Will Oldham (Bonnie ’Prince’ Billy)

Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy)
a few years ago, our friend King Henry introduced us, by phone, to Bjork. then in Reykjavik was eating in a restaurant and she walked by, so Bonny ran out and said hello. we went to geysers and waterfalls then, she a very very gracious rep. some more little times were spent, and good vibes reigned. also there was a friend of hers, a poet, whose book is around here somewhere... and then Botch called a little while ago and said I was invited to come along on these shows. at the time, it was a vine thrown into the quicksand at which bonny leapt and clawed. we saw her show in Denmark a few weeks ago, and it was great. all of these shows, fairly sure, are out of doors, and observing the mounting of it all, and playing out of doors, and the music all around...plus, on stage with her is...

Official BPB tour diary, 6 August 2003

Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy)
A few years ago I did a tour opening for Björk, and I met this guy, Valgier Sigurdsson, who was doing programming and engineering stuff for her. We’d hang out sometimes backstage and talk about the possibility of recording things together in Iceland. I was flattered and happy that he was so interested, and it seemed like an interesting adventure, but ultimately not a very feasible one. Later, as I was working on new songs, I was eventually asked by Björk to come and sing on a song she was doing for Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint film. So I went and did that and ran into Valgier again. He asked me again about coming to Iceland to record, so finally I was just like “Okay, let’s go.“ We were in Iceland for a couple of weeks and it was winter there, so it was pretty disorienting. It...

V Mag, July 2006

Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy)
You toured with Bjork this past summer. How did that relationship start ? How did someone like Bjork hear a Will Oldham record ? Bjork was friends with Harmony Korine, and we were going to play Iceland four years ago, and Harmony said “you should call Bjork.“ So we hooked up with her when we went to Reykjavik, and it was great, and we would e-mail every now and again, and kept up the communication, and when she went out on tour, she asked me to open. Was that a good experience ? I mean, in Los Angeles you played the Hollywood Bowl. Was that a total shock ? I try to make “total shock“ a sort of habit. So, in some ways in was, but that was a good thing. The Hollywood Bowl was the biggest audience I’d ever played in front of, and more than half of them were vocally discouraging, and...

Stylus Magazine, 29 march 2004