WASHINGTON — He won an Oscar for writing “Sling Blade” (1996) and a Golden Globe for TV’s “Fargo” (2014). But Billy Bob Thornton is more than just an award-winning actor.
He’s also busy touring with his American roots-rock band, The Boxmasters. The band plays Bottle & Cork in Dewey Beach, Delaware on Wednesday, Sept. 2, then The Birchmere in Alexandria on Thursday, Sept. 3, followed by the American Music Festival in Virginia Beach on Friday, Sept. 4.
“I think the Internet makes you look a lot busier than you really are,” Thornton jokes with WTOP. “This is our second tour this year, and then I’ve got a couple of other (Hollywood) things to do in October, then another thing December through February, then another one March through May, and then we’ll go back out on tour again, probably in June. … During the time that I’m back in L.A. doing these other things, we’ll still record on nights and weekends. … We just sort of work it out.”
The band features Thornton on drums and vocals, J.D. Andrew on rhythm guitar, Teddy Andreadis on harmonica and organ, and Brad Davis on vocals and lead guitar. They formed in 2007, releasing a two-disc, self-titled debut record, featuring original songs such as “The Poor House” and eclectic covers of The Beatles, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Mott The Hoople and Mel Tillis.
Now, they’ve released another two-disc set titled “Somewhere Down the Road.”
“You don’t see too many two-record sets anymore, and we do that because we actually have two sounds,” Thornton says. “We’re kind of a jangly, late ’60s rock ‘n roll pop band very influenced by the British Invasion of the late ’60s and L.A. rock like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Box Tops and Big Star out of Memphis. … But we also record a lot of songs that are darker and moodier, and those are more inspired by J.J. Cale and Kris Kristofferson and John Prine. So this two-disc set reflects both.”
Andrew says the band has naturally evolved, moving away from early attempts at rockabilly.
“When we just sit and play together in a room, this is more how we sound naturally,” Andrew says. “The early stuff we were doing was a lot of experimentation and just seeing what we could do and how far we could push what we were working on at the time. This is a lot more natural and it’s probably a sound that more people can identity with or accept, more than the stuff we did before.”
Thornton agrees that the new sound has more mainstream appeal.
“It’s a little bit more palatable for a wider audience,” Thornton says. “Our early stuff was very stylized and we said, hey, what if we sing the stuff like David Allan Coe and mix The Beatles with Buck Owens and see what happens.”
So how do they split the songwriting duties?
“We write songs in a pretty organic way,” Thornton says. “We don’t usually sit down to write something. We don’t say, hey on Thursday, let’s write songs. They usually come out, either J.D. has some chords he’s come up with, or I’ve got a melody or a chorus or a verse written lyrics-wise, so it usually happens pretty organically. The songs that come out fairly quickly are usually the best ones.”
The result is a band now in its eighth year with a dedicated niche following.
“We love to play for our fans and we have a really good cult following,” Thornton says. “We don’t have hundreds of thousands of fans, but the ones we have are really good and we like to see them face to face, meet new people and make new fans.”
Thornton says the band has played The Birchmere before, but this will be its first time in Delaware.
“Whatever the type of venue it is, let’s say we have a sold-out crowd or a small crowd, we try to give it everything we have every night,” Thornton says. “We’ll be in the Liverpool suits.”
After the music tour, it’s back to Hollywood for Thornton. He’s shooting an upcoming legal drama produced by Amazon called “Trial.” The show was created by David E. Kelley of “The Practice,” “Boston Legal” and “Ally McBeal.”
“Everybody wants to be on TV now because independent film has hit a bit of a rough spot. So all the actors want to do Amazon and Netflix because it’s kind of taken the place of independent film,” Thornton says. “So after I did ‘Fargo,’ I was looking for something else great, and I read this for David Kelley and it was just a terrific script, so it’s another 10-episode thing we’re doing very soon.”
Thornton plays a drunken lawyer who’s down on his luck, much like Paul Newman in “The Verdict.”
“I played a lawyer in ‘The Judge,’ but that’s the only time I’d ever done it. It was just in a few scenes with Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall there, so the opportunity to be able to play one for a while is really appealing to me,” Thornton says. “At the end of the day, lawyers are actors.”
The series will co-star William Hurt — news that broke just before Thornton’s interview on WTOP.
“That’s news to me,” Thornton says, laughing. “I’ve been on the road.”
Listen to the full interview below. Tickets are $35. Click here for more information.
