Name: Bill Callahan

Nationality: American

Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current Release: Bill Callahan's YTILAEЯ is out October 14th 2022 via Drag City.

If you enjoyed this interview with Bill Callahan and would like to stay up to date on his music and tour dates, visit him on Facebook, and twitter.

We also recomend our Will Oldham / Bonnie 'Prince' Billy interview for the views of one of Bill's regular collaborators.



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I’m recently starting to think of it as a pathology. Maybe creativity is an escape from reality. It’s a world of my making that runs alongside the world not of my making.

Maybe this is unhealthy, at least to indulge in it too deeply. Maybe the impulse to create is the impulse to escape.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I usually have an extremely loose or vague idea, like “a tennis ball in the gutter.” An abstraction to embrace or an image to decipher, a phrase to decipher. Images or phrases to maybe not even decipher but just to build them a shelter they can live in.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

It starts with a word or two, handwritten in a notebook that feels like a good playing field. Not too big a notebook, not too small. But I could probably start it on a computer on a word document if it came to that.

My favorite Japanese notebooks became scarce a few years ago. Couldn’t even find them on the internet. I found the last source and bought a bunch.

But I’m really not that particular — other than the notebook and a certain type of pen — it’s nice and familiar to have those but not crucial. Other than that, I can write with zombies clawing at my window.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I like coffee and exercise. But the exercise is more for bridging the worlds between work and home.

I’ve been existing too much in the mind during the day, so I move it to the body. I’m trying to change that to get more body during my work day.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

Best not to analyze it too closely, I think. The best lyrics either aren’t consciously heard or are terrible.

Songs are really more about phrasing than lyrics. Just like good comedians can make mediocre writing funny — it’s in the delivery and the intention.

If you can get people singing something, anything, then the lyrics are “good.”

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

It just does. I look at it as an accumulation of sunrises or sets. If you look back on the past 10 days, there were all those sunrises — most of which you witnessed, with varying degrees of interaction and impression memory. Parts of a song follow in this suit for me.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I think this is more common with prose writing.

Song writing is so fast, most of the time, it’s like a car crash where nobody gets hurt and you just laugh in wonder and relief afterwards.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

There only seems to be one direction — I mean, whichever way it goes is the way. Nothing is off limits and nothing is planned, so it’s never an alternative road that is being taken.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

All my songs are usually just done done when they are done. Being done is part of the process.

I can only recall one exception which is with” Everyway” from the new album YTILAEЯ. I thought it was done done and performed it live a couple times. My wife thought it was flawed and had some tips on adding new parts and cutting old ones. I took her advice seriously because she has never had any kind of comments like that on any of my other songs.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Very involved! It is a crucial part of a finished song, and maybe the most mysterious part. Why does making the smallest change, say, making the kick drum slightly louder turn the song from painfully unengaging to riveting?

The interesting thing is how the mixing then gives the song a life beyond the recording. It can be played live and say, not even have a kick drum in it, but once it has come to life like Pinocchio, it can now exist and thrive in other forms.

I think it might have something to do with the ghost memory — once we hear a song a certain way, say with a trumpet on it — we hear that trumpet in our heads when we hear the song, even if it’s a version without the trumpet. I’ve had audience members at shows insist that I’ve had a hidden trumpet player or a backing track with a trumpet on it.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I usually have some other ideas that are forming or working already. And if I don’t, it’s kind of nice to have nothing. To be free of it all.