The Boxmasters photo credit: Sandrine Lee

By Ted Drozdowski

© CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.

To get a perspective of Billy Bob Thornton as an artist, begin with his band, The Boxmasters, and then go further back through the deep ties he has nurtured throughout his life with Country Music.

“Country Music today gives me a lot of feelings – dismay, sadness, anger,” the Arkansas native explained by phone from The Cave, the recording studio in the basement of his home in Los Angeles. “I grew up listening to rock ‘n’ roll and Country when Country was Ray Price, Jim Reeves, Del Reeves, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and it was amazing. Today, Country seems to be ’80s pop ballads with steel guitars and music videos with a bunch of hot people in hot tubs. People loved Hank Williams because he was one of them and he sang about their problems.”

Thornton is on a mission to bring the sounds and hard-livin’ stories of ’50s and ’60s Country Music to a new generation through the music of The Boxmasters. Formed in 2007 with guitarist/engineers J. D. Andrew and Mike Butler and Thornton handling vocals and laying down the beat on drums, the trio has outlined its agenda on two double-disc sets – The Boxmasters from 2008 and Modbilly, scheduled to release April 21, the day of their appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” – along with last year’s holiday CD Christmas Cheer.

These well-crafted, raw-edged albums on Vanguard/Sawmill Records reveal another cornerstone in their foundation through echoes of ’60s rock. It’s this distinctive fusion of genres that gives the trio’s latest album its name.

Like The Boxmasters, Modbilly, produced by Andrew and Thornton, offers one CD of originals and another that revisits hits and obscurities from the back pages of Country and rock. These selections include Hank Thompson’s barroom classic “Lord Knows I’m Drinking,” John Hartford’s “Gentle On My Mind,” recorded by Glen Campbell, Roger Miller’s “Half a Mind,” recorded by Ernest Tubb, the Rolling Stones’ “As Tears Go By” and the touching Tin Pan Alley ode to actor “Errol Flynn,” all altered by The Boxmasters’ distinctive mix of twang and thump.

The songs written and arranged by Andrew, Butler, Thornton and Thornton’s frequent co-writer Brad Davis, who plays mandolin and guitar with the group’s expanded seven-piece live concert lineup, overflow with humor, sadness and romance, all of it conveyed by Thornton’s dusty voice over crying, tremolo-soaked guitars. Some, like “You Crossed the Line” and “That’s Why Tammy Has My Car,” possess the rollicking tone of old-school drinkin’-and-stinkin’ numbers, while others such as “New Mexico” and “Goin’ Home” bear the dark spiritual portent of first-generation outlaw Country.

Those originals also trace The Boxmasters’ full-throttle, album-to-album growth. “Any night that Billy’s not on a movie set, we’re in the studio, writing and recording songs,” said Andrew. “We’ve almost got another double-CD recorded.”

While Thornton describes The Boxmasters as a “hillbilly” album, Modbilly is more rough-and-tumble, with a rhythmic thrust and edgy guitar attack akin to the sound perfected by Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in the roadhouses of Bakersfield. Those elements of the band grew over the course of several tours last year, including a string of dates opening for Country Music Hall of Fame member Willie Nelson. The next album, Thornton reports, will expand the band’s stride further toward their British Invasion influences.

Like his friends and occasional collaborators Kris Kristofferson and Dwight Yoakam, Thornton has achieved distinction as an actor, but his passion for music is fully equal to his acting, directory and screenwriting efforts.

“If you know Billy, you know his passion for music is at least on par with his passion for film,” said Stephen Brower, Director of Marketing and A&R Development, Vanguard Records. “When they meet Billy and hear The Boxmasters’ own songs and the great numbers they revive like ‘Lord Knows I’m Drinking,’ they see his honesty and understand that he’s an experienced musician and really has an evangelical mission to get the word out about these great old songs and the virtues of traditional Country Music.”

“When I first moved to Los Angeles in the ’80s,” Thornton pointed out, “it was with the idea of finding a band. When I started to get a toe-hold with acting, I figured I should go with what was paying the bills.”

Several years before cutting his first solo album, Private Radio, produced by Marty Stuart and released in 2001, Thornton was busy writing and stockpiling songs and recording demos with friends in Nashville. He cut three more albums on his own before forming The Boxmasters, and yet, in his words, he still “takes plenty of crap about my music for being an actor.”

“Most people get beyond that when they see the band play live,” said Butler. “They see how much Billy puts into the show and they understand it’s not just a novelty thing.”

The band brings that same work ethic into the studio, according to Andrew. “Lyrics come really naturally to Billy,” he said. “When he writes a new tune, he’s got the melody taking shape in his head. Often as soon as he’s finished a set of lyrics, we’ll do a guitar and vocal rough, and then he’ll play drums and we’ll start flushing out the song from there.”

“We like to layer the guitars and bass,” Butler added, “and then go back and record a final vocal with harmonies – and Billy sings a lot of the harmonies himself – as soon as possible to capture that same energy and excitement we have live.”

The band, which has a popular podcast series on iTunes, has made significant inroads toward the Country Music mainstream. They were featured in an hour-long, sit-down interview with host Bill Cody on GAC’s “Master Series,” which aired multiple times. They also hosted GAC’s “Edge of Country” for four consecutive weeks – an unprecedented run for that show. The trio performed with music legend and fellow Vanguard artist Levon Helm twice at Helm’s intimate “Midnight Ramble” series in Woodstock, N.Y., and again on his “Ramble at the Ryman” in Nashville. They hosted and performed at the second annual “All for the Hall” fundraiser for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in New York and appeared on television shows that include “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” “Live with Regis and Kelly” and VH1′s “Rock Honors” salute to The Who.

Thornton, who in 2007 had a one-night stint playing drums in Porter Wagoner’s band The Wagonmasters, approaches each appearance as a standard bearer for what he views as the classic brand of Country.

“There are some big-name artists who are still carrying the torch, like Brad Paisley, Alan Jackson, Dwight Yoakam and Brooks & Dunn – I believe every moment of what they do,” he affirmed. “I’m just trying to write from the heart and be natural at it. As long as I can do that and enjoy the creative energy of being part of a band, which is really important to me, I’ll be happy making music.”

Q&A with The Boxmasters
(answered collectively by the band unless noted otherwise)

CD IN YOUR STEREO
“Del Reeves Greatest Hits. Del is a big inspiration and you have to love songs that all start doodle-oo-do-do.”

SONG YOU WISH YOU HAD WRITTEN
“‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ by Kris Kristofferson. It takes you right there. You smell the fried chicken and feel like you’re walking down that sidewalk and wearing that dirty shirt.”

FAVORITE MODE OF TRANSPORTATION
“If we could ride the tour bus everywhere, we’d be perfectly happy.”

TITLE OF YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY
“Damn, That Was Weird.”

FIRST GIG
“It was for the PTA meeting. We played all instrumentals because we didn’t have a microphone. We even did an instrumental version of ‘The Ballad of the Green Beret.’ Can you imagine that?” (Thornton)

On the Web: www.theboxmasters.com

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