Most die-hard music fans know them as Bud and JD, of The Boxmasters--to others they're Academy Award winning actor and filmmaker, Billy Bob Thornton and Grammy Award winning engineer, J.D. Andrew. Formed in 2007, The Boxmasters have recorded a diverse catalogue of sound that touches on their wide range of influences, most importantly, the rock and roll of the 1960's. With 17 albums and numerous songs written, the duo says they constantly strive to find new inspiration, new sounds and new ways of expressing what is in their hearts and on their minds. As a touring band, The Boxmasters have cultivated a rabid cult fanbase across the United States and Canada. Opening for the likes of ZZ Top, Steve Miller and Los Lobos. Editor-in-Chief Joann Butler caught up with the dynamic duo on their Chicago stop of their current 2024 Love & Hate North American tour, in support of their latest album Love & Hate In Desperate Places; 10 witty, wonderful melodic tracks that are well worth the listen over and over again. This is a LifeMinute with The Boxmasters.
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00:00Hey, I'm JD. I'm Bud. We're the Boxmasters and you're watching Life Minute TV
00:11Joanne Butler here with Boxmasters
00:14Academy Award winning actor Billy Bob Thornton and Grammy winning recording engineer JD Andrew
00:21Thanks for hopping on with us at Life Minute. Glad to be here. Thanks for having us
00:26So you guys are on tour right now from your tour bus. How's it been going? It's been great
00:31We've had some really awesome shows or about 10 or 11 shows into it
00:35Love and hate and desperate places you're promoting that your 17th album. Is it correct?
00:41Yes, what started by our bass player who plays with us live Raymond Hardy
00:46He always loved this song that we wrote years ago in 2009 called Jane Mansfield's car
00:56I
00:58Could be wondered why we don't play it live anymore and then we decided to
01:03Include it on something because it had never been on a record. It just didn't fit that other records, you know
01:07I was a little heavier
01:08And so we took a couple of songs from 2009 and kind of made up even happier
01:13Raymond and currently the guitar player they came out and played on them. And so this record is a little heavier rock. It's
01:20And it's more rock than rock and roll
01:23Only we're a rock and roll band
01:24Anyway
01:25That's the way the album started and that we came up with that concept of love and hate both being
01:30Intense enough to break your heart. My daughter Bella do you abstract art?
01:35Very proud of it people have been responding very well to it, you know so far like I said about 10 shows in
01:40They've been a big response very well
01:42Yeah, and this record we pretty much started it right after the tour ended last year
01:47so we came home and we just kind of immediately started in on this record and we had another record slotted for release with
01:5430 Tigers and
01:56Once we finished this one, I called our label ref and they said hey, we've got to change the lineup here
02:02We've got to come out with this new record
02:04Next because it really does sound more like us when we play live
02:08when Billy and I in the studio because we've done, you know, most of the records just by ourselves and
02:14It's just a different sound if you put our live guys playing with us and it just instantly is a heavier more rock sound
02:22I mean Kirk really just kind of does that naturally it's poppy and rock at the same time melodic, you know their stories
02:30Instantly as soon as I heard it
02:31Mastered and finished. I was like, all right, we have to put this record out next
02:35So the record that got bumped which was called missing a heart will probably come out on our website
02:40You know around Christmas or something and we'll or something
02:43we'll figure out something to do with all of these records that we've got sitting on the shelf because we've got a good handful of
02:49Them that are, you know mastered and ready. Maybe they need artwork. Maybe they need sequencing
02:54But for the most part they're done
02:55It's just we make too many records and we don't know what to do with it
02:59If we were really it's been cool. We would figure out what it is to just hand them out to people
03:04But you know, we're not hip and young and cool either. So how did you guys get together?
03:08To make a long story short, which it is a long story
03:13but
03:13essentially we were introduced to a mutual friend of ours because I needed an engineer to come in and help me on a solo record
03:19Because I'd lost my old engineer to a job at a TV network. He got a great engineering job
03:25I needed somebody for two weeks because the band has already gone home
03:29But I had to do some drums and background vocals and stuff our mutual friend introduced us and how about this guy here?
03:35And so JD came in and within a couple of weeks
03:37We were talking about our musical influences writing songs together and that's how the box masters were formed
03:43We just found a mutual respect for each other and our taste and everything and we liked the sound we got when we played
03:49Music together through working on a solo record. We formed the box master box masters
03:55Where'd you come up with that name?
03:56We wanted to sound like a 60s not a 1960s name, you know
04:00And if you remember the box top that did the letter we took that from that part and on the old RCA records
04:06It had that dog with the photograph and it says his master's voice. So we got box from box top and
04:13Masters from his master's voice on the RCA records. What inspires you guys creatively and then what's your process like?
04:21It usually comes about at the same time like a snippet of something
04:25Like a couple of lines and a melody or a concept and then once we have that concept
04:31Then we just sit down together and kind of hammer it out
04:34We've written songs before where we just wrote the music and had one line or something
04:39Then JD would go tinker around the piano
04:41I'd go in the other room finish the words and then I'd come out there he would have changed something that we had musically
04:47I go, okay. Well, I'll do this then think about it for a minute and then you know rewrite that part
04:53We've got pretty good at songwriting together. I mean, we know our process
04:57There's not a real way to say what our process is, but we have one
05:01We just didn't know how to explain it
05:04We don't have to have anybody else come in to help us you record everything from you know
05:09The initial writing of the song all the way to the mixing of the song if I wasn't scared of it
05:15We'd even master our records, but you know
05:17It's some sort of dark art that I can't quite wrap my head around
05:20But you know, we can make a record from start to finish just by ourselves. We've gotten pretty damn good at it over the years
05:27I have to say we get better on each one
05:29We feel like every record we make faster and better and more
05:33Interesting to us if we felt like we were treading water and not really doing or saying anything important
05:39Then I think we would find something else to do
05:42Yeah, I mean a lot of the time Billy will have a title
05:44He might just start singing the title of the song and you know, and that's that's all we have
05:50And so that'll give us an idea of whatever music we have to come up with has to fit that
05:56Little tiny snippet. We also are very good at pushing each other to like
06:02We can do that better, you know, no, we're not afraid to tell each other
06:06I think you can do something better or more interesting or with more feeling or you know, just something that's like it's missing something
06:13Let's do it again and go until we get it, right and you know, thankfully we're very open to each other's input and critique
06:21It's not like oh, you've got an idea. Whatever. It's oh, yeah
06:25I mean because we've burned through every idea we've ever had and so it's like we need that little
06:30something to you know spark going down a different road and trying something that maybe we didn't think of before or it's a
06:38Comfortable working relationship in that way to try this or think about this or it might be crazy
06:43But try this sort of thing, you know instead it's something completely different than what what you're doing
06:49And how would you say your sound has evolved over the years our first records were kind of like concept records
06:55They were like, let's do hillbilly British Invasion stuff
06:58But we didn't even sound like us in the first two records really we weren't supposed to I mean if you were the opposite
07:03We were supposed to sound completely different than Billy Bob Thorpe
07:07The Boxmasters weren't it completely different than me, but we're gonna come a hillbilly thing and it was very tongue-in-cheek
07:13There's a song on one of our early records
07:15There was a cover called Eleanor by the Turtles, which was a tongue-in-cheek song. And so we essentially did
07:22Originals and the covers of very often humorous songs after that
07:26We started playing kind of like we do but we sounded for roots rock more
07:32Americana rock we did that for a little while and then finally we just said look
07:36Let's just sound like we sound we're a rock and roll band because we're guys who love the Beatles and the Beach Boys
07:41Yeah, let's do it and a lot of the stuff in the earlier days
07:45We had other guitar players who would play with us in the very first records. It was Mike Butler
07:50He was the first third box master and then after that for a while Brad Davis who had you know?
07:57Been with Billy on his solo records from the very beginning Brad would play and his style is a more rootsy
08:04Bluegrass inspired kind of style even though he's playing electric guitar
08:08He still just has this thing to him that has a sound after
08:13Brad got too busy. We'd have all these other guys come in every time you put somebody else on it
08:19It kind of gives the record its stamp. It's a different thing then finally, it's like I got enough confidence
08:25It's like okay. I'm gonna play the lead guitar here that gives everything a different sound than
08:30Having somebody else and it's kind of the purest sound of us
08:35It's only two people playing every single note and it has a bit of a different sound
08:40That's one way we can change things up and we get into a very 60s inspired period
08:46You know every couple of records where we're using kind of a date as a touchstone
08:51So we had a record called boxmaster 66. It's like what would we sound like as a band in?
08:561966 we had another one called 69
08:59Which is what would we sound like as a band in?
09:021969
09:03Technologically what kind of things would we use?
09:0669 is a bit heavier than 66 kind of every record is a concept record for us
09:10It's like what are we using as our focus for this record?
09:15It's a lot more thought about it on each record than just going in and be like, hey
09:19Let's write ten songs and put it out
09:21We're thinking about everything from the writing to how what instruments are gonna be on it
09:26There's a lot going on in the lyric or never just me and my baby went to the malt shop, you know
09:30There's socio-political stuff. There's internal monologues. There's things our kids say, you know that become songs
09:36There's a lot of poetry going on in the lyrics. What's next for the boxmasters getting well and playing the rest of this tour
09:44We started in Texas and we went up to West Coast. You'll see out a little red bluff, California
09:50I've got ten guys and a bus driver and
09:53Everybody works really hard. We love to do this
09:55If we didn't have families we would do it year-round and we would just never stop
10:00But we do have kids at home why it's that want us to be around for some reason
10:04We love being out here with our friends
10:06But at the same time we love being in the studio and we love to create and we love to write songs
10:11We have a pretty good way of life
10:13We really look forward to this time when we get to be out on the road with our pals
10:18Hey, what are fans gonna get when they see you play live?
10:21Along rock and roll band. I mean, it's pretty exciting show. We connect with the audience a lot
10:26We just go play our songs and talk to the people we tell stories sometimes about the song if it's a place
10:31We haven't played before, you know, but we're pretty interactive with the audience. We like people to get up
10:36Yeah, and we're an old-school rock and roll band because we don't know any better what you hear on the stage is coming off of the
10:42Stage we're not relying on gizmo
10:45We're not replaying tracks to make ourselves sound better for better or worse how we sound live is how we sound it's too
10:53Accepted in the music business these days that
10:56Musicians and artists can get up there and hit a button on a laptop and dance around and that's their show
11:03That's not being a musician. But that is I guess being a performer, but it's not how we grew up
11:10It's not dropping on a guitar and going out and playing, you know doing your best
11:13We're on a mission for bringing back rock and roll band and music that we grew up on and just trying to have people either
11:21Perform or support live music in its pure form and that's what we're all about
11:25If you want to hear a record exactly the way it sounds on the record
11:29Then just stay home and save your money and listen to the record when we play it's all natural
11:34I mean if we screw up you're gonna hear it JD people want to know what's Billy Bob really like?
11:38We wouldn't be doing this for 18 years if we didn't get along and we couldn't make fun of each other
11:45Here's the thing. We're in our bus. We have counting the bus driver 11 people
11:49It stinks really bad
11:51We never have any water if Billy wasn't a man of us if we didn't all get along and feel like, you know
11:57We're all equals in this but we wouldn't be able to do it
11:59I've worked in studios for 10 years before I met Billy and
12:03let me just say I've worked with some of the best artists of all time and
12:08Some that are very famous and I learned how to do things
12:14Audio-wise with people who don't have the talent and luckily I don't have to do that anymore
12:19First time I went and met Billy and they played me what they're working on for beautiful door. I was super thrilled
12:26I mean the music was amazing
12:27I loved it from the first chord of the first song and if I didn't have the amount of respect and admiration for
12:35Billy's talent. I
12:37Wouldn't be here. I'm certainly not getting paid enough to spend every second of my life working on this band
12:43He does all the business. How many instruments do you play? I say I do harmony vocals. I play drums
12:49I play rudimentary guitar. You can write a song on a guitar
12:53I don't need to be playing guitar on stage because these guys are way better than I am
12:58So and you can lately oh, I can play the ukulele. That's right. I do the rest of the stuff
13:04I do the bass guitars keyboards pitch organ and
13:07Engineer Billy Bob is music. You're the first love over acting. Well, I didn't know anything about acting. So I
13:15Absolutely. I started as a musician as a little kid and was just that my whole life
13:20I became an actor pretty late when I was about 15 16 17 in there
13:25They used to use local bands to open for national acts, you know
13:29So we got to open for a lot of people after that became a roadie with a sound company
13:33Then I went to LA went to Houston to play music
13:37But I played with a couple of different bands down there after the roadieing days
13:41It's still doing some of the roadieing actually went to LA to play music
13:45Accidentally became an actor because the guy said you should come to my class. I made like
13:50$361 doing a part one time for one day's work and I was broke. So I thought this is pretty good
13:55I better stick with it because I wasn't making that much money
13:58Musically, so it turned out this is a larger enterprise than I'd anticipated
14:03Billy Bob, what's your favorite film that you've done? I was kind of hard to say
14:07I mean, they've all been pretty different if I were an action star or something like that and my movies were similar
14:13I could probably pick out a favorite but since they're all over the place, you know different kinds
14:18It's hard to pick what I I'll pick mine a man who wasn't there
14:21I remember vividly my roommate saying hey, we got to go see this new Coen brothers movie with Billy Bob Thornton in it
14:27It's like okay, and I'm not a movie guys. I've always been a music guy
14:31My eyesight's really bad, but I remember vividly going to see that movie in Los Angeles and digging the heck out of it
14:41Texas
14:43It ain't any different than tombstone or Dodge City
14:48First comes the dreamers
14:51Then the bankers and then the desperate what does that make you?
14:58A divorced alcoholic with five hundred thousand in debt, and I'm one of the lucky ones
15:03Really Bob you want to tell us about land man? I haven't seen it myself
15:06You know, I never really watched stuff
15:09But about the oil business in Texas
15:12I think it should be pretty darn good from the reaction that trailer has been getting and I think it could be big one
15:18No, you never know
15:19The audience may not respond to it
15:21But I know what we did when we did it was very good if everything aligned for everything comes together, right?
15:28It was written very well, and there's some really good people in it, but I think it should be really good
15:34pushing that sense to work better
15:38Biggest life lesson do what you love and don't lose focus keep at it
15:42If it's something that you really want to do then you kind of can't do anything else
15:46And that's kind of what we've always done
15:48This is what we have to do and there's kind of no plan B on doing something else
15:53Maybe you'll do something at various times just to make sure your rent is paid or you have food to eat
15:58But at the same time you kind of just got to be in it
16:01Here's mine learn from your past and learn from others and move forward with your heart
16:07What does music do for people? What did it do for each of you? What's like food?
16:12It's like air some people are born having to do it, and I think that was the case here
16:17Really?
16:17I don't think there's anybody in this band who wasn't born and started listening to Elvis or the Beatles or whoever it was and
16:24It was just already blood. It's just all that's the thing. That's the thing
16:30That's what I love, you know Frank Zappa has a lot of good quotes on music
16:34If you look up just some of his quotes about music
16:36He has one quote where he says all the good music has already been written by guys and powdered wigs and stuff without music
16:44I'm a big fan of what Billy and I do together and it's everything that I've ever wanted out of a career
16:52Out of a partnership, but if I didn't love what we did with kind of all of my being then, you know
16:58I do something else got an amazing studio
17:01We make records that I'm so proud of and we get to tour with our friends
17:05I couldn't ask for anything more than this
17:07To hear more of this interview visit our podcast life minute TV on iTunes and all streaming podcast platforms