For a media-shy chameleon like Will Oldham, who performs as his alter ego Bonnie "Prince" Billy one minute, acts in movies like Old Joy the next and occasionally pops up in an R. Kelly music video, the last thing you'd expect him to do is sit still for a week-long interview. But that's what he did for Will Oldham on Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, a 400-page tome out in March. The idea came about when Oldham's label asked if he had any ideas for a book. "I wanted to compile some of my more readable interviews," he says. " They preferred new interviews, which bummed me out to some extent." So Oldham called old friend Alan Licht. "We sat in front of my fireplace for five days, and he went through a timeline and grilled me about things that happened, in sequence," he says. " It felt like I was at Gitmo." That miserable? "Being interviewed is like money and sex: It's something no one ever taught me anything about," Oldham says, adding, "if you can avoid it, do."
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