PM: Tell us something about your longtime writing partner Tom Epperson.

BBT: Tom and I have known each other since I was in the third grade. Our mothers were best friends, and neighbors when I was a kid. Tom's a few years older than me. We went to New York together first, we stayed ten hours. Scared the shit out of us. We'd never been anywhere but Dallas, or Memphis. In '80 or '81, we went to California. We've stuck it out ever since. We wrote a bunch of screenplays together, had a three picture deal at Disney, stuff that never got made.

PM: Did you get that deal pretty early on?

BBT: No, it took years. I was in a theater group in L.A., did a lot of plays. I started out doing small parts in things, like I was in a Matlock episode in its first season, stuff like that.

PM: So your relationship with Andy Griffith goes way back.

BBT: Right, all the way back to Matlock. I was thinking one night about Andy, I was trying to remember exactly how it went down on Matlock. I remember him snubbing me, I tried to meet him, and he wouldn't shake my hand. Years later, when he called me around the time of Sling Blade, I said, "You know, I've already worked with you." He said, "Really, when was that?" "On Matlock," I told him. "Really, which episode were you on?" "It was called 'The Photographer'," I replied. "Oh, I hated that episode," he said... [laughter] It was pretty funny. But he's been real good to me.

PM: You did something recently with him, right?

BBT: Yeah, I did this movie Daddy and Them with him, the one that Travis has a song in. It's probably going to be a casualty of a big argument I got in with Miramax. I don't know if they're going to release it. They're going to release it in the South, I think. It's a very Southern movie.

PM: So, any more about Epperson?

BBT: Yeah. He and I wrote One False Move together, we wrote A Family Thing for Robert Duvall. We wrote The Gift, which was out last year with Cate Blanchett. Those are the three things that have been done that we wrote together.

PM: And before the film stuff, you did music together, did you not?

BBT: Oh no, no. Tom would laugh so hard if you heard you say that. He may be the most non-musical guy you could run into. That's funny. No, he's a writer.

PM: There's a couple of covers on Private Radio that I like a lot. I particularly liked your version of "He was a Friend of Mine" [The Byrds classic about John Kennedy]. I thought your vocal was more emotional than the original. On top of that, Marty Stuart absolutely invoked the spirit of Clarence White on that cut.

BBT: Isn't that something? Well, you know, he's playing that on Clarence's guitar. The original B bender.

PM: And he'd break into the interludes with that lick [sings the guitar lick] that came from "Tulsa County Blue," I think [from The Byrds' Ballad of Easy Rider]. Made me sad...

BBT: Right right, that's how he rolls into it. I just love that song, and the way Marty played on it. Maybe the reason it comes across more emotional is that the original version is a little sadder, more like a dirge, which sounded great. The way we did it was little more celebratory, I think. Marty played the shit out of it.

PM: One of the things in life that pisses me off the most is that, all these years later, we still don't know who shot Kennedy. That really hacks me.

BBT: Well, it sure wasn't Oswald, we know that much. [crosses the trailer to where a few healthy snacks are visible, mostly cherries, grapes, and a basket of other things that look untouched. The man is Hollywood thin.] Want a pretzel?

PM: No, thanks. [Lunch was pretty amazing, I ate for two.]

BBT: Yeah, anybody that believes that...just ought to watch that film.

PM: I think I've seen JFK about seven times.

BBT: It's a very well edited movie, one of the best ever. continue

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