Sunday, April 12, 2009


FREAK OF THE WEEK: Billy Bob Thornton

This week, the FredBlog shines its freaklight on Billy Bob Thornton, who is following in the footsteps of Joaquin Phoenix, going from critically acclaimed actor to freaked-out-of-his-mind musician.

If you haven’t seen or heard Thornton’s bizarre appearance on the Canadian show Q, it’s well worth watching at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw. And it’s an appearance that set off a whole week of freakiness.

It all started when Billy Bob’s band, the Boxmasters, came to Toronto to promote themselves as the opening act for Willie Nelson in a number of Canadian cities. As part of the promotional plan, all four Boxmasters came to the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to be interviewed by host Jian Ghomeshi on his show “Q.”

You have to wonder if Billy Bob was inspired by Phoenix’s recent appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” because Billy Bob was clearly not of sound mind.

First, when asked how long the band had been together, Billy Bob said, “I’m not sure what that means.” Ghomeshi, surprised, restated the question, but Billy Bob said he still didn’t understand. In fact, Billy Bob had that same reaction to a couple other questions as well.

It only got weirder, with Billy Bob saying he has never met Nelson, with whom his band is touring, and talking about monsters and building models when asked about his childhood musical memories.

Billy Bob’s bandmates, who answered questions posed to them clearly if boringly, looked embarrassed by their leader’s stupidity.

But then things really heated up when Billy Bob said he was angry that Ghomeshi introduced him as an actor. It seems that Billy Bob’s people told Ghomeshi’s producer that he was not to ask the grumpy star about his movie career. In fact, Ghomeshi didn’t. He only mentioned Billy Bob’s acting and screenwriting resume as part of the introduction.

No matter. Billy Bob was already pissed, and there was no pleasing him at this point.

Billy Bob went on to criticize Canadian audiences for their supposed politeness – according to Billy Bob, Canadian audiences don’t throw things during their shows, while American audiences do! He made the point by saying that Canuck crowds are like “mashed potatoes with no gravy.”

It got even weirder when Billy Bob refused to take part in an in-studio performance by his bandmates.

With the interview over, the bizarreness ended, right? Wrong. During the following day’s show in Toronto, Billy Bob called Ghomeshi an “asshole,” which elicited boos from the audience. “Boo all you want,” he continued, “but I want to say something. … I talked to this asshole yesterday.” And he just kept talking.

For someone who wanted to focus on music, why was he even bringing this up during his performance?

And for such a supposed big man, he certainly took the coward’s way out in the end. The Boxmasters cancelled their final Canadian performances in Montreal and London, Ontario, and Billy Bob blamed his bandmates.

Billy Bob’s publicist Arnold Robinson told the Toronto Star: "It is absolutely not because of the CBC interview. One of the band members and several of the crew have the flu and need a couple of days off to recuperate. Billy does not have the flu. The band is only concerned about giving the audience the best show possible, and when one of them is down with the flu, they can't do that.”

Yeah, that’s right, the flu, that’s the ticket.

Hey Billy Bob, if you are serious about this whole live music biz, you should learn the old chestnut, “The show must go on.” If you’re going to criticize others as being mashed potatoes, you’ve got to learn to take your lumps.

1 comment:

  1. Billy Bob Thornton is just weird, plain and simple!!! He did, afterall, wear a necklace, at one point in time, that featured a vial of Angelina's blood. I guess he could weird that up a bit today and have a vial that contains Brangelina's blood...I wonder if that's A(ngelina)B(rad) - or +? As for the question Ghomeshi asked about how long the band has been together...clearly, it doesn't sound as if they have ever had anything together, least of all their act!...they're just a sad little mess.

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