"Mystery
said, ‘Go and give the deaf Hell till you're blue in the face and go show
the blind Heaven till you drop in your tracks because they'd sooner eat
ground glass than swallow the bitter pill that puts roses in the cheeks
and a gleam in the eye. Go do it.'"
- Frederick
Buechner
This
may smack of pretension, but music needs Bill Mallonee. And, all
too tellingly, the feeling 
remains
mutual. It remains mutual after what has been a steady twelve or
so years of wearing his heart on his sleeve - not just in his lyrics, but
in the overall spirit of what he does. He's worked with Peter Buck
and the late Mark Heard, sang with Emmylou Harris. He's recorded and released
well over 150 songs in the course of twelve albums and watched sixteen
musicians pass through his band. And he has spent the last decade
striking a delicate balance between family man and frazzled rock'n'roll
merchant, seemingly straddling that state line between the domestic and
the dirt, both feet planted firmly in their respective squares.
2002
saw the dissolving of Mallonee's band, the Vigilantes of Love, who just
happened to be one of the most consistent rock and roll bands ever.
As he dives into a solo career, with the back-to-back release of Fetal
Position and Locket Full of Moonlight, we caught up with Bill
to talk about his new solo career, family life, the creative process, and
what's in the works for the future.
Tidal
Wave: So, what was the first song you ever wrote?
Bill
Mallonee: Don't remember really...I've written about 50 songs a year
since 1990. It's not a profession, you know...it's a neurosis.
TW:
What would you say are your key influences, both musical and non-musical?
BM:
My depression, I guess...I struggle with it a good deal. I'm a bit
more able to get some perspective on it now than when I was a kid, which
is good! Happiness, whatever that is, seems pretty elusive...we all
just keep going. I think that's part of faith, really, to do your bit and
make your contribution, however small for God's Kingdom. How I get
to feel about it or even myself seems to matter less and less. Maybe
it's an ‘as good as it gets' sort of proposition this side of Heaven?
What
musical influences? Anything with happy guitars... I'm a fan of the
60's Beatle-esque pop stuff. [I] also love the psychedelic period,
because I think it was a manifestation of folks yearning for transcendence,
[which is] something that God put in all of us to cause us to seek Him.
Folk-rock crossed over there a bit with the neo-psychedelic bands.
Strange
enough, a record I played a lot as a kid was Donovan's Greatest Hits.
He gets a bit of slag for being England's answer to Dylan, [but] I think
his "Try and Catch the Wind" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" made huge
impressions on me. It was as if they were trying to create new worlds.
With my solo stuff and back to Summershine, the last Vigilantes of Love
record, I've been trying to do the same. A friend called it ‘dream
rock.' I kinda like that moniker!
TW:
What led to the end of Vigilantes of Love and the beginning of your solo
career?
BM:
Well, it's a pretty familiar scenario... band releases fourteen or so critically
acclaimed records over eleven years. Tours incessantly, gets signed
at South by Southwest in 1992 to a major/minor label (Capricorn), has a
string of successful records in the AAA (Adult Alternative Album) radio
format in the mid-to-late '90's, but has label problems with distribution
and limited resources. It forces us back to indie status in 1997, [and]
from '97 till 2000, we made two records a year, all pretty much off our
kitchen table. It was fueled by more and more touring and great reviews.
It culminated in another record deal with Compass in 1999. The record,
Audible
Sigh, was the capstone of 3 previous indie records [that were] all
born out of my passion for folk-rock and Americana...it was during the
time when No Depression, Wilco and Son Volt were just emerging. For
us, the United Kingdom was beginning to be a huge buzz, [and] there was
even a moment when we thought it would break wide open.
Understand,
we were all still living very below the poverty level. Then a combination
of 9/11, a label that didn't believe in Summershine (our follow-up record
which was very jangle-y guitar college pop, but certainly NOT "Americana"),
and our getting robbed in Scotland on VOL's last UK tour made me sit down
and say: ‘You know what? This hurts now. We're tired, sad, discouraged...
I'm not gonna pretend this is fun anymore and I'm not gonna pretend this
thing has a fighting chance. As a band, it's time to go away.
After that the solo thing was just obvious...call it an audio-logical version
of downsizing!
TW:
You're a family man...and you've been juggling both family and career for
a while. How does that work?
BM:
Very well, so far. Of course I've missed sections here and there.
Thank God for laptops and cell phones...I have ridiculous bills staying
connected to [my family]! But I've been very, very divinely lucky
to have my biggest fan still be [my wife] Brenda! We've always had this
arrangement where if the road, the biz, whatever were to get too overwhelming,
then she can call me anytime and say: "Ok, honey... you need to unhook...
I'm losing it... I need you here."
And
I've promised to do so... she is first. Our lives together? That's
the stuff that is eternal... rock and roll isn't.
TW:
What would you say are the fundamental differences between the old VOL
records and the new solo efforts, both musically and thematically?
BM:
I think the thing that people need to understand is that the solo career
is not officially started yet. The new [albums], Fetal Position
and Locket Full of Moonlight were made along the lines of a dynamic
[like] "which-ten-songs-fell-out-of-the-notebook-first." Those songs,
because I was working with next to no budget, meant working hurriedly and
no second guessing. I think it worked, due to the fact that the tunes
felt solid and Jake Bradley and Kevin Heuer and Billy Holmes and Cason
Cooley were all over it in terms of their contributions.
But,
in that regard, they have a sort of push-pull [quality] about them.
Some of them were Americana, old VOL-ish type stuff, and some [were] very
British via Athens/pop sorta stuff, my newer direction, at this point.
The
records were a mixed bag, so they come off a bit all over the place.
That was because the idea was to sell to the hardcore fans and do three
records in a year. Paste Music and I were really into this idea when,
suddenly, they offered a real deal, real promotion, national distribution
and all the amenities of a small label. This means, to my mind anyway,
that [the new record] Perfume Letter, which is due out August 5th,
will be the start of the solo career.
