An infamous Billy Bob Thornton radio interview is making the rounds and he's being called a heathen, more or less, by most of the world for giving CBC personality Jian Ghomeshi one of the harshest interviews ever on live air. There's even a YouTube video:
Full audio is here.
Billy Bob came into WRLT studios not all that long ago, arriving an hour late and by reports, was otherwise amicable. But in this particular case, I hope the interviewer learned an important lesson: when you've got someone in the studio who is as obviously sharp as BBT is, the last thing you want to attempt is anything remotely like a "serious" interview.
The second-to-last thing you want to do is share your crash and burn with the whole world. It makes me wonder if the whole thing isn't a stunt.
UPDATE: The interviewer, Jian Ghomeshi, was a member of Moxy Fruvous, who you may actually remember from when Lightning 100 played their song "Michigan Militia." They even played one of our Nashville Sunday Night shows and one of the things that made the evening memorable for me was that, prior to the show when I was chatting with the band, one member in particular was totally trying to fuck with my head (and looking back, it could very well have been Ghomeshi) and it was something about Northeast people I missed very much at the time. This just reinforces my suspicion it's all a put-on.
UPDATE II - looked at more of Jian's vids. Okay, that really is his style, to give it so much gravitas. You'd think someone who'd been in a band would know better ...
3 comments:
That's some pretty amazing stuff. I could see how that might have seemed put-on, but I too have heard about BBT's edginess and I wouldn't put it past him to take something like not respecting the 'don't talk about my acting career' as enough of a slight to totally try to not-so-passive-aggressively screw with the interview.
Pretty funny, actually, but also very unsettling...
I could write a 5,000 word essay on interviews, interviewers and artists, but the bottom line is that Billy Bob wasn't the only passive-aggressive in this case and there's nothing remotely passive about the publicity campaign that went on in the hours and day the clip was posted. Unless they got a go-ahead, that was pure malice for self-promotional purposes.
Want to add: on the NY Times blog where this has been getting discussed, there are several commentators trashing Billy Bob and saying what a "consummate pro" Jian is. Radio industry professionals have forever had recordings of artists making jackasses of themselves, and kept it among themselves without damaging artists. The internet has got people all over competing against each other for public notice and Jian got a load of that. But right now, he also looks a lot like NY Governor Paterson after the damage to Caroline Kennedy's reputation was done.
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