Will Oldham
Will Oldham
Will Oldham, better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music. After releasing material under his own name, he adopted the "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy" moniker for the majority of his output since 1998...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth24 December 1970
CityLouisville, KY
CountryUnited States of America
I don't like the idea of being surrounded by hidden things; people you can't see in buildings and cars.
I don't like going to cities. I don't mind maybe being in a city sometimes for a few hours, but I pretty much don't like cities. I don't even like passing through them.
It's definitely important to be open enough to seize an opportunity when the opportunity is there.
Cities are made for enemies to destroy.
As it turns out, as an adult I can have a very unpleasant, fierce and unforgiving temper at times. But I don't think I had that when I was a kid.
To sing with other people and for other people, that's when you can really learn something about your voice. You can only learn so much if you create your own boundaries all the time. But then, other people can really teach you something. You know, if you're trying to sing with them, or if someone brings a style.
It is more rewarding to be complicit with scarcity than excess.
It's O.K. to accept good fortune.
When I was a kid, I always thought that acting was going to be the way to go.
Sometimes we need to tell ourselves that we're not going to do certain things, just in order to stay sane.
What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music, listening to music, making records and singing.
It's nice to be able to backtrack and not be embarrassed by the music you used to listen to.
I write a song to be recorded. And to some extent to be performed, but definitely more to be recorded than performed, because the recording will last longer than a performance.
Then little writings and recordings that thankfully continue to come up. I'm in this kind of wonderful, kind of awkward, off-putting, and strange position where there's nothing I want to do more than continue to make music, but the ways that I do things are not in tune with how I can do them commercially.