A Conversation with Bill Frisell (continued)

PM: I don't think you will, but I hope you don't find this question impertinent: What's your wife like, and where did you meet?

BF: Well, it's kind of a--sort of a typical musician's story. It's a wild...

PM: Met her at a gig?

BF: Actually, yes. I mean, I went to school in Boston, at Berklee. And then I left Berklee to go to Belgium with another... There was a student there who was from Belgium who put together a band with guys from Berklee. And we all went to Belgium to live and to play. So I went there for a year, to Europe, to live. And we lived up above this jazz club in this little tiny village. It's about two hours from Brussels, this little town.

PM: Wow.

BF: And that was kind of an amazing time for me to sort of be--not stranded, but it was pretty much just out in the middle of nowhere with this band. And we played pretty much just around that--we didn't go too far from that.

PM: You mean you didn't even get into Brussels to play?

BF: Well, we did a little bit. But there were a lot of little places to play. I mean, the place we lived itself, we could play there. And a lot of bands came through there to play at that club. And it was right close to the German border and the Dutch border, so we'd go a little bit around to play, but it wasn't like touring all over Europe or anything.

PM: Right. I did that with my brother in Germany. We lived in Heidelberg and played all over Germany in these little dorfs. And so I know what you're talking about.

BF: Yeah. So, she worked in the club where we first... The first day I got there, I met her. I lived there for a year, and then she came back with me...

PM: Wow. So she was Belgian.

BF: Well, she's actually Italian, and her parents are from Italy. They came to Belgium--it's sort of this back and forth thing. They came from Italy to Belgium, and she was born in Belgium, but then moved back to Italy, and sort of grew up in Italy, and then came back to Belgium again. It's one of those things like where her grandfather or somebody... They didn't have any money, so he walked from Italy to Belgium and opened an ice cream stand, or some kind of thing like that.

PM: Amazing.

BF: So her family had this kind of ongoing going back and forth from Belgium to Italy thing happening. So she actually has both passports, but she's sort of more Italian, I guess, than Belgian.

PM: And all these years you've stayed together.

BF: Yeah, somehow. I mean, when we met, I was already... It's hard with all the traveling and everything, but I know some people--I think it's even harder if people get together and then all the traveling starts after they're already...

PM: Right. She knew what she was getting into right at the top.

BF: She sort of knew what was going to happen, I guess. Not that it makes it easy, but I met her when I was traveling, sort of. It was right at the beginning when this all was starting to happen. But somehow we--and the more I... The longer life goes on, I realize it's more and more rare that people are staying together.

PM: Oh, it's unbelievable. Nobody stays together anymore.

So this question is really more lighthearted than it may sound, but at this point in your life, how would you describe your attitude toward yourself and toward music? Your attitude toward yourself, how do you--can we get at that somehow?

BF: Oh, boy.

PM: You know how some people will say, "Well, I'm very demanding of myself," this or that.

BF: Well, that's... Yeah, that's there, for sure. And as I get older, it seems to get somehow more... Again, there's that paradoxical thing. I mean, in some ways I'm more relaxed with certain things, but in other ways, as far as being demanding on myself, there's a certain amount of wisdom that happens as I get older, about being a little bit more patient. But at the same time, as I'm getting older, I start getting this feeling like, "Time's running out, I better get this together."

PM: [laughs]

BF: So there's definitely this panic, also, like just, "Man, I got to..." Because I still feel the same now as I did when I first started to play, just like this overwhelming amount of stuff there is to get together, and you can never get to all of it. And it still feels like I'm just starting to learn how to play, really.

PM: Right.

BF: There's just this infinite amount of way to go, and you want to try to get there, and there's always... I don't know, I guess that's why my music is the way it sounds--whatever the reason my music sounds the way it does, or anybody's--is because you're always... You can never get... There's always some kind of attempt to reach for something, and you can never quite get there, and that's what just keeps you going and going and going. Yeah, there's just no way you can ever get to the end of it, because it's infinite.

PM: Yeah, there is no end.

BF: So as I get older, there's both of those feelings that come up, almost a feeling of even more panic than before, but then also like just that little bit of, "Well, cool out, you're going to just do what you can do."

PM: Yeah, you're going to do what you can do. Reading a lot of stuff about you, I was very entertained. It's a small world--like when I hear that you'd given lessons years ago to my good friend Kenny Vaughan.

BF: Oh! Do you know him?

PM: Sure, sure. He's an old friend of mine from Nashville and one of my favorite guys.

BF: Oh, wow! Yeah, that was one of those--man, that was the most incredible... I was teaching in a music store in Denver. And it was kind of like, "Oh, God"--you know, like teaching little kids. I mean, not to--you know, that's all fine, but it was at that point in my life when I was wondering if I was ever going to be able to really play. And it was just like, "Oh, God, I've got to go do this again," and just barely making enough money to... I'd have just a few students a week, and it was kind of a dark... But I don't know, then I look back on it, and it was also one of those really intense times--I was just practicing all the time, and there are definitely some good parts to it. But Kenny was [laughs] maybe the only--maybe I had a few students who actually cared about what they were doing. But there were a lot of little kids with their moms and... It was just kind of a drag. But then Kenny would come, and he actually practiced what I gave him. He would take it seriously. I guess he was still in high school.

PM: He was in high school? Wow!

BF: This was when I was maybe twenty--how old would I have been? Like twenty-two. I mean, we weren't that far apart in age, but I was sort of a grownup guy, and he was in high school--maybe we were three or four years apart.

PM: That's a lot at that point.

BF: I guess.

PM: It seems like it is.

BF: But he would--I just remembered him as really serious, and he had this kind of intensity, and he would really... If I told him to do something, gave him some kind of scales to work on or whatever, he would just do it, and he was probably the only one that... And he seemed... He already had this kind of thing that... Where he was going to--I mean, it's easy looking back on it--I mean, I didn't--but there was this kind of intensity about how he was really committed to finding his own way somehow. He had this... He was really taking it seriously.

PM: And he's still a guy who plays all day long. He rarely--I mean, if you call him up, you don't have to say, "What are you doing?" You know perfectly well what he's doing, he's playing his guitar. [laughs]

BF: Yeah. But then years and years went by, and I'd had no contact with him at all. And it was the first time I came to Nashville, I don't even think I had--it was either to record that Nashville album or it might have been when I had just come to look at a studio or something. But this is like oh, at least--I don't know, more than twenty-five years--

[laughter]

BF: --after those lessons, that the engineer who I was with said, "Oh, do you want to go to Tootsie's?" And we went to that place.

PM: Right.

BF: And he said, "There's this guy that I think you know." So that was the first time I saw him, and I just about had a heart attack, I couldn't believe it.

PM: And he was tearing it up at Tootsie's.

BF: Unbelievable. And it was weird, and then I immediately tried to find something that he was--I went out and got a Kim Richey album or something. And I could just hear--I could still hear... It's weird how people, they really have their sound from... Like listening to that Kim Richey album, I could hear--I could picture his fingers on his guitar, and hear his sound in there, just as it was when he was in high school. It sounds weird, but it's like there's an imprint that we get from the very beginning or something.

PM: And I'm sure those lessons did him a world of good. He's one of the few guitar players I know who's got perfect hand position and all that stuff, I mean, who bends very nicely with his pinky, and all kinds of great stuff.

[laughter]

PM: He's really into the right stuff.

BF: Well, and then he told me he still had all the notebooks from the lessons.

PM: [laughs] No doubt.

BF: I keep hoping that we could play together sometime.

PM: I've got to give him a call later today. I bet that you may also be acquainted with my old friend Steve Kimock. Have you heard him?

BF: I know that name, but I don't know...

PM: He's one of the great improvisers out there. I got to send you some of his music too. [see our interview with Steve and hear some clips]

BF: Where does he live?

PM: He was a northern California guy, but recently is now near Philly. But one of the really, really great improvisers out there. I know Kenny ran into him in California, too, and got really turned on by him. If you don't know Steve Kimock, I'm going to send you some.

BF: Okay, thanks. continue

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