An Interview with

Palace's Will Oldham

by Marjan Shirzad

Will Oldham: It seemed like it served its purpose, and had performed well and was ready to go away.

Grip: (laughs) Will the new album reflect the feel of the "Patience" single?

Oldham: Actually, no, not too much.

Oldham: Right.

Oldham: Right. No, I would say that just that single is that way.

Oldham: I would say "more offensive".

Grip: (laughs) How so? You didn't turn heavy metal on us did you?

Oldham: No. In spirit only!

Oldham: Well, we're leaving today to go to South Carolina to practice.

Oldham: It starts next week.

Oldham: Yeah, I like it ok. I don't like it because it seems like it's a part of the institution of putting out records...

Grip: Like once an album comes out, you automatically have to promote it...

Oldham: Exactly...But it used to be the opposite, where people toured and then they would record things that they played. Now it's, for a lot of people, sort of

the opposite.

Grip: Yeah, it was like they were trying to recreate that feeling of the live show on an album, as opposed to now: you're replicating the studio feel when you play live. Oldham: Right. I guess I consider what I do to be making records, so playing live is...

(pauses)

Oldham: I guess so... It's very confusing actually.

Oldham: Sure it is. But I still think that it only bears the smallest relation to the record, which is what I concentrate on: the writing and the recording.

Grip: Is that what you're most passionate about, being alone in that setting?

Oldham: Yeah, or with other musicians.

Oldham: Sure there are, but it will depend on the period of time.

Oldham: No. Generally, before a tour, I'll compile the set list and it will be a wide variety of songs that I feel are appropriate for whatever is going on.

Oldham: Yes. Yes.

Oldham: Yeah it does. (chuckle)

Oldham: Uh, sometimes. I guess that song "Patience" was sort of like that. It was

something that we played on tour a couple of years ago, and had never recorded and then just this year, we rewrote it a little and then recorded it.

Grip: What musicians have you been playing with? Who will be on this tour with you? Oldham: Touring will be ... Do you have the 7" or the CD EP that has "West Palm Beach" and "Gulf Shores"?

Oldham: Yeah, all those musicians will be touring, plus a bass player from Louisville, so it'll be a nice healthy size group of musicians. (ed-Jack Carneal, Ned Oldham, Aram

Stith, Jason Stith)

Oldham: Yeah, what was it? Oh, Boston.

Grip: Boston, that's right...Is the focus of this tour predominantly on smaller venues, or were we just lucky to have you play at Tokyo Rose? (laughs)

Oldham: No, I think we specifically requested Charlottesville!

Oldham: We're basically doing the East coast from Savannah to Boston, and

then there were a couple of places that we had where one, or most likely more than one member of the "ensemble" had a strong connection to...

Oldham: Charlottesville was one, yeah. And Richmond and Baltimore.

year?

Oldham: Sure! And I think everyone who will be playing in this group has lived at one time or another there in Charlottesville.

Grip: It's funny how Charlottesville tends to attract so many talented musicians who all eventually feel rooted here in some way. . . so have you played Europe as well? Oldham: Yes.

Oldham: It's gone pretty well. I guess we went to Europe about a year

ago, and that was pretty good because we went to Spain and Greece; that was great!

Oldham: Exactly. That's why we wanted to go there, because we figured there would be more for us to listen to...

Oldham: The trip was about two or three weeks: we went to Scotland, Ireland, then

there was a French show, a week in Spain, and four days in Greece.

Oldham: The audiences were pretty great... There was one place we played where the audience was pretty stange: it was in a Mediterranean town in Spain. But in Madrid and Barcelona, the audiences were really good!

Oldham: I wish I ...(laughs)

Oldham: It's been saying: TRUST. (laughs)

Grip: (laughs) Are there many future projects lined up?

Oldham: Yeah, there's a lot of things, there are a lot of recordings sort of being prepared right now.

Oldham: It really depends on what sort of tapes are made available to me. It can be from anywhere, and then it's just a matter of what I get to hear, and then once I get to hear it... (pause)

Grip: Whether it inspires you?

Oldham: I guess so. Or whether it feels like it's great, and whether I feel like, for one reason or another, somebody else who might put it out will, for some reason,

not be able to access it.

Oldham: Yeah, but mostly as a listener.

Grip: Was music a big part of growing up in the Oldham household?

Oldham: Yeah it was. For the kids though, not for the adults.

Grip: So where did the inspiration come from?

Oldham: I don't know. Maybe the absence of it in the adults.

Oldham: No...

Grip: Or have records playing in the house?

Oldham: They did actually! Lots of records! I guess that's part of it...tons of records. A lot of foreign records, weird records.

Oldham: No...Well, what I'm doing, yes, was a childhood dream, but it wasn't

specific. I mean, I didn't know that it was music; I knew that it was

pursuing a process...

Oldham: Right, a creative process that when it came time, was music.

Grip: Was it about touching a great number of people?

Oldham: Yes. It was.

Oldham: I think I was, very much. I'm sure because of the nature of the way things were growing up, the people that I counted among some of my closer friends were people that I had never met before; people that I had never met before, and still haven't met, people who write books and make records.

Web" is just a quintissential childhood favorite! (laughs)

Oldham: (laughing) Yeah, right! Actually people called me Wilbur all the time!

Wilbur and Will Robinson. Will Robinson was on a TV program called "Lost in Space", and he was the young boy...

Oldham: No, he was just the only Will that anybody knew (laughs). And his name was repeated constantly during the show, because there was a robot on the show who would constantly say his first and last name: "DANGER! Will Robinson!".

Oldham: I think it's a good thing. It seems like the film and record industries are

changing over; I guess the people who ran the major film and record companies are going to have to take notice that they're getting old and that they don't have any right to make any decisions in regard to what sort of music and films the world has access to. They've lost touch. They don't have a sense of value that is condusive to quality. I think a lot of the people who are in charge now, who are making a lot of the major decisions, were also involved in the 1970's when some of the best movies of all-time were made, in the widest variety, for the big studios; the same with records. Some of the greatest records ever made were made for the major labels in 1972. And those people are

still around, but they achieved what they were supposed to achieve.

Oldham: It's the same people who are in charge and the same system of putting things out, and it's people in a system that's totally out of touch. They're in an office now. They have no access of getting out of the office unless it's a festival like SXSW or CMJ, and there, you're lucky if you see good music; really lucky, because anyone who's playing good music, nine times out of ten, they're not going to be able to, or even want to go to one of those festivals.

Oldham: Right, or have access to them. But they probably don't give a shit about going to those things because they know it's just going to be a bunch of bad those things because they know it's just going to be a bunch of bad music playing for a bunch of out-of-touch idiots.

Oldham: I feel sorry for them.

ideals to go about the process?

Oldham: I think it is to cite a goal and to work on that. If it is to make a record, then to make a record. But if it's to make a good record, then to make the good record, and to

not make a record. If you want to make a good record then don't just make a record.

Oldham: Yeah...because if not, you're already fucked... you've taken four steps

back and you're just digging yourself in a hole. If you hate touring, don't tour. Things like that.

Grip: Have you been approached by major labels?

Oldham: Yes.

Grip: Was that something you just said to hell with?

Oldham: I didn't know so I had a lot of questions. It just didn't seem to make any sense, but the people are nice. All those people are cool, it's just that they don't have access to supporting good music.

Oldham: I think right now the reason that the independent labels and the independent movie studios are flourishing is because there are too many things in place in their [major labels] systems which are obstacles towards a good record, and specifically towards a set of good records; for an artist to make two good records, the kinds of obstacles that the major labels have set up within themselves, sort of unconsciously, are so great, that making two good records is almost impossible.

Oldham: The obstacles are things like nobody having job security, so noone working in the major labels is going to sit down one day and think, "I'm ready to spend five to ten years working with this artist to develop him fully", it's more like, "I've got to con this

artist into making a record that has a couple of singles on it or I'm not going to have a job anymore". They might even say "I love this music or I want to be a part of this music" but they can't say "I want to be a part of this music forever".

Oldham: Right, and it's because they don't have the freedom to have that loyalty.

Oldham: Right, and due to job security because they might get fired. Or they might get deprioritized, which is a huge deal for the artist and a huge deal all along the way for everyone who works there, because then you can't do what you set out to do. If you

wanted to help an artist make a record a year as opposed to a record every three years, and the record company doesn't like that, then they'll de-priorotize it and they won't grease the wheels for you.