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A Conversation with Willie Nile (continued)
PM: Are your songs getting covered by other artists or making their way into the movies at all?
WN: I've had some, yes, definitely. And a couple years ago U2 was going to record one of my tunes for a big Disney film, but the timing--
PM: Damn.
WN: I know. The timing--Bono wanted to do it, bless his heart. He's really great, and has been a great friend and supporter. But the timing was wrong. They were just starting a tour. They had a new record out, and he got voted down. They wanted to do it, but it was just the wrong time, wrong place.
PM: Yeah.
WN: So maybe another time down the road. But I had songs in a few different movies, and people have covered a number of my tunes, in different countries. And that seems to be increasing.
PM: I think that's going to just continue to increase, the more records that you cut, and there could be unpredictable revenue streams, of course.
WN: I know. It's whacked. I never wrote jingles, but when the last record came out, Beautiful Wreck of the World, we were doing some gigs around town. And this engineer came who was working on--like a legendary engineer of that business, a really good guy, Michael, and he flipped over the band. And they were working on a Kodak campaign, and they were looking for a song for six months. And he talked to somebody who said, "You should see Willie and his band." So he gave him some of my stuff, and they heard Mp3s. And they called me in and said, "Do you want to try?" First they wanted me to do an arrangement of some song they had. Then they said, "Well, no, one of the songs on the last record, "On the Road to Calvary," for Jeff Buckley--
PM: Another great song.
WN: --thank you--they were using that for a first verse--a first verse of that and a chorus. So I was going to go in, because I rewrote a verse for that. And I called Frankie up, and I said, "Frank, let's have a backup. I'm going in with a band to cut it tomorrow." Nine o'clock at night over the phone--
PM: [laughs]
WN: --over the phone, in fifteen minutes over the phone, we wrote "Share the Moment, Share a Life," which Kodak kept for three, four years.
PM: Oh, my God!
WN: Yeah. I mean, I never did that kind of stuff.
PM: Was it a good payday?
WN: Absolutely.
PM: A killer payday.
WN: It was really good. Well, I don't know killer, but it was real, real good. It was real good.
PM: Beautiful. But it was never a song, just a jingle.
WN: No, it was a real song. There exists a top to bottom song. It's got like gospel singers in it. It was a blast. I'd be in the studio while these great gospel singers were singing on it.
PM: Wow.
WN: Some of the commercials used my band and me. Remember when Sarah Hughes won the figure skating thing?
PM: Yeah, sure.
WN: Well, after she finished her skate and they're all going nuts, and they were going to wait for her score, they cut to a commercial, and it was the sixty second spot of me and the band playing that.
PM: Too much!
WN: And I'm watching--I knew it was going to be on at some point, but that was like the high point of the Olympics, and there it was, there was sixty seconds of us playing. We'll release it someday. We got a great recording of it.
PM: Sixty seconds when the world was glued to the set.
WN: Yeah, yeah. It was pretty wild. And it played during the Oscars. And if you saw some of those, they ran all the time. There was like a fifteen of them. And some of them I was singing and playing, and some them, other people. But that was just dumb luck. It came my way because of the last record. So with this record I figure it'll stir up a bit.
PM: Right.
WN: I've got so many tunes, so I'll try to take advantage of that.
PM: Yeah, I got a buddy that says, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
WN: Yeah. That's pretty accurate, actually.
[laughter]
PM: So I'm going to be down at South By Southwest. I want to hook up with you down there. [Austin, in mid-March.]
WN: Great, great. I'm doing like four or five gigs down there, and I don't even know the final date of the night we're playing. But yeah, have Cary hook it up. And we'll just see you down there.
PM: Because maybe I could get a little video and stick it up in the issue with the interview.
WN: That'd be great.
PM: I'll have a camera with me.
WN: Good idea.
PM: Well, it's fantastic talking to you.
WN: Thank you, Frank. Likewise. Thank you so much for your kind words.
PM: You're a hell of a guy, and I love your music.
WN: I love music. If I managed a bowling alley in Alaska, I'd still be--like I'd go home at night, and I get my guitar out, or something, playing the piano, I'd be writing tunes.
PM: [laughs]
WN: I'm just not stopping. I love to do it. It makes sense of the world for me. And it's fun. And I'm still learning. And the fire doesn't seem to have left. Just the stuff I'm writing--you know how it is, you write something and go, "Man, this is fun, this is great!" I'm still experiencing that, big time.
PM: Oh, it's obvious, man. You're writing better and better songs all the time. Let's hook up soon.
WN: Let's hook up down there. And if you see Greg Trooper, just give him a hug and say "That's from Willie."
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| willienile.com | |
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| fabfaux.com | |
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