thing, and these
days it's single, not necessarily album. We still do albums.
(07:51):
But yeah, we've pop stars. If they have a turkey,
you know, next thing. You know, you don't see much
around see them around my color.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, that's for sure. But let me ask you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Back in that era, what was so beautiful about that
era was the fact that bands musicians were rewarded for
being different.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Everything could sound different, and I submit to you, if.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Somebody clicks with something nowadays, you're going to have twenty
five other people trying to replicate that.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Is that unfair of me to say?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Is not unfair for you to say at all? Uh, yeah,
we say this thing exactly. You know that was Billyus,
you know, always like that was the thing. Every band
strove to be there themselves and individuals and different from
the next one. You know, you wanted to have your
own sound. That's how we feel. We sound like ourselves.
(08:54):
You know, we have all these influences of all these
bands that we loved, but at the end of the day,
a pretty you know, specific box master sound.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
If you've listened to us.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
From the beginning to the end. You know, from album
one to seventeen, there's been a lot of stylistic changes,
but at the same time, you can tell it's the
same band from album one to album seventeen.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And also we when we play live, we don't use
any gizmos or play the tracks or anything like that.
So a lot of people now are I mean, it
used to be like a secret that some bands would
do that they tried to keep a secret. Now it's
just in the open that now we just go out
and play to a track. So I when we were kids,
(09:42):
when we heard a live album, we wanted to hear
something that was different from the studio album. And so
maybe a different guitar solo, maybe they do it in
a different key, and you'd hear the screw up sentence,
you know, But that's okay because it tells you, you
know this, this is a live record, this is what
happened that night. So in other words, if if we
(10:03):
screw up on stage, you'll hear it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well, you just led me perfectly to my next question.
It's like you were reading my notes here, because I
feel like with the advent of you know technology and
with you know, various software and.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
AI can do that.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
This notion of allowing imperfection to shine through in a
unique way seems to be going away in favor of perfection.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Would you guys agree with that for sure?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Absolutely? Yeah, And that's who wants that. I mean, if
you're going to go see somebody live and you're just
going to hear the record, just save you're fifty to
five hundred bucks whatever it is for some of the
big stars, you know, stay home and listen to the record,
just you know, go somewhere to right, run your car
and put your phone into the Bluetooth or whatever and
(11:03):
just listen to the record.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
But do you feel like it's happening in studio work
as well, where perfection is sort of the ideal scenario
rather than allowing some rough edges.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
I mean people have been doing it since the dawn
of recording, where they try to you know, make everything
absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It used to be a lot harder.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
When you're using a tape machine and a razor blade
to you know, fix timing issues and things like that.
These days, you just have a computer and if you
mess it up, you just hit undo and okay, you're
back to what you had and now you can.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Fix it again.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
It's so rare that a band or you know, anybody
plays live in the studio, you know, so you don't
end up with those imperfections. And you know, we have
our own method of recording because you know, it is
just the two of us that make the records most
of the time, so we can't help. But you know,
it's like one guy has to press record the machine
and one guy has to go play the part. But
(12:03):
the way that we try to do it to make
it feel a little more organic and more live, is
we start at the beginning of the song and we
play to the end of the song. And so hopefully
when you're doing it that way, you have the dynamics
of Okay, here's the beginning, I'm pretty hyped up. Oh
the verse, you bring it down a little bit, chorus,
(12:24):
you bring it back up. You know, So we try
to bring the songs a live like that. What is
just the two of us. But these days, yeah, the
using a drum machine for everything, or you know, using
keyboards to basically do all the parts. You know, it's
all all very easy to just hit, quantize on all
(12:45):
of it, so everything is perfectly in time, and then
you can tune the vocals until they're basically a flat
sign wave of just perfect pitch. You know, that's kind
of why so few songs have any last life to them.
They just there's no the feeling has been completely washed
out of them, so it's it doesn't You might enjoy
(13:08):
it for a little bit, but then something else comes
along and then you forget about that song that you've
enjoyed for a few minutes, just because there's there's nothing left.
There's no meat to it to grasp into. And you know,
if you're not singing about anything other than partying, I
don't think you know that that's not really a lasting
(13:31):
equation for a song either.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, there's a new song that you guys have called
a River's Rising, which has got a lot of heart
and soul to it, and I want to ask you
was it influenced in any way by the mess that
social media has created.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yes, it's about all those things. It's about It's a
very socio political I'll put it that way. The song
is really about, you know, when you tell somebody, hey, listen,
I think that boulder up there it looks doesn't look
it's kind of precarious, something not sure a thing might fall.
(14:22):
They go, oh yeah, does kind of looks like I said, no, no, no,
you understand. I'm saying you need to get out of
the way. You know. It's like what was the not
the boy cried wolf, but the old and said the
sky was falling, whatever it was. It's it's a it's
a song saying stop sleeping on what's happening and uh,
(14:43):
you know. And and this is not a left or
right thing. It's just about the whole mess, you know,
how people are being separated and stuff, and the middle
is being kind of killed. Critical thinking is not as
important as it used to be. And it's a song
that's kind of saying, look, look behind you, the river's rising.
(15:05):
We might want to get out of here, you know,
because in other words, it's like a ground swell of
stuff that when we're comfortable, we don't think about it,
but in the meantime it's all bubbling up around us,
you know. And that's that's really what the song's about.
And we have several songs about how social media has
(15:28):
it can be used for good and it can be
used for bad, and most of the time the stuff
that sticks is on the more on the bad side.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Do you think social media is more to blame for
things or do you think the person that invented the
infinite scroll is the real demon?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I don't know what that, Yeah, I mean, I don't
know what the infinite scroll is.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Well, I mean the ability with you know phones, you know,
cell phones, to be able to continually go like this
and be able to look at all your junk and
see where people ate for dinner last night and all
that stupid stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh yeah, it's just it's so creepy to us. And
the thing about it is is once once things are
gone and this is all you have, then even people
who are not into it or even speak against it
get hooked on it. It's like I have my phone
with me all the time because I have a family.
JD's the same way, and after a while you've become
(16:31):
so dependent on it. I remember when I first moved
to la in nineteen eighty, I was we had a
thing called a Thomas Guide, and it was just a
map of every street in La County, and you had
to look at this. It is like a serious catalog
and you had to look up where you were going
(16:52):
and figure out how to get there. And you know,
I think social media has made people so lazy. And
also the life's about the journey, not the end result.
So what everything is at your fingertips? You're not going
on a journey to learn And I think when you
learn that way, you don't remember it as well. If
(17:14):
you have to work hard to learn something, you remember
it well.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Stated Billy, you cast John Prine and Daddy and them,
And I know he was a friend of yours.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I'm JD. I'm not sure if he was a friend
of yours. I would imagine if he was a friend
of Billy's. He was a friend of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But sadly John was one of the guys I never
got to meet.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
And I was, yeah, I'm a huge fan of his music,
but yeah, sadly I never got to meet him.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, he clearly chronicled the journey in such a brilliant way.
Can you tell me what the experience for you was like?
You know, certainly knowing him and working with him on
Daddy and the.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Well, John and I had met several years before we
did that, and we just kind of hit it off.
And in terms of where I first met him. When
I get asked that about people, I usually don't remember
how we met. It's just from being around, you know
what I mean. But we were mutual fans of each other,
(18:23):
you know, and we just ended up being pals. And
I thought, you know, this guy, this guy could play
my older brother. I'm telling you, I know he's got
it in it because John didn't have the ability to
not be who he was, to not be natural. Actually,
he has a song that became a famous song of
his that I asked him to do. I said, John,
(18:46):
can you write a song for the closing credit sequence?
And he goes, how do I do that? I said, well,
I said, you just kind of you don't hit the
nail on the head. But at the same time, make
reference is to the characters and the story somehow, so
make it a little more of a not a linear
(19:07):
storytelling of the movie, but just you know, get it
across whatever you're feeling is. So he ended up writing
In Spite of Ourselves, which was the closing credit song,
and he did it with Iris Dement and it became
one of his staples. You know, it was an awesome,
(19:28):
incredible song.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
My god, what a magical.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Use of it and performance by John and Iris.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
My god, I love that wonderful you know. Yeah, yeah, Can.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You take us inside? I know your studio it's called
pepper Tree Hill.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Right, yes, and I believe it's even you know.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
The subject of your next project, which is you know,
down down the Road.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Take us inside.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
What a process for you guys inside the studio is
in terms of creating and recording.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well, first of all, the studio it doesn't know when
somebody says you have a home studio. It's not like
a you know, a bedroom or the pro tools and
a keyboard and an acoustic guitar. It's like, in other words,
if it could be a commercial studio that people would
record at. And we have a good sized control room,
(20:28):
a really nice big tracking room. It's full of all
of our vintage gear that's from our old studio. Wished
to have the same board that I've had since nineteen
ninety nine two thousand. It has two lounges, a smaller
lounge kind of we caught the reading lounge, and then
it's got a regular lounge. It's like a kitchen and
(20:49):
a bathroom, and so it's the full setup, and it's
just it's got such a creative vibe in there. It's
not a place where we sit down to write songs.
Usually it's not that one or the other of us
doesn't write one in there on our own, but JD
and I usually write together by one of us brings
(21:13):
the other one a line and a melody or chord
progression or just some words or whatever. And said, I
think we can make this into something, and so we
already have the idea usually when we go into the studio,
and so we start with what we have and and
(21:34):
at that point it becomes songwriting together in the same room.
And during during the pandemic and everything, whenever he was
locked down, we did a lot of stuff on FaceTime
or the phone, you know, and which send back and
forth to each other. But this studio here is amazing,
(21:55):
And like I said, JD's a world class engineer, and
so we get to experiment with sounds there. We have
we mainly have vintage gear. We take our new gear
on the road because we don't want to break all
that stuff. But we have a lot of really good
stuff we've collected over the years, so we have the
stuff that we need to get the sounds of the
(22:16):
time we were talking about earlier, you know, I mean
we've got things like a fuzz face and you know,
wild wah pedals and you know, it was sixty five
box AC thirty, you know, and sixty three B fifteen
flip top bass amp that we use on almost everything
and oh yeah, every so, yeah, exactly. It's just it
(22:40):
is just a super creative place.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
And thankfully when Billy bought the place, you know, he
bought it from another musician. You know, it's Jason Wade
from Lifehouse had the house before, and he had bought
it from another producer who had initially built it. So
it was kind of always set up as a place
for people to kind of come and hang out and
(23:05):
hide out and record. It was you know, it's not
it's not in the middle of Hollywood or anything. It's
you know, it's outside of town a bit, and you
really are kind of on your own little island. It's
just the most comfortable place. And you know it's like
when we've moved in, there was nothing there. It was
just the walls, you know, everything was beautiful, but it
(23:27):
was completely empty, and so we were able to just
bring all of our stuff, you know, anything that we needed.
All of a sudden, we had space for it. So
it's like we had never had a piano of our
own that was in the studio, so we were able to,
you know, through a friend, get a piano and some
other keyboards and things like that that you know, we
(23:48):
had space and the need for. And it's been a
very important part of our recording process. When we started out,
we wrote every song on guitar, you know, because that's
how I played and Billy plays guitar, so all of
the songs were you know, kind of limited by what
we knew how to do on a guitar. But as
the years have gone by and I break out my
(24:10):
ten year old kids piano lessons and it's like, I can,
you know, sit there and you know, you just kind
of put your hands down on it, and all of
a sudden, it's like, okay, that's a chord that it's
a little strange, but we can go from that chord
to another chord, and you know, it's something different for us,
you know, so we're not just using the same you know,
(24:31):
standard chord progressions that you'd play on a guitar. We're
you know, messing around with other you know, just different
voicings and things that make us create, you know, just
having an extra weird note in something, or Billy, I'll
tuna guitar to some random open tuning that we don't
know what it is. But then you put your fingers
on the strings in a you know spot and it's like, Okay,
(24:53):
that sounds neat. How do I go from there to
another chord? And how does that become a song. And
we're not around just like oh, let's rip off a
Rolling Stones chord progression here, it's like we actively go
in there and try to create something that maybe he's
never been heard. Maybe we come up with a chord
progression that it's different.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And these days, as a matter of fact, we start
on piano more often than we do guitar because writing
on piano is a completely different type of writing. They
just sound different. You can listen to our songs or
we can listen to them and we can know, yeah,
that one was written on piano, this one was written
(25:37):
on guitar. And like Jad said, sometimes with some of
the strange tunings, sometimes I write songs and I'm using
chords that don't even know what they are and we
have to and JD doesn't either, and we have to
call it. We have a buddy named Brad Davis who
talked for Berkeley College and music and all that, and
we just call Brad get on FaceTime with him and say, Brad,
(25:59):
what is this and he goes, oh, that's a you know,
D nine with a you know, with an added C
all that.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
You know we're like, which, thank you very much, still
doesn't mean anything to us, so thank you for your
help that or you know, It's like when I'm making
charts for the band, I've got a website bookmarked that
you know, you can just put put a dot where
your fingers are and it will tell you what the
chord name is. So sometimes I have to do that.
(26:30):
But we're not music theory guys. We're just rock and
roll guys. We just you know, play stuff. Does it
sound good, and that's it. That's that's what we go with.
If it doesn't sound right, we'll keep working until we
find a chord that works.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, we grew up as guys who played G, C
and D and E and F and everything and the
next thing, you know, we're using chords that like yes
and every overused Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Obviously, we have a delivery here because my dogs are
freaking out. Welcome to the world of twenty twenty four.
But I just want to close with the fact that
you know, music is about joy. We know that, and
you guys are bringing joy to your fans into the
world with the music. But what's so cool is I
(27:22):
just see the connection and the joy that you two
have working together, and it is contagious, and I want
to just tell you how much I appreciate it and
appreciate spending.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
The time with you.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Folks should go to boxmasters dot com to check out
the many tour.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Dates and other little tidbits that are going on.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
There is the show dates with ticket links, the stores
kind of down you can download you know, our past
records well and the new one. You can download those
for you know, five bucks.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Once we get off the road, I'll put the store
back up in one of our t shirts and records
and everything signed and available purchase again. But you know,
we do it all ourselves, so it's very time consuming.
So to try to be your own websites and your
store and write the songs and everything. You know, it's
it's a difficult process. So hopefully people will be patient
(28:16):
with me, and you know, when we get back home,
I'll turn the store back on and people can order
if they're not able to make it to a show.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Because at the shows we have all the stuff. Yeah,
everything's there and all by records and CDs are signed
by the band and stuff. So we have the records
and the t shirts and all the gizmos out there
on tour. And you were speaking of Monmouth before we
let you go the last time we played there, and
we'd always heard of Monmouth University because you know, you know,
(28:46):
we watched basketball. So and so when we got there
was a Sunday at school wasn't in session. It was
a drizzling rain, and the promoter it was very nice
to us, and we were like, well, they're certainly happy
for people that only sold you know, ninety eight tickets
(29:06):
or ever it was. And so we couldn't believe it
when the agent had that on the schedule again, We're like,
they're having us back because we had an empty house.
He goes, well, yeah, we talked to him and school
will be in session. This time, so hopefully hopefully some
Mommuth University students will come out there and see us.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That's awesome, guys, great time on the road, great time
having you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Thanks so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
When we were kids, when we heard a live album,
we wanted to hear something that was different from the
studio album. Maybe a different guitar solo, maybe they do
it in a different key, and you'd hear the screw
up set it, you know, But that's okay because it
tells you, you know, this is a live record, this
is what happened that night. So in other words, if
we screw up on stage, you'll hear it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast, where your host
Buzz Night talks with musicians about the inside story behind
their music. On this episode, our guests are actor musician
Billy Bob Thornton and Grammy Award winning engineer j D Andrew.
Currently on tour. They're the founding members of the band
(00:45):
The box Masters. The band started in Bellflower, California, back
in two thousand and seven, and two dozen albums later,
they're still out on the road, showcasing the unique brand
of music. Here's Billy, Bob and JD with Buzz on
can Walk.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, congrats, Billy, Bob and j D on the new
album Love and Hate in Desperate Places and the big tour.
Rolling on one of the dates is I know Friday,
October the eleventh at the Pollock Theater in Monmouth, New Jersey.
But you've got dates all over the place, guys. I
know some city wineries and many others, and I know
(01:25):
your fans can't wait to see you out on the road.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So, Billy Bob, I'm gonna start with you.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
What does j D Andrews bring out in you to
make you better as a musician.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, I think it's the thing we do for each
other as we we leave no stone unturned, So we
push each other very hard, and the best idea always wins.
And you know we've disagreed very few times over the years.
But you know, if JD thinks I can do something
(02:02):
better on a on a track, whether it's a harmony
or playing drums or a lead vocal, whatever it is,
he doesn't stop until he knows I got the one.
That's that's me, you know. And and plus JD is
our engineer, which a lot of bands don't have a
world class engineer who's in the band, you know, also
(02:25):
records the records. So most of the time it's just
me and j D of the studio playing everything and
singing everything. And so you know, it's a pretty relaxed
atmosphere usually and so and we have the time to
do it because we bought a studio a few years back,
(02:46):
almost four years ago, and it kind of came with
the house. But it's a very very good studio. For
years we recorded over at A and M and it's
an amazing studio. We miss going to work in some ways,
but in other words ways it's so much better. It's
(03:08):
a very creative place. Some places just have a creative
vibe and this this one has it. And but yeah,
in terms of what JD does for me, he just
he pushes me to be my best.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
And JD, how about Billy for you?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, I mean I think it's kind of the same.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
I mean, you know, it's you know, like you said,
the best idea wins, you know. And sometimes I'm just
standing there, you know, I've got a bass or a
guitar in my hands and i have no idea.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
What I'm going to do.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
You know, Billy will be like, hey, why don't you
try this sort of part? And usually we'll call it
out like doing a Ronnie Wood part or you know what, Well,
we don't have a technical name for it. It's like
what would you know, a Paul McCartney baseline sound like
on this or a Ronnie Wood guitar part, or a
Keith guitar art or Roger mcgwin part. It's kind of
(04:02):
like what would one of those guys, you know, what
would our heroes do on one of these songs. We
just kind of try to channel those songs that we
grew up loving and get kind of the essence of
whatever we loved about that thing that we're you know,
kind of using as a touchstone. It's like, how can
we put that into this song? And you know, it
(04:26):
generally works out. We get an idea for something and
it's like, okay, great, and that might change the direction
of a song, you know a little bit. It might
just add a little you know, something special to it.
But to each other, you know, we really are you know,
pushing each other. It's like, let's make the best thing.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
It's there's we don't have any reason to only you know,
to half asset. It's like, you know, we've got the
time and we've got the place. We have to do
our best, you know, because if if we don't, kind
of what's the point. You know, there's there's no reason
to not do our best, and you know, thankfully, going
(05:05):
into our eighteenth year, every record that we make now
we feel like this is the best one we've ever made,
and we keep pushing each other to do better and
better and better, and to us, we're succeeding because we're
super proud of what we're doing and we're proud of
every record and you know, we work really hard on them,
(05:27):
so it doesn't feel like it's year eighteen of this band.
It feels like, you know, we're just getting started. We're
just hitting the road, playing you know, new shows for
different crowds, and feels like the momentum it just always
is going up.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know, we just keep doing it and keep plowing away.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
And if we didn't like it, we wouldn't do it
for one But you know, we love what we do
and we love making the records. But we love getting to,
you know, get our friends together to go on the
road with us. And you know, it's all guys that
we've known for you know, a number of years, and
we love hanging out with and when you're stuck with
ten guys in a bus, you better get along.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So if you guys had the ability to be plopped
into any year in music history, in any place in
time that was you know, fertile and music history, what
year would it would it be for you guys?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
I would say sixty seven through seventy in there, JD
and I say it all the time. If this band
had been around in nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, I
think we would have songs in the top ten. I
mean just because that we play that kind of music.
(06:47):
It's original music. But we write these records based on
our love of those times. I mean obviously earlier, you know,
when the Beatles came along, and the Kinks and the
Animals and everybody were highly influenced by British invasion. But
our music isn't quite that old sixties sounding. It's it's
(07:08):
a little more like when it changed from rock and
roll to rock in sixty seven. It's when Cream and
Traffic and all those guys came along. And so I
would say, yeah, if we'd be plopped in anywhere, probably
nineteen sixty seven, and back in those days, labels didn't
drop you because your album wasn't a huge success. You
(07:30):
had time. I mean some people would have their first
three records flop, and that still be on Columbia or
RCA or whoever. They're wrong, and you know, they let
bands develop and now if your first thing, and these
days it's single, not necessarily album. We still do albums.
(07:51):
But yeah, we've pop stars. If they have a turkey,
you know, next thing. You know, you don't see much
around see them around my color.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, that's for sure. But let me ask you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Back in that era, what was so beautiful about that
era was the fact that bands musicians were rewarded for
being different.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Everything could sound different, and I submit to you, if.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Somebody clicks with something nowadays, you're going to have twenty
five other people trying to replicate that.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Is that unfair of me to say?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
That?
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Is not unfair for you to say at all? Uh, yeah,
we say this thing exactly. You know that was Billyus,
you know, always like that was the thing. Every band
strove to be there themselves and individuals and different from
the next one. You know, you wanted to have your
own sound. That's how we feel. We sound like ourselves.
(08:54):
You know, we have all these influences of all these
bands that we loved, but at the end of the day,
a pretty you know, specific box master sound.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
If you've listened to us.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
From the beginning to the end. You know, from album
one to seventeen, there's been a lot of stylistic changes,
but at the same time, you can tell it's the
same band from album one to album seventeen.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And also we when we play live, we don't use
any gizmos or play the tracks or anything like that.
So a lot of people now are I mean, it
used to be like a secret that some bands would
do that they tried to keep a secret. Now it's
just in the open that now we just go out
and play to a track. So I when we were kids,
(09:42):
when we heard a live album, we wanted to hear
something that was different from the studio album. And so
maybe a different guitar solo, maybe they do it in
a different key, and you'd hear the screw up sentence,
you know, But that's okay because it tells you, you
know this, this is a live record, this is what
happened that night. So in other words, if if we
(10:03):
screw up on stage, you'll hear it.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Well, you just led me perfectly to my next question.
It's like you were reading my notes here, because I
feel like with the advent of you know technology and
with you know, various software and.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
AI can do that.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
This notion of allowing imperfection to shine through in a
unique way seems to be going away in favor of perfection.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Would you guys agree with that for sure?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Absolutely? Yeah, And that's who wants that. I mean, if
you're going to go see somebody live and you're just
going to hear the record, just save you're fifty to
five hundred bucks whatever it is for some of the
big stars, you know, stay home and listen to the record,
just you know, go somewhere to right, run your car
and put your phone into the Bluetooth or whatever and
(11:03):
just listen to the record.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
But do you feel like it's happening in studio work
as well, where perfection is sort of the ideal scenario
rather than allowing some rough edges.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
I mean people have been doing it since the dawn
of recording, where they try to you know, make everything
absolutely perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It used to be a lot harder.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
When you're using a tape machine and a razor blade
to you know, fix timing issues and things like that.
These days, you just have a computer and if you
mess it up, you just hit undo and okay, you're
back to what you had and now you can.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Fix it again.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
It's so rare that a band or you know, anybody
plays live in the studio, you know, so you don't
end up with those imperfections. And you know, we have
our own method of recording because you know, it is
just the two of us that make the records most
of the time, so we can't help. But you know,
it's like one guy has to press record the machine
and one guy has to go play the part. But
(12:03):
the way that we try to do it to make
it feel a little more organic and more live, is
we start at the beginning of the song and we
play to the end of the song. And so hopefully
when you're doing it that way, you have the dynamics
of Okay, here's the beginning, I'm pretty hyped up. Oh
the verse, you bring it down a little bit, chorus,
(12:24):
you bring it back up. You know, So we try
to bring the songs a live like that. What is
just the two of us. But these days, yeah, the
using a drum machine for everything, or you know, using
keyboards to basically do all the parts. You know, it's
all all very easy to just hit, quantize on all
(12:45):
of it, so everything is perfectly in time, and then
you can tune the vocals until they're basically a flat
sign wave of just perfect pitch. You know, that's kind
of why so few songs have any last life to them.
They just there's no the feeling has been completely washed
out of them, so it's it doesn't You might enjoy
(13:08):
it for a little bit, but then something else comes
along and then you forget about that song that you've
enjoyed for a few minutes, just because there's there's nothing left.
There's no meat to it to grasp into. And you know,
if you're not singing about anything other than partying, I
don't think you know that that's not really a lasting
(13:31):
equation for a song either.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, there's a new song that you guys have called
a River's Rising, which has got a lot of heart
and soul to it, and I want to ask you
was it influenced in any way by the mess that
social media has created.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yes, it's about all those things. It's about It's a
very socio political I'll put it that way. The song
is really about, you know, when you tell somebody, hey, listen,
I think that boulder up there it looks doesn't look
it's kind of precarious, something not sure a thing might fall.
(14:22):
They go, oh yeah, does kind of looks like I said, no, no, no,
you understand. I'm saying you need to get out of
the way. You know. It's like what was the not
the boy cried wolf, but the old and said the
sky was falling, whatever it was. It's it's a it's
a song saying stop sleeping on what's happening and uh,
(14:43):
you know. And and this is not a left or
right thing. It's just about the whole mess, you know,
how people are being separated and stuff, and the middle
is being kind of killed. Critical thinking is not as
important as it used to be. And it's a song
that's kind of saying, look, look behind you, the river's rising.
(15:05):
We might want to get out of here, you know,
because in other words, it's like a ground swell of
stuff that when we're comfortable, we don't think about it,
but in the meantime it's all bubbling up around us,
you know. And that's that's really what the song's about.
And we have several songs about how social media has
(15:28):
it can be used for good and it can be
used for bad, and most of the time the stuff
that sticks is on the more on the bad side.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Do you think social media is more to blame for
things or do you think the person that invented the
infinite scroll is the real demon?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I don't know what that, Yeah, I mean, I don't
know what the infinite scroll is.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Well, I mean the ability with you know phones, you know,
cell phones, to be able to continually go like this
and be able to look at all your junk and
see where people ate for dinner last night and all
that stupid stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh yeah, it's just it's so creepy to us. And
the thing about it is is once once things are
gone and this is all you have, then even people
who are not into it or even speak against it
get hooked on it. It's like I have my phone
with me all the time because I have a family.
JD's the same way, and after a while you've become
(16:31):
so dependent on it. I remember when I first moved
to la in nineteen eighty, I was we had a
thing called a Thomas Guide, and it was just a
map of every street in La County, and you had
to look at this. It is like a serious catalog
and you had to look up where you were going
(16:52):
and figure out how to get there. And you know,
I think social media has made people so lazy. And
also the life's about the journey, not the end result.
So what everything is at your fingertips? You're not going
on a journey to learn And I think when you
learn that way, you don't remember it as well. If
(17:14):
you have to work hard to learn something, you remember
it well.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Stated Billy, you cast John Prine and Daddy and them,
And I know he was a friend of yours.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
I'm JD. I'm not sure if he was a friend
of yours. I would imagine if he was a friend
of Billy's. He was a friend of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
But sadly John was one of the guys I never
got to meet.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
And I was, yeah, I'm a huge fan of his music,
but yeah, sadly I never got to meet him.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Well, he clearly chronicled the journey in such a brilliant way.
Can you tell me what the experience for you was like?
You know, certainly knowing him and working with him on
Daddy and the.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Well, John and I had met several years before we
did that, and we just kind of hit it off.
And in terms of where I first met him. When
I get asked that about people, I usually don't remember
how we met. It's just from being around, you know
what I mean. But we were mutual fans of each other,
(18:23):
you know, and we just ended up being pals. And
I thought, you know, this guy, this guy could play
my older brother. I'm telling you, I know he's got
it in it because John didn't have the ability to
not be who he was, to not be natural. Actually,
he has a song that became a famous song of
his that I asked him to do. I said, John,
(18:46):
can you write a song for the closing credit sequence?
And he goes, how do I do that? I said, well,
I said, you just kind of you don't hit the
nail on the head. But at the same time, make
reference is to the characters and the story somehow, so
make it a little more of a not a linear
(19:07):
storytelling of the movie, but just you know, get it
across whatever you're feeling is. So he ended up writing
In Spite of Ourselves, which was the closing credit song,
and he did it with Iris Dement and it became
one of his staples. You know, it was an awesome,
(19:28):
incredible song.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
My god, what a magical.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Use of it and performance by John and Iris.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
My god, I love that wonderful you know. Yeah, yeah, Can.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You take us inside? I know your studio it's called
pepper Tree Hill.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Right, yes, and I believe it's even you know.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
The subject of your next project, which is you know,
down down the Road.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Take us inside.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
What a process for you guys inside the studio is
in terms of creating and recording.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Well, first of all, the studio it doesn't know when
somebody says you have a home studio. It's not like
a you know, a bedroom or the pro tools and
a keyboard and an acoustic guitar. It's like, in other words,
if it could be a commercial studio that people would
record at. And we have a good sized control room,
(20:28):
a really nice big tracking room. It's full of all
of our vintage gear that's from our old studio. Wished
to have the same board that I've had since nineteen
ninety nine two thousand. It has two lounges, a smaller
lounge kind of we caught the reading lounge, and then
it's got a regular lounge. It's like a kitchen and
(20:49):
a bathroom, and so it's the full setup, and it's
just it's got such a creative vibe in there. It's
not a place where we sit down to write songs.
Usually it's not that one or the other of us
doesn't write one in there on our own, but JD
and I usually write together by one of us brings
(21:13):
the other one a line and a melody or chord
progression or just some words or whatever. And said, I
think we can make this into something, and so we
already have the idea usually when we go into the studio,
and so we start with what we have and and
(21:34):
at that point it becomes songwriting together in the same room.
And during during the pandemic and everything, whenever he was
locked down, we did a lot of stuff on FaceTime
or the phone, you know, and which send back and
forth to each other. But this studio here is amazing,
(21:55):
And like I said, JD's a world class engineer, and
so we get to experiment with sounds there. We have
we mainly have vintage gear. We take our new gear
on the road because we don't want to break all
that stuff. But we have a lot of really good
stuff we've collected over the years, so we have the
stuff that we need to get the sounds of the
(22:16):
time we were talking about earlier, you know, I mean
we've got things like a fuzz face and you know,
wild wah pedals and you know, it was sixty five
box AC thirty, you know, and sixty three B fifteen
flip top bass amp that we use on almost everything
and oh yeah, every so, yeah, exactly. It's just it
(22:40):
is just a super creative place.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
And thankfully when Billy bought the place, you know, he
bought it from another musician. You know, it's Jason Wade
from Lifehouse had the house before, and he had bought
it from another producer who had initially built it. So
it was kind of always set up as a place
for people to kind of come and hang out and
(23:05):
hide out and record. It was you know, it's not
it's not in the middle of Hollywood or anything. It's
you know, it's outside of town a bit, and you
really are kind of on your own little island. It's
just the most comfortable place. And you know it's like
when we've moved in, there was nothing there. It was
just the walls, you know, everything was beautiful, but it
(23:27):
was completely empty, and so we were able to just
bring all of our stuff, you know, anything that we needed.
All of a sudden, we had space for it. So
it's like we had never had a piano of our
own that was in the studio, so we were able to,
you know, through a friend, get a piano and some
other keyboards and things like that that you know, we
(23:48):
had space and the need for. And it's been a
very important part of our recording process. When we started out,
we wrote every song on guitar, you know, because that's
how I played and Billy plays guitar, so all of
the songs were you know, kind of limited by what
we knew how to do on a guitar. But as
the years have gone by and I break out my
(24:10):
ten year old kids piano lessons and it's like, I can,
you know, sit there and you know, you just kind
of put your hands down on it, and all of
a sudden, it's like, okay, that's a chord that it's
a little strange, but we can go from that chord
to another chord, and you know, it's something different for us,
you know, so we're not just using the same you know,
(24:31):
standard chord progressions that you'd play on a guitar. We're
you know, messing around with other you know, just different
voicings and things that make us create, you know, just
having an extra weird note in something, or Billy, I'll
tuna guitar to some random open tuning that we don't
know what it is. But then you put your fingers
on the strings in a you know spot and it's like, Okay,
(24:53):
that sounds neat. How do I go from there to
another chord? And how does that become a song. And
we're not around just like oh, let's rip off a
Rolling Stones chord progression here, it's like we actively go
in there and try to create something that maybe he's
never been heard. Maybe we come up with a chord
progression that it's different.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
And these days, as a matter of fact, we start
on piano more often than we do guitar because writing
on piano is a completely different type of writing. They
just sound different. You can listen to our songs or
we can listen to them and we can know, yeah,
that one was written on piano, this one was written
(25:37):
on guitar. And like Jad said, sometimes with some of
the strange tunings, sometimes I write songs and I'm using
chords that don't even know what they are and we
have to and JD doesn't either, and we have to
call it. We have a buddy named Brad Davis who
talked for Berkeley College and music and all that, and
we just call Brad get on FaceTime with him and say, Brad,
(25:59):
what is this and he goes, oh, that's a you know,
D nine with a you know, with an added C
all that.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
You know we're like, which, thank you very much, still
doesn't mean anything to us, so thank you for your
help that or you know, It's like when I'm making
charts for the band, I've got a website bookmarked that
you know, you can just put put a dot where
your fingers are and it will tell you what the
chord name is. So sometimes I have to do that.
(26:30):
But we're not music theory guys. We're just rock and
roll guys. We just you know, play stuff. Does it
sound good, and that's it. That's that's what we go with.
If it doesn't sound right, we'll keep working until we
find a chord that works.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, we grew up as guys who played G, C
and D and E and F and everything and the
next thing, you know, we're using chords that like yes
and every overused Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Obviously, we have a delivery here because my dogs are
freaking out. Welcome to the world of twenty twenty four.
But I just want to close with the fact that
you know, music is about joy. We know that, and
you guys are bringing joy to your fans into the
world with the music. But what's so cool is I
(27:22):
just see the connection and the joy that you two
have working together, and it is contagious, and I want
to just tell you how much I appreciate it and
appreciate spending.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
The time with you.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Folks should go to boxmasters dot com to check out
the many tour.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Dates and other little tidbits that are going on.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
There is the show dates with ticket links, the stores
kind of down you can download you know, our past
records well and the new one. You can download those
for you know, five bucks.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
Once we get off the road, I'll put the store
back up in one of our t shirts and records
and everything signed and available purchase again. But you know,
we do it all ourselves, so it's very time consuming.
So to try to be your own websites and your
store and write the songs and everything. You know, it's
it's a difficult process. So hopefully people will be patient
(28:16):
with me, and you know, when we get back home,
I'll turn the store back on and people can order
if they're not able to make it to a show.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Because at the shows we have all the stuff. Yeah,
everything's there and all by records and CDs are signed
by the band and stuff. So we have the records
and the t shirts and all the gizmos out there
on tour. And you were speaking of Monmouth before we
let you go the last time we played there, and
we'd always heard of Monmouth University because you know, you know,
(28:46):
we watched basketball. So and so when we got there
was a Sunday at school wasn't in session. It was
a drizzling rain, and the promoter it was very nice
to us, and we were like, well, they're certainly happy
for people that only sold you know, ninety eight tickets
(29:06):
or ever it was. And so we couldn't believe it
when the agent had that on the schedule again, We're like,
they're having us back because we had an empty house.
He goes, well, yeah, we talked to him and school
will be in session. This time, so hopefully hopefully some
Mommuth University students will come out there and see us.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That's awesome, guys, great time on the road, great time
having you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Thanks so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
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a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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