Mastering the Box

<p>Billy Bob Thornton 

and The Boxmasters Date: Thursday, July 31, doors at 8 p.m. Venue: Soul Kitchen (219 Dauphin St.) www.soulkitchemobile.com Tickets: $12 in adv. available at Soul Kitchen, their website, Mellow Mushroom and 1-800-594-TIXX

<p>Many actors may spend their free time travelling to exotic locales, adopting children, while dodging reporters and paparazzi at every turn, but Billy Bob Thornton has decided to spend his free time in a different way &amp;#8211; in the studio and on the road with his latest musical project The Boxmasters. 

Thornton is no stranger to the music game and has five full-length solo releases. However, The Boxmasters has turned into something more personal for Thornton and guitarists J.D. Andrew and Mike Butler. These three musicians have turned this band into a nostalgic trip down memory lane, and they are taking their listeners with them. The Boxmasters’ concept began spontaneously while Thornton was recording his album "Beautiful Door" with Andrew (who has engineered songs for everyone from The Rolling Stones to Kanye West), manning the helm behind the mixing board. "Honestly, I didn’t intend on being a musician," Andrew says. "It was just one of those things that happen magically. Billy walked into the studio one day and went, ‘How well can you play guitar? All the rest of the guys are out of town and a Canadian TV show producer asked me to record a Hank Williams song for this show, and we need to do it today.’ I went, ‘I haven’t played in a band or played that much in 10 years, but I’ll give it a shot.’ It had a great sound to it and so we had to keep recording some songs." As the concept for The Boxmasters grew, the two decided that they would compose songs and create a band that paid tribute to the idyllic sounds of the ‘60s, except they would mix it with their brand of "Hillbilly Rock." "Having grown up with so many musical influences, I’d done solo records that were kinda eclectic," Thornton explains. "They would have rock songs and hillbilly songs and everything else on them. This is really a combination of all the sounds I grew up loving. We’re making records that sound like ‘60s pop bands sonically, and yet we’re able to play hillbilly music. So, it’s really for kids who grew up loving The Beatles, Buck Owens and Del Reeves at the same time." With Thornton on drums and vocals and Andrew on guitar, they began laying down tracks to songs shaped with their hillbilly rock attitude. They even decided to take songs from The Who, The Beatles and Mott the Hoople and mold them with their hillbilly style. "We listened to a British Invasion compilation and came upon the Chad & Jeremy song ‘Yesterday’s Gone.’ We were like, ‘Well, that’s a hillbilly song done by English guys,’" says Andrew. "So, we recorded our version of that and kept recording stuff." The two decided to add a guitarist to the mix, and Andrew placed a call to friend and session musician Mike Butler. "He (J.D.) gave me a call one night, and I knew he had been working with Billy," Butler says. "He told me one night, ‘Hey, you wanna come down to Billy’s and bring your lap-steel and jam on some stuff?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah! Of course!’ So, I went down there and instantly loved what they were doing. They had already recorded a couple of songs at that point with just the two of them, and they played them, and I was blown away. I think we did three songs that night where I played lap-steel and electric guitar at that point. I just kept wanting to come back. It was stuff that I had always wanted to play. It was a blast, and we got along really quickly." With the addition of Butler, The Boxmasters had more momentum than ever before, and they began to turn out both originals and covers saturated in hillbilly rock. On June 10, they released the fruits of their labor in the form of a double CD, box-set. The packaging reflects the album cover styles of the ‘60s with Thornton, Andrew and Butler dressed in mod suits, and each disc comes in its own white sleeve. One disc contains The Boxmasters’ originals, which Thornton says maintains a theme of "hard livin’ mistakes regrets and attempts at redemption." "That’s the way I grew up," Thornton explains. "They say, ‘Write what you know’ and that’s always your best work. I was never much one to craft a pop hit. I don’t know how to do it. It’s not like I wouldn’t want a number one record. That would be nice, I guess, but I don’t know how to do that stuff. I don’t sing a lot of songs about going down to the malt shop or whatever. It just naturally comes out that way, and once we saw where it was heading, we said, ‘OK, we’re doing to make very dark, sub-humorous songs about the lower middle class." The second disc is their take on songs from artists ranging from Ernest Tubb to The Who. "We had done all those covers, and we loved them so much that there was no sense not having them on the record," Thornton says. "We also didn’t want to turn out a record of covers. We wanted to do it like the old days. We’re even using the old Vanguard label from ‘64 on both them. We just wanted to be as old school as much as you can with a CD. That’s why we look the way we do and have the pictures and all that. People used to make double records. I was an Allman Brothers fan growing up, and my favorite record was ‘Live at the Fillmore East.’ We just wanted to pay tribute to those other bands that influenced us and all the songwriters that influenced. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and the label was very gracious." This sentiment is echoed throughout the band. "We wanted to pay tribute to the bands that inspired us and made us become The Boxmasters," Andrew adds. "A lot of those songs Billy knew from growing up or when he was a roadie for a sound company and worked with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band a bunch. When it was time to record songs, he went, ‘Well, I remember these songs from the Dirt Band days that were written by Michael Nesmith (The Monkees) that I just love and wanted to record them.’" With their debut on the shelves, The Boxmasters are currently on the road with not only a plethora of music but also a stage show that reflects their concept. This band is taking their audience back to the decade they hold so dear. "We come out on stage, and we’re all wearing suits," Butler says. "Depending on the night, we’ll wear all black suits or more of a mod 60s style of suits. We’ve got all the visual stuff going on with all our amplifiers hidden behind panels that project certain things behind them. It has the feel of an early ‘60s TV show like ‘Hullabaloo’ or ‘Shin-Dig’ or something like that. You almost feel like you’re in a TV audience. It brings the audience to the whole lifestyle of The Boxmasters." So far, the public has welcomed The Boxmasters with open arms. As they make their way across America, Thornton has very few complaints. "It’s been great," Thornton says. "We’re about seven shows into it or something, and it’s been terrific. We had a great show in Abilene last night, and just before that, we were up in Colorado Springs and had a terrific show there. I prefer indoor venues. With outdoor ones, if you start a show at 8 o’clock, it still usually light in the summer. Playing on stage in the sunshine, it’s kind of a downer for us sometime. We don’t know what to do yet. It worked out fine, but for us, it’s not as much fun playing outdoors. The shows have gone great. We’ve had seven really good shows so far. It’s been going terrific. Fortunately, we’ve got all but one outdoor show out of the way." With a Christmas album on the way and another double CD release due out in the spring, it does not look like The Boxmasters will be ending things anytime soon. The Boxmasters will continue to bring their ‘60s flashback to the public and record as much as possible. As far as Andrew is concerned, that is music to his ears. "If I never had to record another band besides ours, I’ll be just be as happy as a clam," Andrew admits. "Working with other people, some of them are absolutely amazing. You can’t beat working with the Rolling Stones or Guy Clark or people like that. At the same time, being able to be a part of the creative process the way I get to, you really don’t want to do anything else."