Interviews

Joe Kirk/Chris McAndrew Interview

February, 2000
Part 1

Joe Kirk and I met at the Mallonee household on a chilly night in February to conduct an interview consisting of the questions gathered from the mailing list. Right up front I'd like to thank all the people who took the time to come up with and send in a question for the interview, I will thank everyone by name when I send out the second part of the interview. As Joe has said in past interviews, we tried to at least pull topics of discussion from list questions, but the conversation twisted its own direction at times and then wondered back.

Almost all the topics had more than one question submitted for them so we just tried to find a good way to pull them all together. A few questions came word for word from the list, but most were worded from all the questions.

When we arrived Bill offered us flavored coffee because he said he was out of regular coffee, but he admitted he never drank the flavored stuff so he wasn't making any promises on the quality of it. When the interview began, the three of us gathered around the kitchen table while Joshua and Joseph watched television in the other room. Brenda came in and joined in for parts of the interview. Jake and Kevin were not around during the interview, although Jake did show up after we returned from eating. He apparently had just found another part time job.

Several questions were in reference to Bill's thoughts on theological issues, and Bill sent me an E-mail about a week ago asking me to add as a way of preface, the following comments.

"I am not a theologian, and I don't pretend to be. That is not what VOL is about primarily, but a Christian world view will naturally seep in to whatever one is writing about, living in the context of or experiencing. And if people are offended by what I say in the theology department, I completely understand, because theologies, at least ones well thought out, are very, very dear to folks. About all I can say as an artist and fellow believer in Christ on the way is that I personally believe and hold to the teaching of what the church has believed for almost 200 years, and that is embodied in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. After that, the sky is the limit."

So here it is, part one of the VOL List Interview 2000...

Chris McAndrew,
April 11, 2000

Joe: Let me say one thing up front, I don't know if this (tape) will last the whole time.

Bill: I'll give real fast answers.

Joe: No, you take as much time as you want.

Bill: Well he's gotta transcribe it all.

Joe: All we did, and we've got the same thing here, we took the questions that people sent us, just basically the same way we've done before, tried to arrange them into something that at least categorized them. But there's a lot of stuff they didn't ask so I think we'll probably throw in also.

Chris: I've already been warned we don't stay on topic too well in these interviews.

Bill: We don't stay on?

Joe: Well you don't. (laughter)

Chris: Oh, we wanted to put a disclaimer on it. Feel free not to answer.

Bill: I get to say no comment.

Chris: If you so desire.

Joe: Oh yeah, you can dodge some of these things.

Bill: Oh, good.

Joe: Well let's see, I don't know if this is the best place to start.

Bill: Well what's the best place?

Joe: It was interesting to me the types of things people asked. There's not a lot of stuff about the lineup of the band. Nobody asked about Kenny. A lot of things I thought would come up didn't come up. A lot of people did ask theologically oriented stuff. Obvious questions being all this stuff about the openness of God. They have picked that up off of your discussions on the web. Here are some examples. Glen Mills said, "I would like to hear Bill's current thoughts on Clark Pinnock's Openness of God, a book which he actively promoted in the earlier interview and on the web site, and which has raised questions about his Reformed and evangelical convictions. Even though we've debated the appropriateness of delving into Bill's thoughts on theology, since Bill has in the past identified himself with Reformed teaching it would be interesting to get his current views on it."

Bill: First off, actively promoting something just because it shows up on a reading list doesn't mean I'm actively promoting it, it just means I'm reading it. And I think the angle that I came at it, being nurtured in the reform faith for about 25 years, was are there possible implications by adopting a hard-core Calvinist view of the way the sovereignty of God works that might somehow cast dispersions on the character of God. I think that properly understood, it can and it does. Properly understood it could cast dispersions on God's character particularly in the notion of why elect some and not others. Why is Christ's atonement particular or the disparaging people would say limited to only the elect, why didn't Christ die for all? Because that's a Calvinist plank that he died only for those who would believe in him, and to assert otherwise that Christ died for all means that somehow or another the Holy Spirit has failed to complete his ministry is the way a Calvinist would describe it. And I just sort of suck it up and say well that's just in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that's just one of those harder things and therefore I'm not going to go after that. And then the whole issue of free will which is where I kind of got into the Pinnock book on. And if God really has created a universe where not everything is to his liking or in order because we started by the fall then it means our free will is not an allusion. And it's still an open question. Pinnock wasn't going to settle it for me one way or the other. I just wanted to see a more systematic approach because I had been denied access to any kind of scholarship regarding the opposite view. An opposite view that was well articulated, and I think Pinnock in particular, and in particular John Sanders did a real good job of at least opening that about here's an openness view of God in what they call relational theology, here's an opposite view of the reform perspective. And what does that do to the character of God? Does it hinder it, does it help it, does it make God by giving human beings free will, does it somehow diminish God's sovereignty in our lives, and Biblicly where does that play out? My only problem with any of it, and this is kind of an old issue for me, I mean the book's three or four years old now, Christianity Today did I think a hack job in their editorials when they reviewed the book. They basically dismissed it hook line and sinker right off the bat. And all that Pinnock I think and his gang were trying for was some kind of dialog over the thing. A dialog among evangelicals regarding the character of God. And the funny thing is that even though theologically speaking we tend to adopt more of a reformed approach about God's sovereignty, in practice we adopt a very approach, the way we pray, the way we supplicate God, the way we partition God for things. As if our prayers had something to do with impressing themselves upon his will. Well if you're a strict hard core Calvinist, they don't have anything to do with his will at all. That's already decided. And that's what I'm talking about. Is that somehow disparaging toward the character of God? To throw everything over there in this big category called the councils of eternity and say it was all done then, and for some sensitive souls whether they're artists or otherwise, that makes it look like it's a fatalistic thing, and I don't think that's biblical at all. So, I thought that's the only reason for reading the Pinnock book. Glen, or whoever asked the question...

Joe: Yeah, Glen Mills.

Bill: It doesn't mean that I've come to any kind of equilibrium on the topic at all. I still believe most of the Westminster Confession of Faith. And that's all I'm going to say theologically in all of this interview. That's way too much.

Joe: There were some questions actually about how that affected your church.

Bill: I'd like to know if Glen's read the book. Because I'm always interested in the number of people that have read the book because I've had ten people at least on this list write me and say I heard you read Clarke Pinnock's book, I haven't read the book, but I heard. And then follows whatever, and I'm thinking you know so what you heard, have you read the book.

Joe: Yeah, I read the book actually, and my response was I would find myself chapter to chapter, one chapter I would be very challenged by it, very convicted by it and the next chapter I was ready to burn him at the stake, and I fluctuated back and forth through the whole book...

Bill: And I did too.

Joe: And at the end of it I didn't feel like I had jettisoned my reformed faith, but I had more questions that I was not comfortable answering.

Bill: Right, I think one thing to understand is when the reformers were working out these issues, they had a span of about 50 years to sort of get down to it and then they passed the torch to another group of people. And not all those issues were really worked out along all the different lines. This John Sanders book, The God Who Risks which is something, it may take me a year to get through it just because I'm such a slow reader, Sanders is trying to offer like a more systematic Biblical approach to just the Biblical information about the immutability of God, that is God never changes. I mean clearly God doesn't change, but then it does seem like he changes his mind in some other areas. It seems like maybe he is part of this plan, and it requires God acting on contingencies which is Pinnock's whole thing anyway. Which is respecting human free will, but also recognizing at some overarching level God's sovereignty will always have the last word. But I've had people write me and say the most horrible things about Pinnock being a universalist and all that stuff, and I've just never read it. I mean I may be wrong. I'm not a theologian. I'm a songwriter, I'm a musician and already we're off to a bad start.

Joe: Yeah, I probably started with the wrong question.

Bill: That's all right.

Bill added these comments by way of E-mail after the interview: I think the character of God is the real issue. Is God "big" enough and motivated by His love (as opposed to His will and immutability) to sovereignly control His world, which He gave the freedom to fall, respect that freedom and still have the last word? Although it is a source of debate, the Calvinist model seems to do grave injustice to the character of God with it's doctrines of particular atonement (vs. the free and whole offer of the Gospel to all), the way it interprets election (IE. grace being offered to some but withheld for some inexplicable reason to others), and the fact that I'm asked to believe that all the ills and horrors that have resulted from the Fall are basically pre-ordained and for a greater good I can't see yet. All that strikes me as straining belief and credibility. But that's the tension inherent in the Calvinistic approach. It's certainly not what the church has believed as a majority, even from it's infancy. So I find Sanders and Pinnock refreshing, if not completely convincing at this point in my life.

Joe: But it was interesting. I mean when you sort these things out by category, theology was close to the top of the list.

Bill: And I love the list for that reason. They keep me sharp. They read. I get a lot of information from people who are way theologically astute. I mean their lives are immersed in that. What an odd list.

Joe: Did wrestling with those issues affect you at all in terms of your church? Because you're an elder in a Presbyterian church.

Bill: I'm not an elder anymore (laughter). But it's not the reason (more laughter).

Joe: We had one guy who is an elder, and he said maybe you guys aren't as strict as his church.

Bill: I stepped down two years ago, but it was because of the road. I'm not there when a bunch of new faces, particularly the student church kids coming in coming out. I gotta know who's there, kinda know what's going on, and when I'm on the road five six months at a time it just doesn't work very well. And I'd been an elder for seven years. No, it's a pretty strict PCA church as far as what goes. I mean some people take a lifetime to work this kind of stuff out. I mean I'm at peace about where I've come to. It works out a lot more calmly in the experiential area as opposed to trying to draft a complete formula about the way God works and how he works in his universe. And I don't think anybody can lay claim to that completely.

Chris: Let's go to the CCM market. A question about that. Travis Freeman asks do you think the CCM market is mostly propaganda. But he wants to know whether you feel it is important to at least try and penetrate that market at some point in time. And if you do he wants to know if you might want to change the integrity of that market, and show that you have spiritual integrity and not try to preach to people and say feel good, smile and God loves you type of music.

Bill: Yeah, well Travis and I are on the same page exactly. I do think it's predominately about propaganda, but there's nothing wrong with propaganda necessarily. I mean every major movement whether it's political or religious or whatever has propaganda that goes with it. I think CCM is predominately about selling records to kids between the ages of 11 and 16. And it has to be pretty tried and true party line. The thing that actually affects me more than just the simplicity of the message, there's nothing wrong with that, because I think the Gospel, it wants simple and profound, it's more the kind of rampid commerciality going on in it. The way it's marketed kind of irritates me a lot of times, I suppose. I think they ask a great deal of bands, young bands that have had nothing more than a positive youth group experience, to basically champion the cause of Christ, to be apologists for the faith. And I don't see anything D.L. Moody or G.K. Chesterton or C.S. Lewis's out there in those bands. I don't hear it in the records. Now they may be, but I think it's too young to know. And to sort of place all of that on top of the music just seems like what we've done is we've created this little sub-culture, and we're going to keep that little sub-culture going, and if it works in an underground superstructure called the Christian Book Store Association then that's just all I know about it. I think you can redeem it, but my experience being a part of Vigilantes of Love has been that that only works up to a point and you can only push the envelope so far. I mean it's funny, people always cite Love Cocoon as being kind of like the big kind of like water ship that sort of screwed things up. I don't see it that way at all. I mean Love Cocoon was never supposed to be released. It had already been released. The funny thing is, it was already on another record that was already in those same book stores that were rejecting the very record off Capricorn. The only thing was is that it was going to become a single. And so it called everybody's attention to it. And that's just another whole issue with us and Capricorn. No resolution. Just an unhappy occurrence. But I think Travis is right. I guess the bigger question is does CCM have the right to exist? Well, who cares what I think on that? I mean it exists, it ain't going away. You know, there's probably some good out there. But I think most of the artists that I know and am friends with, even the artists that are considered quote cutting edge at CCM after one or two records are very unsatisfied with it because they're boxed in, and they know that artistically they just can't go very many places.

Chris: So does your mind ever drift and say hey I'd like to be in that market for a little while? Does it ever come up as a possibility when you think about the market?

Bill: I can't do it. I couldn't even write. I mean we go to it completely for mercenary reasons. Completely for mercenary reasons. That's because the people over there, I don't care if they buy records in truck stops or bookstores or you know Barnes and Noble or Tower or whatever. We go there because there's a dollar to be made. That's it. And they do it too. I mean the whole thing is driven with a dynamic that's very Wall Street. It's about making money. I'm never doubting the sincerity of the bands or the people in the bands. I mean I think they're in it for the right reasons, but I mean is it really about ministry. I think it's about record companies making lots of money selling youth group propaganda to kids. It's propaganda we agree with as Christians, but it's pretty narrow as far as artistic expression goes.

Joe: Do you regret that you ended up in that market? I know Mark Heard tried to talk you out of it. And I look back at your first Cornerstone as sort of a turning point.

Bill: It's kind of cryptic. Mark was standing at the front door of the house and we had finished the record, we had finished Killing Floor, it was going to get pressed, and it would be at Cornerstone. Which Mark and I had planned on seeing each other then, and we didn't. For one reason or another we just weren't able to stay the day Mark played. But I think Brenda said Mark do think we should play Cornerstone. Dan Russell at Fingerprint wants us to play Cornerstone. And Mark said don't do it and left. And that was like the last words out of his mouth that I heard like in the airspace. I talked to him on the phone numerous times, but you could tell he had regrets about it. But I think we sort of thought we were different. We came out of a music scene. You know, we came out of Athens, GA, second wave of bands. We had done a lot of road work, and we weren't really perceived as a Christian band like Mark was already perceived as a Christian artist. We just figured it was a way to galvanize the fan base.

Joe: Which it did. The reality is you've gotten a lot of fans as a result. You have a lot of support because of the Cornerstone crowd.

Bill: Absolutely. And we're grateful for it. I mean we're going back this year. Probably 80 percent of the fan base would describe themselves as evangelical Christians I would think. Maybe more, who knows.

Chris: Do you think it's a problem that you have that label now? Is that hard to get away from?

Bill: I wonder what happens when major labels and A&R guys go visit a web site, and they can't turn two pages on that thing before they are probably left with an impression that it's a Christian band with an agenda. Or they think it's an agenda. I think they assume it's an agenda, but I don't believe that it is. I don't think you can get that off the records. I mean hopefully if we're doing our job right and I'm doing my job right, hopefully it feels more like just a personal view of where my hearts at or where my songs are coming from. Hopefully it doesn't sound like an agenda. I suppose you could pull out four or five songs like Double Cure and Judas Skin and Only a Scratch and I don't know what else, Earth Has No Sorrow, and say well that's clearly a Christian band, well they'd be right, but I mean that's not all there is to it. I don't know. It's hard to answer that question. I don't know at this point. It's like somebody asked me today do you think you'll ever have to go make like a praise and worship album to put your kids through to school. I don't know that I could do that. I mean I'd like to make a praise and worship record, but I don't know that it would look like something that would show up in CCM. It might be doing like a bunch of old gospel songs, or something like that.

At this point Joe reads a question from a person named Ralp, and we all laugh once it is discovered that Bill is Ralp. Bill then decides to add a final thought to the Christian issue.

Bill: Well I can tell you personally that all of us basically believe what the church has believed for 2000 years. I mean we believe categorically in the statements and the assertions of the creeds. The great creeds. Whether it's the apostle, the Nicene or I don't know that Jake's read the Athenasious???????????????? Creed. But Kevin has. Apologies Jake. I mean the things rather lengthy. Most Christians probably haven't read it. I think it's only used in the Eastern Church maybe three times a year and I think the Roman Catholic Church maybe only uses it once. But it's a pretty lengthy creed. Particularly dwelling on the person of Christ more than anything else. But that's what we believe and there's a personal faith behind that. We staked our integrity and our lives on it, but I mean after that I don't know how that's supposed to affect music. I think what it means, it's more about the sky being the limit than about going to Nashville and making CCM records. Seems like if it has anything to do with excellence and praiseworthiness about what grace looks like it means its a field this big as opposed to a room that small.

Joe: A lot of people asked questions about family. I think everybody is curious about your family life. People know Brenda, you know they see the family at the shows, and they just want to know what it's like to live in the Mallonee house. What's it like in Athens? A lot of things about your family background. How you and Brenda met, do you have brothers and sisters? What do your parents think of you being in a band?

Bill: Family's a pretty normal family. I met Brenda 19 years ago. I had known her in high school, and I knew two things about her. I knew that her name was Brenda and I though she had beautiful eyes. She was a grade under me. 8 years later, when I was working in Athens, I had finished college and I was trying to save money to go to seminary. I was working in downtown Athens at a store that's still opened called Cookies and Company. I was an assistant manager. I was working as a baker actually. And she wondered in and basically I asked her out on the spot. Three months later we got married. And I'm never, was never that forward. I'm completely terrified of women most of the time. And was all through school. But it was right. We attached ourselves to this fellowship, University Church, a PCA church, Dr. Dan Orme, who I can't just say enough good things about. He's been my mentor in the things of God. It's been a pretty normal little small town, small southern town life since I got here in 74. Kids go to a small private school, not to steep on the tuition, and they seem to do pretty well. Part of it is just because the county we're located in just has such sorry public schools.

Chris: No joke about that.

Bill: I mean even since you've graduated Chris, I think they may have gotten a little worse. And I think for the most part they're not going to get better unless some drastic things happen. But those changes aren't things you can legislate, it's more about families being solid units and they're not. But we've been lucky. I mean it's been sort of a rock and roll family to a certain extent. I did the house dad thing. I think some people on the list know that, until both the kids went into first grade. It was while I was writing, and the band was touring maybe no more than three to six weeks a year. So I could sort of work that out with my work schedule. We had a number of students that would come in when I'd go on short tours and stay with the kids like from say 2 to 5 when Brenda got home. Brenda's always worked. She's a social worker for the state of Georgia. Recently got a promotion. She's doing really really well, and is actually in a position now where she has an extreme amount of clout with some higher ups in the state juvenile justice system. So she's actually right just below the step of policy making. Which is really good. We've always stayed married as if we were going to continue to date all through our marriage I guess. That was going to be a priority. The kids are priority. We sort of built a little bit of a womb around when the band did start to take off a little bit, you know it was come back home and retreat, sort of build the womb back up again and maybe go on some vacation or turn the phones off for awhile or something like that.

Joe: You seem to manage to get them on the road with you a lot.

Bill: Yeah, they come out during the summer. Not as much as they used to, but there was definitely a time period in there like between Blister Soul and after that up through Roof of the Sky where they came out a lot. Brenda will still go to Europe. It's just hard to get everybody over there because it's so expensive. They're more interested in the exotic places now that they haven't been to. Or they'd like to go back to Europe. They've done just about everywhere in the U.S. that they'd like to see.

Chris: What do your kids think about the whole band thing?

Bill: They like the music, I mean I don't know if it's completely their cup of tea. Although the other night, it's funny, Joshua went to see the Hurricane and came back and went looking through my Dylan collection looking for the song. I thought that was pretty cool. I think he's just started to put some things together about oh I hear that influence in my dad's music. But they all listen to a lot of stuff. A lot of modern rock. I mean they tend to be 99X kids and that kind of stuff. We still try to teach them to be discerning about that kind of stuff or some songs. They've turned me on to a lot of stuff that I thought was really great recently. I mean there's stuff like Korn and Rage Against the Machine that I think is really good. I tend not to like the sort of glossy singer songwriter kind of things or pop divas I guess would be the better word for it. I'm pretty disconnected about what's hip, but there is some stuff occasionally that I like. You know that's main stream hip. I mean I'm more aware of what's going on that's more underground.

Chris: You mentioned in the last interview that your influence was kind of Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo and this kind of thing and Jay Farrar. Is that still a big influence?

Bill: I like it. I don't really listen to a lot of stuff, it's kind of like I sort of know what I can do that sounds believable, and I kind of know what I can feel in my music that feels like I'm not going beyond it to be something else. And I just try to listen to that voice. I don't mean to like make it mystical, but I mean I guess there's sort of an intuitive element to it where you're saying that's what I do, that's not what Son Volt does, or that's what I do, that's not what Dylan does. I think the first two records I was wearing a lot of the influences on the sleeves, and I think somewhere around Killing Floor that started to drop away and hopefully it's continued to drop away. I'm not saying any music is completely pure and unique, but I'm just saying I know what I can do to make it believable as opposed to stretching for something that's not me if that makes sense. Did we cover the one about family well enough?

Joe: Yeah, I think so.

Bill: Brenda's a goddess and a saint. I mean she lets me do this. She really lets me do this.

Joe: And the kids too?

Bill: And the kids too.

Joe: Are they comfortable with the fact that you're on the road and all that?

Bill: I think Joseph probably takes it a little harder than Josh does. Josh being 16, he's on the go. With Joe, I think he feels a little bit more of a void where dad's gone for periods of time. And it may just be their emotional makeup. Josh has always been very outgoing, Joe's a little more, he's just a little shyer about things. Joe and I are more likely to take a walk around the block, and he's libel to pour out a pretty important thing or two, but it would only be in that context that he would do it. Like we're driving somewhere, we're taking a walk, or something like that, and if I'm not here to do that it may just stay buried under the ground. I have had the sense over the years that there's definitely chapters in their lives that they're writing that I don't get a chance to read. And that's just the down side of the job unfortunately. It's a sad thing. Some of those are themes that showed up on Roof of the Sky. Of just knowing that you're out there doing it, trying to make it to the next level. It's like a lot of jobs, you work this job so you don't have to work it as much. If you're successful at it then that's the goal. So you don't have to be away. Ric Hordinski from Over the Rhine mentioned that one night. It was the last tour that he did with them, and I played Ballad of Russell Perry and I didn't put this together, and he asked me what the song was about, and I told him it's about a relative, a distant relative who played baseball, but it took him away from the things that he loved the most, his grounding. So the thing that he loved to do, the thing he was best at was actually the thing that made his life sort of disintegrate. And Rich said yeah that's kind of like doing the music thing for me. He said the things that I love the most, my job takes me away from that. You know the thing that I love to do the most takes me away from the people I love the most. And that's what he picked up out of the song. But I never even put two and two together until he mentioned that to me.

Joe: Really, that wasn't conscious?

Bill: It wasn't conscious at all. That's definitely true though because I think I just hadn't completely imprinted what the song was about on my road experience.

Joe: Your recent songs feel less obsessed with that issue then they were there for a while. You went through a period where it was all the "throw us all in the van and see if we care." There seemed to be a lot of reworking of those.

Bill: I think that just the raw emotions are still there though I don't think the notion of being like a band all for one, one for all, us against the world. I think that's kind of gone. I think we're coming to terms with the fact that I personally think in some ways, and Lott's going to hate that I say this, but I think the band's a failure. I mean in commercial terms, I think it's a complete and utter failure. And you're always hung by the gonads, by your sound scans, and I think our sound scans suck. And there's a reason for that.

Joe: Could you get a few more profanities in?

Bill: What, gonads? I thought gonads was an anatomical term.

Joe: I'm just kidding Bill.

Bill: We're always paying for the sins of what happened back there in the mid 90's with those four records. I mean Lott knows that, it's true now when we go and shop a record to somebody. They immediately say, ohh I like the way it sounds, what are the sound scans like? I mean I've said this for years, A&R guys don't listen with their ears, they listen with their math. And I think this band has a lot to say. I think it goes thematically to places that I don't always hear, but when I do hear it in other bands or other artists I get completely delighted. It's like ohh music does matter again. And I really do write songs for me just so I can hear those themes in front of me. So I can put them in the car and listen to them. They're like pep talks. They're completely personal. But the songs, back on what you were saying, I think it's more about just dealing with those feelings and feeling like I've failed. Because it's just a step away from feeling like the band is a commercial failure to, I'm a failure. And I know that's a little bit of a jump to get there, but it's not much of one on your darker days for me.

Joe: So things like Black Cloud, it's personal to you?

Bill: Things like Black Cloud and probably the next twelve things that will come out of a pen that will show up on a record. I mean even that baseball song You Give it all Your Heart. I mean it's kind of like more of a pat on the back, but I really do believe that I mean emotionally there's a sort of gut level feeling like it's been kind of like all for nought. And I don't think that's a statement of a lack of faith. I know that it means a lot to a lot of people, but it's so hard not to measure the success of something in terms of commercial success on some level. And I mean we hardly even register on the map. You know it's one of the reasons why people have left, some personal and some economic, for the most part people have left the band because there's been no commercial success whatsoever. A little bit of success would have gone a long way toward alleviating any personal tensions. And there will be a bunch of questions like what were the personal tensions with Kenny I'm sure just because of the way that was phrased, but it's really not. I think a little success would have gone a long way. Kenny told us last year when he left the band, he said you know when the thing went south with Pioneer, and we worked all summer long and we did a showcase for Arista Austin, he said when that showcase came through at the end of the night they were ready to put a contract in front of us, and they were salivating all over themselves they were so excited about the band. A week later in England something had changed, and basically what had changed is they were out of money. And Kenny said when he heard that we weren't going to get signed to that he said the heart of it pretty much went out of it for him. And I understand.

Joe: So how do you keep hope in the middle of all that? Because when I listen to the songs I certainly hear all of that negative I'm depressed, everything's not working out, but there's all this sort of undercurrent of hope.

Bill: Well, I think at the end of the day you just sort of wait and see that what appears to be not of any importance to you at the moment you know somehow God's going to bring something out of it. And it's completely intuitive. It's not like I'm in some sort of dry way exercising faith in the promises of God. It's just more of a, maybe it's a spiritual kind of knowledge. I mean clearly it helps to have letters from people and things like that. I mean I know the band has meant something to a number of people from a spiritual standpoint. It's funny I don't know that I actually set out to really do that with the songs. We were talking about this, the songs are not really written for outside much of an audience of one which is myself, and that sounds kind of selfish, but I don't write songs for the list or record buying populace. Maybe that's why it's a commercial failure. Why should I expect anymore? When you dive that far into sort of exploring the terrain of uncharted waters on some level anyway. I just had to do it. I just had to do it to kind of stay sane just because of the very sort of tempestuous spiritual background that I came out of, and it was that weird mix of just being completely neurotic and fearful of everything and then having this faith that I knew absolutely to be true that there was an empty tomb and the whole world was changed. I mean your talking about a kid who at seven years old had found himself in a bathroom one night weeping because I had some notion of life and its temporalness. And it was specifically with my grandmother who's still alive, but I just had this complete notion that one day she wouldn't be there, and it just upset me so much that I locked myself in a bathroom one Christmastime and just started crying. And I don't know why. But I remember the experience clearly. But what seven year old does that? I mean I don't know, maybe we all do, and we just ain't saying. But some of that stuff is the undercurrent of why, even after I became a Christian, those emotions and those nuances in my makeup just sort of held on. And I think I do try to write more pop right kind of records. I mean Struggleville sounds like a symphony of joy compared to the stuff we're doing now I suppose. I mean it's pretty affirming. I think it's got a lot more testosterone in it so to speak. There's just sort of a swagger in those lyrics you know when you listen to something like Babylon or something like that then what we're doing now, but for some reason the stuff we're doing now feels more honest. I enjoy playing it. Even if it's just and audience of one.

Chris: You've mentioned before that this is all you know how to do basically...

Bill: Yeah, I'm stuck...

Chris: Is that still the case? I mean is this something you think you see yourself doing for a long time still no matter what happens commercially?

Bill: I guess. I think I'd like to get in a room with bands and produce some bands sometime. But it would probably have to be some bands that had some kind of vision.

Chris: That leads to another question that was brought up about Filet of Soul. Somebody asked about them. They brought up the idea of whether you were going to continue to do that kind of thing. They said they really enjoyed the Filet of Soul album.

Bill: Yeah, well the interesting thing about that record is that the band had like nobody played guitar and everybody played guitar. Randy their bass player played guitar parts, and they just all sort of swapped stuff in and out. And it was the same thing with the Fishermen which is another kind of a CCM act that I did, but we had great time doing it, and I'm just trying to get them to focus on the thing that made their music unique. I mean obviously you're working with limited budget so therefore limited time, and I know Filet of Soul, I think they did a number of tracks outside the studio. I think we only worked on like three or four songs together maybe. But it was nice for me to kind of get inside their heads to find out what they thought their music was about. And then just try to sort of pull a little bit more out of them and get them to focus on those things that were unique about their music and what they were trying to say. Never got into the lyric thing with them. You know I just sort of trusted that whatever they were going to say they were saying. I think I did make a few suggestions to the guys in Fishermen about particular lyric lines.

Joe: Did you like producing?

Bill: Ohh, I loved it. It was great working with Tom Lewis. He's still in town here, and I'd just love to put in a plug for him. Mark Smith out at Full Moon and Tom actually, Tom Lewis, has his own studio right here in town. It was great working with those guys. I liked it, but it's nothing I could do all the time. I'm too much of a performer. I gotta have that symbiotic relationship I get with an audience that I kind of need to be in front of some people to sing.

Chris: One more question about the local scene. I want to ask you about the local scene here, whether you think it's almost like it's kind of falling apart it seems like lately. We've got Dayroom is playing their last show tomorrow night, Day by the River I think it was, their van crashed, and they broke up...

Bill: Somebody in that band died I think...

Chris: Somebody died. I think the sound guy. But they ended up breaking up the band, and it just seems like a lot of bands, Drivin N' Cryin just broke up, I know they're not Athens, but they're local.

Bill: Well, Capricorn just came in and signed three bands. I mean they signed Jucifer, they signed a band called the Glands, and they re-signed Hayride. It's hard to say. I mean it's a challenge to musicians, but I think it's not a challenge to the superstructure to get people out. I know Valena at the 40 Watt has a management company that handles Kitty Snyder who used to be in Loveapple. I think she's real talented.

Chris: I think they work with Cracker too.

Bill: Yeah, with David Lowery. There's two young women in a band called Little Red Rocket that have great voices here. I've just heard them do a duet thing, and it was actually just a sound check, and they're quite good. I don't know what the band sounds like, but I'm out of town so much, I'm not really hip to the local scene anymore, and most of them to be quite honest, the local scene, they don't give a crap about the Vigilantes of Love anyway. I mean it's a handful of people, but we've never had friends at the Flagpole that give one rip about this band. I think the perception is if it's not ohh they're just a Christian band, it's like ohh those guys have been around forever. And they were all like willing to embrace us when the thing showed up on 99X, but they had never, except for like maybe a few bright spots like Barry and Velena at the Watt Club, there had been nobody in this town in the powers that be that embraced this band. Nobody did.

Joe: Why?

Bill: I think the perception was that it was a Christian band, and therefore it didn't count.

Chris: Brenda said you even sent some albums, and they didn't even review it for Roof of the Sky.

Bill: Yeah, Roof of the Sky that had been getting like seven, eight, ten star reviews all over the place, and we sent em down there and they conveniently lost two copies of Roof of the Sky. I mean that may have actually happened, but it's like c'mon. I mean if it's just as far as the whole indie sort of work ethic of like guys getting in a van and going out on the road for 170 days, I mean for crying out loud we certainly rate a paragraph or two. But we're just not in. It is a small town with a smaller circle, and I know that sort of reeks of conspiracy, I'm not going that far, but I am saying there are a number of people who know each other, and those names are going to continue to come to the forefront. And we've just never been part of that gang. And I don't really want to be part of it. Most of our radio response has been very strong in the Midwest and the northeast, and so we tend to go back to those areas like Chicago, Minneapolis, the northeast Philly, Boston, New York City. It's small, but it's a strong base of support. And the AAA stations, which there aren't really any in the southeast, there's not even one in Atlanta, strange of strange, which is such a full pop oriented kind of town when you focus on certain artists like a Shawn Mullins or people like that, Andrew Bush and those guys.

Chris: The Indigo Girls.

Bill: Yeah, the Indigos. I mean it's strange that there wouldn't be a AAA station there in Atlanta. But there's not. But we've done really well on those. And we've done well on those stations like that when they had bands like Cracker, The Wallflowers, and Counting Crows like right behind us. So, I know it can compete, it's just a matter of it being marketed. The typical way of radio people marketing a band is to build a story at one format and move it to another. And that just never happened. We got in real good with the AAA format between 94 and 96, but that was the end of it. It never went over into commercial success. That would have taken tours, money for videos, stuff like that.

Chris: What about marketing for this new album? I know I got a call the other day from Protocal Entertainment I think it was, Randy Sadd...

Bill: Ohh yeah, he's the radio guy.

Chris: And he's sending it out to colleges. So are you going to start hitting college stations?

Bill: We're hiring radio and PR for this. In fact the PR person who used to work with Garth Brooks is going to work this record. She doesn't work with him any longer, but she broke him. She's huge, and she likes doing stuff that's a little left of center, I don't know if I can say that or not. I don't guess that has to be a secret. And then Randy Sadd broke Shawn Mullin's record. So, we've kind of got to go for it at this point, no matter what the cost is. It's kind of like the records will never get on the audio radar so to speak, or the commercial radar, unless we do this. The last records will never show up except on like indie, AAA stations, what they call non-commercial AAA stations. But the big gun stations that it's really important to be on like the XRT's or the XPN's or stuff like that, those stations you have to have someone walking in saying play this, I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Chris: Do you worry about the support of it when you've already played this music through two years now? And you've got new songs already ready to go.

Bill: Yeah...

Chris: And it could be hard to support this album in this context.

Bill: In what way?

Chris: In the fact that you're already playing brand new songs, and people have heard these songs for a year and a half, and I think you've mentioned before that they might not enjoy it as much if they've already heard it live. They might like it more live.

Bill: Yeah, the people who have heard it though, when you think about it, that's a pretty small number of folks. And that's not a disparaging remark to the list or the folks who buy the record, but that's a small number of folks. In theory there's only 2,000 people who have got that album. We want to see two zeroes on the end of that number at least.

Chris: If it really starts selling, would you want to focus in on that album and really play those songs a lot? And if so, how would you do that with a three-piece?

Bill: We will with the three-piece probably play at least three quarters of that record. I mean we just have to sort of redefine it. One of the reasons for changing the name of the band and putting my name in front of it is because in some ways it's always been there, but the other thing is to take the focus off of it being a band thing. And a singer-songwriter can show up with a kazoo and do a set, or he can show up with a band and the London Philharmonic. It just depends on what he or she is able to do on any given night. And I'd like to have that freedom. And at this point, mostly due Chris to economic constraints, we can't do it anymore but just the three right now. And it kind of works in some ways, but yeah I've had to go and write as if it were just the three-piece. That's why we put three new songs on the record that were very three-piece oriented songs. They don't really need a whole lot of filigree work around them.

Joe: And the new songs were basically cut live?

Bill: Yeah, we did them in one day. Day and a half.

Joe: So it's stuff you can duplicate?

Bill: Ohh yeah, yeah. I can't duplicate Buddy's great guitar solo at the end of...

Joe: Ohh the mandolin?

Bill: Well, that's on Solar System, but I was actually thinking of the one on Now as the Train Pulls Away, that's just such a great just anthemic roots rock guitar solo. I mean gosh it is so great.

Joe: So what will you do in concert at that point?

Bill: I'll be playing an F harmonica is what I'll be playing. (laughter) I do a lot with my voice now too. One of the side bars of Kenny not being in the band is we're playing at a considerably less volume level, probably 40 percent less. And the funny thing is Kevin, who is a basher really, he's a great drummer. Kevin just has all styles down. Kevin is playing quieter, and we're all enjoying it, and I have a voice at the end of the evening. I can speak the next day when I wake up. And it wasn't all completely that Kenny was playing on eleven every night, I mean he was pretty restrained, but when you put two electric guitars on stage, that's a lot of noise. And most sound men tend to push it in the room. Now we're telling sound guys to bring it back. Keep it soft. If there's yapping going on in the corner of the club, let it be. Bring people in tight. And it's exactly what happened at the 40 Watt the last show. The people really listening came into the center which is exactly what we wanted to do. And it worked great, but I think my singing voice has improved. And I've started to use my voice more like an instrument over different measures where there might have been a guitar solo there. I can do things with it. I've been hitting falsetto notes, just diving from spoken to a falsetto note here and there, in really some cool places. And I'm not taking any lessons, it just sort of showed up about two or three months ago, and I've been singing with it through the holidays. So that's kind of what I'm excited about.

Joe: Did you know that that's where you were going to go with the music after Kenny left...

Bill: No we stumbled into it.

Joe: Because you know the Drunk on the Tears Tour essentially started in my basement. And that night 80 percent of what you played was you. The band didn't play much, and then I caught the last show at Eddie's Attic and I was...

Bill: What'd you think?

Joe: Over 45 days you guys had turned that band into...

Bill: It had morphed into something else.

Joe: It sounded great.

Bill: And Buddy said the same thing. He said it sounds bigger than just the three parts. But it's definitely a context thing. If you try to take that three-piece and try to put it in a big big room it will lose every time. There's not enough coming off stage to make it carry. But to me personally, I'm just not sure that rock and roll, outside of some really really heavy forms of it like a Rage Against the Machine or even a Metallica. I'm just not sure that it was meant to be played that loud. I think the magic happens in a smaller context. I'd like to think we could play like a thousand to fifteen hundred capacity if we had a great sound guy. I'm playing an acoustic guitar now through a really little nasty amp and cranking it. You saw it at Smith's, you saw it at Eddie's Attic.

Joe: But you're running like two amps right?

Bill: I'm running two amps, and you hear the acoustic very kind of pristine and clean. But the band feels a little thrashier for some reason about the way it's going after it. And that may be closer to what Killing Floor was all about. But it's also a step up to something else. And about halfway through the tour after it started in Joe's basement basically. About halfway through the tour we were having a blast. It was like the funniest thing we'd ever done in three or four years.

Joe: And the big surprise in it was Jake. I mean what happened to Jake on the road?

Bill: Jake's playing solos.

Chris: He's gotten a lot better.

Bill: Jake's always been great. Jake's a good guitar player too, but he's never been asked to like ok you're going to play a solo here. Or you're going to cover up two parts here with that delay pedal and make it sound bigger than life. He's just jumped in and done great with it. At the 40 Watt two weeks ago or three weeks ago, there was sort of an incarnation of the band with David Durling who's our church keyboard player, and Vallery Dunn who's Jake's girlfriend. Vallery played cello, and it just went to a place that we hadn't ever gone before, and it just sounded excellent to me, and I'd love to have those variables on stage every night. It just sounded like a more mature kind of thing. But it still sounded like it had that desperate kind of thing to it.

Joe: So are you considering her being on the road?

Bill: Can't afford to take her. But I'd love to have her come out. We really need somebody who can kind of step up and play and be like the Kenny. Kenny was great. He is a great player, and I know he's doing some shows solo here now I think he's just starting to play some.

Joe: Really?

Bill: Yeah, I think his first show is next Thursday. I think he's opening for a band. I think he's just road testing some songs. I don't know if there's anything like a career move behind it, I think he's just got a guitar and going to play some songs in front of this band. But we need somebody who can step up and play like the rippin' mandolin solo or the rockin' guitar part. Just to have that place to go.

Chris: So you see yourself still looking for a fourth member?

Bill: Ohh we're definitely looking. We're definitely looking, but I did like that sort of cello very blocky sort of Bruce Hornsby kind of piano thing, what it was all about. It's kind of like the piano thing Chris Donahue put on Parting Shot. They're real bitter sweet, it's a lot of right hand technique. That sort of what Newt Carter and I used to call rainy day piano. It's that very upper register kind of stuff.

Joe: Bruce Hornsby.

Bill: It's beautiful. It's very emotive, and for what I'm writing right now, it sounds real nice.

Chris: So you've got to have somebody that plays a lot of instruments. You don't want just a guitar player.

Bill: Kind of, yeah, we need somebody who can do more than one thing. Like if we had a keyboard player who played accordion, that would be great. A keyboard player who played accordion and mandolin or fiddle would be excellent. I don't know where you can find those guys.

Chris: So is guitar kind of the least important?

Bill: I love guitar, but I mean we've all heard guitar solos. I mean when we were doing the kind of two guitar, bass, and drum you know Neil Young kind of thing maybe it was a little more important. I mean those are my favorite records, but I think maybe on the list they may be their least favorite records in some ways.

Joe: As long as we're talking about the band, there were some questions about what the band life is like. How often you all get together to practice, and Kevin doesn't even live in the town. What's it like on the road?

Bill: Yeah, I usually write three or four songs a week and then they come to practice once or twice a week, and we learn two of them. That's kind of how we do it. We're very much like if a tour's coming or a show's coming it's kind of like the cramming for an exam sort of thing. This is the first time we've ever done that before. Because we've been touring so much over the last three years, it's never been like not practicing. Now we've gone through stages where we don't practice for like a week which is real unusual for us. I play every day like probably three hours at least because I'm writing, but I know Jake doesn't pick up a bass when he doesn't have to. Kevin teaches in Greenville so he's playing every day. He's teaching lessons and actually he's got some sessions and stuff so he's in pretty high demand. I'm just really lucky to play with two really good players. And they get it real fast. I mean it's a pretty unique band the way it is right now. It would be interesting to see what the fourth player would do because it would have to be the right chemistry. It would have to be just as much about chemistry as someone who was a killer player.

Chris: So you're willing to wait around for a while if you have to?

Bill: Yeah.

Chris: I know you waited a long time for Kenny. You kept saying we're going to find the right one.

Bill: Yeah, I mean Kenny, we still miss him. If Kenny called me up tonight and said hey I'd like to get back in I'd say absolutely, let's go, absolutely. But we'd sort of have Kenny integrate what we're doing now. Which might mean playing less loud guitar and more atmospheric kind of stuff.

Joe: By moving to Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes, does that give you more freedom to sort of bring people in and out?

Bill: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it really does. Anybody who wants to anyway. Jason Burton up in Lexington, Kentucky just called up and said hey I'd like to audition, and we said bring your fiddle, by the way we're playing in Nashville in two days, can you learn these songs. And basically he jumped on stage, and that was it. I mean we did a sound check, and he kind of knew the songs, and he did great, and then he came down here the next night and played in Athens, and that went real well. Ohh no, he did Eddie's Attic.

Joe: Yeah it was at Eddie's.

Bill: Three shows, yeah.

Joe: What do you all listen to on the road. When the three of you are driving around in the van, do you read, listen to music?

Chris: On that new sound system.

Joe: Yeah, on your new stereo.

Bill: Yeah, and I've got a little letter out there. In fact Peter Shearn sent me the envelope with all the little notes that people had written.

Joe: Ohh really?

Bill: Did you know that was going around?

Joe: I knew it was going around. I hadn't seen it.

Bill: Yeah, I saw them yesterday. It got sent late. And that was a beautiful thing. And I've been meaning to get Jake and Kevin over here to sort of frame a letter of thanks. Our van was just...I mean there was nothing to listen to. We did a lot of reading. The tape player was just eating tapes left and right. And in fact its last tape it ate before it went down was the Buddy and Julie MPR thing that Vallery had taped for us. We were listening to it and all of the sudden it just stopped. And we were pulling the tape out and reeling it out of there, yards at a time.

Joe: So what do you all listen to?

Bill: I don't know. It just varies. I mean we haven't been in the van in a while. What did we listen to when we went out? The Tom Waits record was getting a lot of air play. Gosh, what else? Summer Teeth was in a pretty good bit.

Joe: Do you all like the same kind of stuff?

Bill: I think everybody tolerates. Kevin's more of a pop guy. Kevin's definitely into the pop thing, which I like listening to. I just don't buy those records as much as I used to. He's a huge fan of the Posies. But if it's a three minute jangly pop song then he's all over it. You might just want to E-mail him and ask him what he's listening to. Because it changes a lot. He gets into some of these obscure bands too. There's a band, Velvet Crush, which Mitch Easter produced, they have like three or four records out now that are pretty cool. Matthew Sweet, that kind of pop.

Joe: Kevin's the guy that found Patty Griffith, isn't he?

Bill: Kenny.

Joe: Kenny did?

Bill: Yeah.

Joe: Ohh really.

Bill: Talking about the Red Shoes album, is that it?

Joe: Yeah, Flaming Red.

Bill: Flaming Red, yeah, that's a pretty scary record. That's just a take no prisoners. A lot of that was recorded live I think. And they set the band up and just let it go.

Joe: There's a whole bunch of stuff here about particular songs, how you write, how albums are constructed. Where do you want to start?

Chris: Let's start about how you feel you've grown as a writer. What areas do you see need the most improvement or further challenge for yourself in writing?

Bill: As far as writing goes?

Joe: Yeah.

Bill: Ohh, I think I'm just sort of stuck in a holding pattern as far as the writing goes. I don't know. Well, I mean a holding pattern in the sense that I write what I write, and I do what I do, and I don't know that I can get much further outside of that.

Brenda enters the room...tape runs out and we don't know it so we keep on talking. When we discover the tape has run out, we try our best to return to the approximate place where we left off.

Chris: So do you want to go back to the question about what to do the opening week of Audible Sigh?

Joe: Well, I think one thing about the album first. Why don't we go back to that afterwards. You had the chance to go back in and record new songs which is a pretty unique thing actually. That you get a chance to redo it. So how did you choose to pull off the ones you pulled off? How did you choose the three that you recorded? You write like 80 songs a year, how do you pick these three?

Bill: Well, the reason why we did it was with Ken leaving the band there was a need I thought to spin the record in a different way. The tracks we recorded on there up to the redoing of three new songs had Ken's musical John Doe all over it, so...to say if this is going to be Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love it's got to have something on it that suggests more of a gritty kind of a passionate three-piece thing, and those are the songs that we picked. Solar System was written after the record, and actually Buddy heard that song one night when we played it in Nashville, and said why didn't we record that? And I said well I wrote it like a week after we got out of the studio. So we go a chance to do that, but the version of it is not the big kind of a la Crazy Horse version, it's a very understated version of it. More like Judas Skin or Blister Soul Reprise.

Joe: Did you come up with that version in Nashville with Buddy?

Bill: In the studio, yeah. We just started playing, and I went and grabbed his resonator guitar off the wall and started playing it. Kevin was in the other room. We didn't have visible with Kevin, Kevin was in another room with just headphones on.

Joe: Did you record in Buddy's house?

Bill: Yeah, Dogtown Studio.

Joe: You didn't have the money to go back in the big studio?

Bill: No. I don't know if you can tell. I think there's a little bit of a different audio sound in that room, but it's a little trashier.

Joe: It sounds a little different.

Bill: Yeah, you can tell. Especially between track one and two I think. But that's the only place it really shows up I think.

Joe: Right, you hear it on the first song, which made me wonder why you picked Train Pulls Away as the first song.

Brenda: Lott picked that.

Bill: No, I picked it.

Brenda: You did?

Bill: Yeah.

Joe: So why did you pick that to open?

Brenda: Because he felt like it.

Bill: I think people sort of identify or own a lot of sort of emotional thing with the first track on a record no matter what it is. And it's a really anthemic song, I mean it's about trains for crying out loud. What else do I write about?

Chris: Are you picking out a single this time? Are you going to focus on one song. Is it still Goes Without Saying?

Bill: It will be Goes Without Saying as the single. Although I thought Now As the Train Pulls Away would be a good one.

Joe: You would have done that as a single?

Bill: Well, not necessarily. Might have. If we made a full record of like three-piece kind of grindy stuff like those songs, I might have picked that one.

Joe: But that song's not about a train.

Bill: Well, it is.

Joe: That's a relationship song.

Brenda: Well, we are all trains aren't we?

Joe: Well, ironically today driving over here, halfway here I was listening to Matthew Ryan's album. So here's an album, it's all I hate you, I'm burning every thing you ever gave me, I feel irrelevant and all this stuff. And I take that out, and I put on your album, and the first thing I hear is this song about someone leaving, but there was all this hope to it. This sort of sorrow in the how come people don't stay in love anymore, isn't this supposed to be forever, but it's a hopeful song. It didn't feel like a train song to me even though there was a train in it.

Bill: Well...

Joe: It's all right, I'm interpreting your music for you.

Brenda: We'd like to introduce you to Bill's spokesperson, his ghostwriter Joe Kirk. (laughter)

Joe: I just thought it was interesting, the difference in the song.

Bill: Well, it does work on two levels. I mean it's a really graphic image anyway. I mean a train is like something thoroughly American in a lot of ways, it conjures up a whole bunch of different stuff at one time.

Joe: Several people did ask why you're so obsessed with trains.

Chris: They want to know you're train obsession.

Joe: I mean you've got two train songs on this album, you have several others.

Bill: That's true. We'll go to that question in a minute. What was the other thing?

Joe: Well we were doing track listing. The new songs.

Bill: Ohh yeah, the reason to do those three songs. And it really was honest to goodness an attempt to spin the record kind of toward where the band is at right now. I mean we can go and do all those songs on the record. They won't sound like they sound. I won't be pulling off Kenny's guitar parts on a number of the songs, but if it's a singer-songwriter thing anyway, then here's my defense of that, the songs are basically conceived written and played by one guy with an acoustic guitar and a room full of people anyway. I mean they all started out that way. Almost every single song was done by me when I wrote it as like the opening of a set whatever particular night. Whether it was like Nothing Like a Train or Solar System I mean it was like hey I just wrote this new song, I'm going to go out and play this, and then we'll go out and do the set. I do that a lot. And I did it a lot on the road. So all these songs were basically previewed by me and me alone. And this is just a more expanded version of it. I mean the record of it with all of us whether it's Brady, Phil Madiera, Ken, Emmylou, they're just more expanded versions of those songs. Do they lose something by me just standing out there just doing it you know a la acoustic? Maybe, but maybe not. You know, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. It depends on which one you get attached to, and which one you think is definitive. I don't think any of them are definitive. I mean songs constantly change and mutate. Dylan would be the classic because some people say the songs he does are worse than the record versions, but I think it's just because people get attached to the record versions, and they think they can't hear it any other way. And I don't think we quite dispense of everything. In fact some of those songs we probably won't do because there's so much energy that Ken put in the tracks that we just won't be able to recover unless we completely reinterpret it. Solar System worked though. That song was all about the big grandiose barn burning bomb bask, and now it's just a whisper.

Joe: Well, I never knew what the song was about until this version. I always loved it in concert. This big noisy experience, but then all the sudden you do this quiet version and all the sudden there's an interesting story going on in the background. And I never would have caught that before.

Bill: And I think that's a lot of the songs. And what we found on the tour is that all of the sudden the lyric content gets thrown more in sharp relief now, the delivery gets thrown more in sharp relief which is why I'm glad I can hear on stage. I can sing better.

Brenda: I had a friend of mine that came to me today and said I can't believe the words to those songs. I've never heard them before. That was Jo responding to the Eddie's Attic show.

Bill: Well, maybe it's just got to be that way right now.

Brenda: Yeah, it's exciting. It's a whole new turn.

Bill: I mean as much as I miss Ken and his playing, and I'd love for him to come back in, I think we'd probably still say let's try it this way and see how it integrates. Because we spent three years just burning up and down the roads of the U.S. with a two guitar, bass and drum thing. You know, that was a chapter. I wish more people would have heard it. I think in the context of bands out there like Son Volt and Wilco and either Matthew Ryan or Whiskeytown, I think people saw some great rock and roll. I don't know that they actually appreciated everything they were seeing night after night, but we certainly enjoyed it. I've seen a lot of those bands, and I know what they do, and I'd hold up what we do against any of that. And those are great bands, I mean they really are. I mean you've heard me on the Whiskeytown, and it will be interesting to see what Ryan does on the solo record. Probably a great album.

Joe: The one didn't talk about, Black Cloud. How did you get that?

Bill: As a song to go on there?

Joe: Yeah.

Bill: It's just something as a three-piece that worked real well, and I thought it was thematically sort of a continuation. It was written pretty recently. Most of those things were written pretty recently. In like the last two or three months. I guess before Christmastime obviously. But not much more before Christmas. We played them on the tour. Yeah, Black Cloud was written right before we went out to do the tour after we got back from England.

Joe: First time I heard it was at my house I think.

Bill: Did the band play it?

Joe: No, you did it by yourself.

Bill: Ohh, ok.

Brenda: That was the first time we all heard it Joe.

Joe: Was that the first time you heard it too?

Brenda: Yep.

Bill: There are a few more songs in that direction. I'm definitely writing more in minor keys.

Chris: All right, let's go back to the question about the sales of Audible Sigh.

Bill: I think if people are asking on the list how it will benefit the band the most, it's probably soundscan numbers. Just try to buy it at a place that's going to soundscan it. Tell them you just want to run it over the red light three times, and then just charge you once for it.

Brenda: So if you buy it over the Internet you don't get a soundscan?

Bill: No...

Chris: So don't buy it over the Internet?

Bill: I don't think they do it that way. Maybe ask Lott about that. Call Lott and ask him.

(We have now found out that True Tunes online and CDNow both do apparently sound scan items.)

Brenda: Or before you buy it ask them if this is a soundscanned item.

Joe: Like the guy behind the counter is going to know. Who the week before was saying would you like to super size that? He don't know how it works.

Bill: We're not on a record company really big enough to really matter that much.

Chris: Do you think it's going to make it into the secular stores in a lot of these cities?

Bill: At this moment, during this interview, I have no idea. We're very disappointed that it hasn't been picked up by a major label.

Joe: In the original version?

Bill: In the original version.

Brenda: Well it's being looked at by a few major labels right now.

Chris: It's being looked at?

Brenda: Ohh yes.

Bill: Yeah, well, it's always been looked at.

Brenda: But these are new companies, and it's being looked at.

Chris: So this March release is just coming out in the Christian market?

Bill: Well, what I've been told is it's coming out via True Tunes in the CCM market, (The following was added through E-mail about a week later: "But also secular distribution is going through Compass Records. We just signed a new deal. It's a good one for me.") We have a very unique licensing deal. True Tunes, those guys over there, Dave Bunker, John Thompson and Elliot Cunningham, those guys are stellar. They are giving us so much input and resources to make a record that's way more than a licensing deal, but we're not actually signed. They've got that record, but they are showing such great faith and energy with this thing. I mean it really is amazing that it's that much. So anyway, long story short, we're going to be able to hire radio and PR and push that record so that it does ripple at radio stations, and it does show up in the press.

Chris: I mentioned that I got the call from Atlanta. Is that going to be a national thing? National college and AAA?

Bill: Absolutely. AAA, college and Americana. As far as I know.

Joe: And will that coincide the European release, same time?

Bill: I think Europe release is two months later. I think it's April. I heard initially like the middle of March. I'm hearing like March 28 or April 4th now. I think it ought to come out on April Fool's Day, because that's an appropriate day.

Joe: Lott said today end of March, he thought.

Bill: End of March.

Chris: I saw a piece in the Athens Banner Herald weekend thing saying you're pretty pleased with what's going on over there.

Bill: Europe's been great.

Chris: Possibly moving over there one day?

Brenda: Well, he's told everyone we're going to move to Ireland.

Bill: We did like Ireland. I don't have any friends over there really.

Brenda: We have one couple that we're nice to.

Chris: What do you think about the support over there?

Bill: The support's been great. What I was about to say before that tape ran out last time, there's not that CCM filter going on over there in Europe. They just listen the band and they think Wilco, Son Volt, you know whatever...

Brenda: They think goooood...

Bill: Dylan, Hank Williams, Tom Petty. They go ohh we like this. It's like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, or it's like Springsteen. There's none of that CCM filter going on there. And the funny thing is that most of the critics when we were getting secular reviews, they said the same things. I mean it's really about getting up in front of those particular bands, and touring with bands like that so that you build a following. Clearly this band deals with themes that aren't the kind of themes that those bands deal with. So is that what separates us from the mainstream? I mean I don't know. I'd be interested to know. I mean is what I have to say so academic, is it so intellectual, is it so Christian that it just turns people off? I have no idea. I have no way of knowing. I can't do it any other way.

Chris: I know you've said before, too secular for the Christian market and too Christian for the secular market.

Brenda: Absolutely.

Bill: I just don't know. I have no way of really knowing.

Brenda: Joshua and I are always saying, Bill just write a stupid song. A stupid song and we will make it.

Joe: A silly love song.

Bill: Well, it wouldn't sound believable coming from me.

Joe: I'm actually not convinced it's the Christian thing. I think it might be more than people want to think about. That you don't write happy party music. In fact I think that's a lot of why Dan tried to push Love Cocoon. Is you had a song that he thought he could turn into a teen summer hit.

Chris: All the fraternities would have loved it.

Joe: Right, a big frat boy hit.

Bill: Well, we had an incident of that on a much much smaller scale with Lady Luck when we played that for the first two years here in town. All of the sudden we started having these frat boys show up because it was being played on WUOG, and they got it for the wrong reason. I just stopped playing it. Dropped it like a hot potato. It's the only song I regret really ever having written. I just think it's too harsh.

Brenda: Did the list read or see the London Times review?

Joe: No, well somebody may have. I've never heard anyone talk about it, have you?

Chris: I haven't either.

Joe: What's the review say?

Bill: It gave Roof of the Sky 7 out of 10 stars. And just said it was a great record. And London Times literary review is on par with like The New York Times book review. It's like right up there. It was completely unsolicited. I don't even know how they got the record.

Joe: Is Bob Harris really the driver of all that?

Bill: Probably not. Bob has actually had to back out of the record deal side of it because the BBC told him look we know you're getting ready to start a record label, but it's a conflict of interest. You can't be supporting your bands on your record label and do the BBC. So he chose the radio station over the label. And the record's still coming out. And Bob will still be pushing it probably.

Chris: Do you see a tour over there this summer perhaps?

Bill: Yeah, I mean we might be one of those bands that ends up breaking over there before we break over here.

Brenda: JJ's very excited about Europe.

Bill: Yeah, it's good news for us.

Brenda: It's getting a lot of excitement from a lot of people. The BBC got it all over.

Bill: The great thing is they're reacting to Roof of the Sky. Then there's Cross the Big Pond, and then Audible Sigh. So there are two other records over there. I mean, that's the only reason I mentioned Ireland in the context of the conversation...

Brenda: I know...

Bill: You just kind of go where you're wanted. I mean it may well turn out to be that that's a good place to play.

Joe: Do you want to talk any about art work, liner notes, how the album's going to be packaged?

Bill: I don't really know how it's going to be packaged.

Brenda: It's a surprise.

Bill: There's probably a question about Everlast.

Chris: There's a question about that right here.

Joe: It's already been covered on the list too, wasn't it?

Bill: I think so. I don't know how he got it. I think he paid a hefty fee for it. We just got it for a limited run. Limited period of time.

Chris: So it's not like he took over your slot.

Brenda: No, we were glad to help him with the image. He needed a little help.

Bill: Mr. Last, if that is your name. (laughter)

Joe: You going to put lyrics in?

Bill: Ohh, yeah, there will be lyrics.

Joe: You going to do another long rambling here's what I think about life.

Bill: Probably not, I was thinking about republishing the Perishable Goods book that got released at Cornerstone. And maybe updating that a little bit. It's kind of interesting. Did you like that?

Joe: Yeah. A lot of people haven't seen it.

Bill: Yeah, I mean there were only like sixty copies I think that Tobin Hines did.

Joe: We thought about scanning it and putting it on the web site for people who haven't seen it.

Bill: Right. I'd love to be able to repackage it and put it out again. I would just love that kind of organic paper stuff he did, you know the hand made paper and stuff.

Brenda: But you've got so many more stories, you could write another one.

Bill: Not really...

Brenda: Volume number two.

Bill: They're just all in songs now. That was actually just a journal that lasted about a year.

Joe: There was a...where's Nick Purdy's question. When you talk about having so many stories, basically his question...here it is. You have so many stories to tell, many of them told in four minute pop songs, I can't help but wonder if there's a novel or maybe short story in your pen. The small book of poetry was well received. I'd love to spend 25 pages with the guy in the tower in Bolt Action. You get the idea. Do you see yourself writing something other than songs?

Bill: You know, maybe essays. I've actually been approached by a couple book publishers to do essays, mostly faith and art kind of stuff.

Brenda: The Atlanta Parent Magazine is doing a feature on Bill Mallonee. In fact we need to mail them a photo.

Bill: It's a bunch of other folks too. I think they're integrating it.

Brenda: Well, whatever. He'll be mentioned and his photo will be in there. Creativity in children. The man can be quite creative.

Bill: See the thing is I'm completely out of my league when I start yapping about anything other than music. I'm stuck. I'm not an expert on anything.

Brenda: Josh is making an "A" in history and English because of Bill.

Joe: Well, would you like to write whether you're out of your league or not? Would you like to write a novel, would you like to write short stories?

Bill: Yeah. I think it takes me a while to organize some thoughts and feel like I have something to say that hasn't been said better by other people elsewhere. If I don't have something unique to offer I'd just rather say ohh you need to go read Philip Yancey. I mean I realize there are people that think great thoughts, and they write about those concepts, and then there are popular writers. That's what happens in pop culture. It's sort of like the great ideas come down to the lower class folks. It's sort of gets some of it, and then it trickles down to the Verman Vincent peels and all that kind of stuff. You know what I'm saying?

Brenda: When he retires to Ireland he'll be writing novels.

Chris: Retires to Ireland, yeah.

Joe: That's what they like in Ireland.

Bill: And drinking. Drinking and story telling, they go hand in hand don't they?

Joe: Anything else you want to say on Audible Sigh?

Bill: Ohh, about the cover work?

Joe: I think people didn't ask many questions because I don't think they know enough about what's coming.

Bill: I think it's the best record we've made.

Joe: Do you believe that?

Bill: I do believe that.

Joe: You didn't believe that about the original version did you?

Bill: No. And it wasn't because of the songs that we took off either. I mean it's a radio friendly sounding record, and by saying that I'm not saying that Buddy made us do things we didn't want to do. I'm saying that we spent time with it and that's how the recording came out. We spent less time with the three new songs that will be on the record, and I tend to like those better. Now I don't know why that is. It says more about me than it does about anybody else's ears. But if somebody had to say which record would you like to listen to if I had Audible Sigh in front of me or Roof of the Sky, those three new songs are sort of in the middle of that. You've got the grindy sort of sonic quality of Roof of the Sky and you've got those three songs in the middle of the spectrum and then over here you've got the radio friendly Audible Sigh. My tendency is to kind of list a little toward Roof of the Sky, sonically. But I think the list probably likes the purer sounding stuff.

Chris: What does Brenda think about it?

Brenda: I love the new album. Absolutely love it. And the new songs.

Joe: Do you like the new line-up better? I mean the new track listings.

Brenda: Ohh, yes.

Bill: She likes the singer.

Brenda: Well, I do sleep with the singer. Whenever I can. Whenever he's in town. But I think it is very Bill. Every song just encapsulates Bill.

Joe: Your favorite song on the album?

Brenda: The very first one.

Joe: Train Pulls Away? Really. Why?

Brenda: Well, I'll tell you why. Because of the lyrics about people don't stay in love anymore. That is so true, and we're watching marriages fall apart all around us, and we have a really strong one, and we have so much fun, and we love our marriage, and I'm just dumfounded. And the song just puts together those thoughts. That one little phrase, it just means a lot every time I listen to it.

Bill: It's been a real concern of ours, people who are church folks, professing Christians who all of the sudden it's like here's another one. You know, what is going on?

Brenda: I'm not an authority on a lot of things, but we do have 19 years in a really good marriage. At least from my experience we have a good one, and I think I know kind of why it's the way it is, and it just blows my mind. I can think of five couples right now off the top of my mind, we just don't get along, we just don't get along.

Bill: We heard of somebody a couple weeks ago that were bagging it after 21 years. And it's like how do you do that?

Brenda: And it's not like someone's having an affair, or something horrible or tragedy, it's just we've grown apart, we're not growing in the same way.

Bill: Well, there's no doubt that it takes work and it takes communication. I think even for us in the three or four years, we've probably had more talks about what makes it strong, and what makes it good, and why it should be preserved and nurtured, probably than at any other point in the 19 years, wouldn't you say?

Brenda: I agree. Ohh, absolutely.

Bill: I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

Brenda: Yeah, it's hard raising kids and working all the time and being on the road.

Bill: Sure.

Brenda: I mean we have a lot of struggles, but we communicate about it all the time. We don't go to bed unless we've got something dealt with.

Bill: It's always interesting to me how quickly people who do this sort of thing we're talking about buy into that grass is greener on the other side of the fence thing. And they do it a lot, and they do it just as much in the church as they do it out of the church I suppose. And that's discouraging because it seems like the grace of God should have a little bit something more of a preserving effect on that.

Brenda: And the Black Cloud Over Me song, it's one of the funniest songs I think he's ever written. It just makes me laugh.

Bill: Probably sounds pretty self-indulgent doesn't it?

Brenda: Well, it's just like ohh Bill.

Bill: Maybe we should take it off.

Brenda: No, it's great. People are going to like it.

Chris: What are some of your favorite songs of all time by the Vigilantes?

Brenda: Well, Double Cure will always be number one to me.

Joe: Double Cure?

Brenda: Ohh, yeah. That is a spiritual song, and it just lifts my spirits, and I feel close to God when I hear that song.

Bill: You don't listen to songs as much as you listen to records though do you? Cause that's the way you are with like Counting Crows and Cracker. You just sort of listen to the whole...

Brenda: Yeah, the whole thing. In fact you know how sometimes people say listen to track number three. I'm like no, I want to hear the whole thing from beginning to end.

Chris: That's the way I am.

Brenda: Are you that way?

Chris: I hate listening to one song. I hate it when people do that.

Brenda: Ohh, I can't stand it. It could be because I'm married to a song writer, and I know the whole idea of a conceptional album. Bill: I think the kids are more into songs. They're more into tracks.

Joe: My kids are. They know the number of songs.

Brenda: Ohh, yeah. Listen to four and two.

Joe: Exactly.

Bill: Do you program it, like two, four, nine and ten?

Joe: They haven't figured out how to program yet, but they know the songs. Shannon knows that the other train song...

Bill: Nothing Like a Train.

Joe: Nothing Like a Train, number nine.

Brenda: Is that the one with Julie singing so beautiful on?

Bill: Yeah.

Brenda: That song's also great. But I can't really pick those songs out. It's like a real piece thing for me. I mean that beautiful slow song that Emmy's on just always gives me chills.

Bill: Well, those records, almost all of them are very much like almost reaching in a notebook and grabbing out like 16 sheets out of 30. That's what they are.

Brenda: I will say on some of his records I'll be listening to a couple songs, and I'll be kind of like ok get over I want to get to the next because I love what comes next.

Chris: The truth comes out.

Bill: I think some of the verses are too long.

Brenda: But on this new one, they're all great. I mean on this new one I just love the whole thing. The whole piece. And the three new songs that were put in there are great, and the really really country song has been pulled out. I'm real glad about that.

Chris: What was that? Hard Luck and Heart Attack.

Brenda: Yeah. That song, I mean everybody loved it, but I'm like ooohhh!

Joe: How did you decide which three come off?

Bill: We pulled off Hard Luck and Heart Attack because we thought Good Luck Charm was a better tune, and they were sort of similar. They kind of repeated the same sort of country swing thing. There was debate about keeping Any Side of Anywhere on or off. I really wanted it on. I just think Kenny did a marvelous job with the pedal steel, and it's kind of a dark tune.

Brenda: But it came off didn't it?

Bill: No, it's on. You don't think much about what you deserve when it's just the beer that's talking. I thought that was going to get us in all kinds of trouble, but apparently it hasn't, yet. What else came off? You're Part of the Story. Probably a verse too long. Don't necessarily think it was orchestrated all that well. It probably should have built with just guitar and voice on into bigger things, and it just starts right off. It's like five or six verses long. Julie does a great job singing, and I know she felt real emotionally attached to it. But it's going to be in the British version for anybody's information. There are really two versions of this record.

Joe: British version will be the original?

Bill: Will be the original version, yeah. The other one that came off was Paralyzed. Which we thought the organ was too loud.

Brenda: What's the song that has my name in it?

Joe: It's the Train...

Brenda: Train, yeah.

Chris: That's a great song. That's one of my favorite songs on the album.

Brenda: Isn't it a great song? Well, I love that song too. I thought it was so sweet.

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I thought it should have been the single. It's a AAA single.

Chris: I think that is really the best song on there.

Brenda: See I thought that when I heard it live in Chicago. Ohh my gosh, when I first heard that song I flipped out.

Chris: I think that would do good on college radio, I really do.

Brenda: It would.

Joe: You changed the last song and put Solar System in as the last song...

Bill: As opposed to Your Part of the Story.

Joe: As opposed to Your Part of the Story. Your Part of the Story has the like thank you to your fans. We've slept in your bed, we ate at your table.

Bill: Yes.

Joe: And I think that actually makes the original version the limited sort of like love letter to the fans.

Bill: Ohh, yeah, I didn't think about that.

Joe: And now we move ahead, and we've already said that to you, now we'll do the big thing that goes out to the market. I thought that was a good thing.

Bill: Ohh, well good.

Joe: Even though I liked the song, I thought it was good. And I think the new version of Solar System is just killer.

Brenda: Isn't it great?

Joe: I think it's a verse too short. I thought of that the other night. I wanted to hear more of the story. At the end of it I still didn't know what was going on with...

Bill: With those two kids, yeah.

Joe: And I was hoping desperately you would tell me who they were and what was happening.

Chris: You could always do like Garth Brooks and put out a live version of the song with another verse.

Joe: Were there more verses?

Bill: No, there were never more verses to it. And it just felt right doing it kind of like that....

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