Unpublished Bruce interview from 2011

An Interview with Bruce Hornsby

PAUL: Hey, Bruce. Thanks so much for doing this. Congrats on your new album, by the way. I picked up Bride of the Noisemakers the first day it came out.

Well, thanks, man. You probably got it on Amazon for $3.99, didn’t you? Good for you, man. <Laughs> Well, that’s two records for $3.99 which works out to, what, about four or five songs?

<Laughs> Anyway, the tour’s going well. We’ve just done two shows with Bela [Fleck] and it’s a very natural pairing. Bela and I have been playing together for years. I’ve sat in with his band; he’s sat in with my band quite a few times. It’s a very easy hookup.

PAUL: Cool. We’ll be seeing you in a few weeks at your show in Columbus.

Well, good. You can see if we’re sucking for yourselves. <Laughs>

PAUL: Let’s start off with your musical SCKBSTD. How long have you been interested in writing musicals?

It was never something I was trying to do. It was never something I had much of an interest in, although we did write two musicals in high school. Then again, if you knew how to play an instrument, you were allowed to play. Our band played this pre- jazz-meets-sock-hop scene in rural Virginia. It was just a joke. <Laughs>

I got a letter out of the blue from Playwrights Horizons on 42nd Street. They’d heard three songs off my Halcyon Days record and they thought it sounded like show music, so they sort of commissioned me to do this.

So, I thought, “Hey, let’s give this a shot.” That was in 2005 and it’s years later. We ran one idea up the flagpole about a Civil War re-enactor which we thought was pretty funny: people dressing up and camping out.

We thought the whole scene was pretty interesting and amusing. Who knows? Maybe that will be my next gig. <Laughs> Anyway, we have some wind behind our sails and we’re in production in Norfolk, Virginia.

JEFF: How did SCKBSTD differ, approach-wise, than your albums? When you are going into the studio, are you doing a lot of demo work beforehand or are you seeing if things develop organically?

The process is not that much different: I write the songs, I demo them, and then I show them either to the band or, in this case, the producers of the play.

I just get feedback and go from there. It’s mostly about writing the song. It has to be something that is strong and interesting to me. If everyone thinks it sucks, then I don’t know what to do. Actually, the latest song I’ve written has gotten very mixed response. It’s a rather dissonant, sort of graduate-level piece of music.

Some of the less adventurous music listeners in our camp are going “Whoa.” <Laughs> “What’s this?” But that generally makes me think I’m onto something, if you know what I mean.

PAUL: Well, to that point, you once said “Playing a song straight is a real prison for [you].” Have you ever written a song as a foundation in the hopes of reverse- engineering it live and/or taking it somewhere different?

Well, that would be a really good approach, Paul. I wish the approach was that we’d write the song and play the song live a lot and then we recorded it. We did that once. It worked okay, way back in The Range days. For the record A Night on the Town, we played a few of those songs live first, but not that much.

The schedule had it that we weren’t able to do that so, that would be better for us because I’m a slow learner. After we record them and we start playing it live, that’s when we really learn how to play them. So, frankly, that’s one reason why we put out these live albums every once in a while, every ten years.

We get to the point where, in some cases, we kinda nailed it in the studio version but haven’t beaten it. In more cases than not, what a song eventually evolves into is way stronger to me.

A lot of it has to do, frankly, with the way I sing the song. Bride showcases that development where I write the song, I record the song, then I learn how to sing it–not just play it. That’s a really good reason to have Bride out there. It really shows the way I think songs should’ve sounded originally.

PAUL: I don’t think anyone’s ever asked you this: How did your appearance in the little-known Robin Williams black comedy World’s Greatest Dad happen?

Oh yeah, man. I was so happy to be part of that. It’s so funny. I got a call from my producer’s old friend, Bobcat Goldthwait. You guys know who he is?

BOTH: Oh, yeah.

Well, as is the case with a lot of people in modern popular culture, what most people know about him is not what’s he about at all: some shrieking, screaming comic from the mid- 1980s. He’s actually not that guy at all. Bobcat’s a really good independent filmmaker.

So, he called my friend and said “We’re doing a film with Robin Williams. We need a musician for Robin to be a fan of and we’ve picked Bruce Hornsby. How do I get in touch with him?” <Laughs> He said, “Well, I just about talk to him every day. I’m doing his record right now.”

So, Bobcat and I talked. That’s how it came about. It’s a hilarious movie. Where else can you hear lines like: “Bruce Hornsby is a fag.”“But he’s got kids, Kyle! “Well, you have children, and you’re a fag.” <Laughs>

Quite an offbeat, but—to me—well- done movie. There’s a hilarious scene with these two Goth girls fighting over my Spirit Trail record in the halls of a high school.