B005HF54UE EBOK

by Vlautin, Willy

  Dave told us all about him and his place and we all busted over laughing. Turns out his name was Rich Fontaine. Well we had a gig coming up and we had to have a new name so off the cuff we said, “How about Richmond Fontaine?” We all thought it was pretty funny and at the time you don’t think the band will last so you don’t worry much about the name. You just hope no one has the same one. We’ve been together now almost fourteen years.

  The Sun (London) had this to say about your songwriting: “Quite simply, Vlautin’s one of the most compelling songwriters working today, compared equally to great American novelists like Raymond Carver or John Steinbeck and musicians such as Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits. . . .” Take us back, Willy, to that moment in your life when you least expected to earn this sort of praise.

  Well, you know, all that is nice to hear. I can’t say it isn’t, but really, I never think that way. People just have to write things. Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad. In my gut I know I’m not in the league with those guys you’ve mentioned, but to me that’s all right. I’m just glad to have discovered them and I’m glad to get to write stories and songs and get compared to them once in a while. Those guys have gotten me through some serious hard times. I can’t tell you enough how much John Steinbeck and Tom Waits have meant to me. Whenever I start drifting down that path where everything seems too bleak and uncertain I reread Cannery Row or Tortilla Flats and it pulls me back. His love for working-class people and his good heart have always comforted me. His novels have really helped me out. And Tom Waits—when things go bad for me I always put on Tom Waits. I don’t know why, but I do. When my mom died the only music I listened to for weeks was Tom Waits. I didn’t even think about it, I just always went for his songs and I listened to them over and over. Now I listen to a ton of stuff but there are always those guys who get me through the night. Musically, Tom Waits and Willie Nelson are my guys.

  “I can’t tell you enough how much John Steinbeck and Tom Waits have meant to me.”

  You were born and raised in Reno, Nevada. How deep are your family’s roots there?

  My great-great-grandfather worked thirty miles away in Virginia City, home of the Comstock mine, and my great-grandfather was a lawyer in Reno. Supposedly he divorced some pretty famous Hollywood actresses when Reno was the divorce capital of the USA. My dad grew up in San Francisco but spent his summers in Reno and eventually moved there with my mother.

  You’ve been known to hole up in a casino hotel in order to write lyrics. Is that how you approach your fiction, too?

  I wish I could. I just don’t have enough dough to live in a decent motel full-time. Mostly I write at the local horse track here in Portland, Oregon, where I live. It’s called Portland Meadows. It’s a great place to write. It’s like being in the library but once in a while you can bet on horses or look around and see all the interesting guys. It’s a great time. It’s my favorite thing in the world to sit there and work on stories. If I’m home I’ll always screw around. I’ll always find something else I have to do. Plus there’s Matlock and afterwards Perry Mason and I’m a real degenerate when it comes to TV.

  Which is harder, writing a story or a lyric?

  They’re just different. I think it’s easier to write a story, but to write a good one, well, that’s hard. I usually try and take care of myself when I write stories. Maybe try and go running. Lay off getting drunk and staying out late. I try and eat better. It’s all about discipline and putting in the hours, where songs are about emotion. I always write best on a hangover or when my life is falling apart.

  “Mostly I write at the local horse track here in Portland, Oregon, where I live.”

  Speaking of hangovers, let’s discuss some things you’ve said in interviews. Interviewed by British music magazine Comes with a Smile in 2002, you said this: “A lot of the time I suppose I’m trying to confront things that worry me, or scare me in a way that won’t leave me alone. That’s why a lot of the things are so dark. Alcohol has a good hold of me, and has been such a part of my life that it has to be in the songs as well as violence. I’m scared of violence, of seeing it, of being in it. It haunts me, they both do. They’re some of the themes that run in me and I can’t get them out yet.” Heavy stuff, Willy. Has your pursuit of writing allayed or aggravated your fears and compulsions?

  One of the great things about writing is that you can drink an awful lot and never be hungover. I wrote this one novel and I swear each guy drank about seventy-five beers a day. It was fun as hell to write and it really did get it out of my system. I could drink all day with these guys and then put them away and do something else. So in general, at least so far, writing has always eased my mind and not aggravated it. It only aggravates it if I’m worried about being good. But that’s just a bad habit to think like that. You just have to do your best. The great thing about writing is you can control your fear and compulsions. You can look at them in silence in the corner of the room and try to figure them out, and most of all you can see them and study them without them physically coming after you. It’s your world and if you bring fear into it then it’s by choice.

  How often do you gamble?

  Besides betting on horses, I don’t really gamble. What cured me of sports gambling is that my nerves aren’t the best and watching game after game is just too much. It gives me ulcers. As for casino gambling, I’ve never been much for it either, mostly because I’ve never won. For a while I used to cash my paycheck at a casino. When you did you received a free breakfast and six drink tokes and you got a pull on a special slot machine where there was a possibility you could win dinner, a roll of quarters, or even double your paycheck. The problem was, after the pull you most likely just had the drink tokes, the free breakfast, and a week’s pay in your hand. Like a bum I started gambling part of my check away every week. Not much, but some, and some turned into more, and more turned into more. A couple times I got drunk and blew the whole thing. I’d put it on black at the roulette table. I only did it a few times but that was enough. I never won that way. For as stupid of a bet as that is, you’d think I’d hit it at least once. Sadly I never did.

  I’ve seen guys lose everything ’cause of gambling—their house, their car, their wife and kids, even their job. It’s a rough habit to kick. I’ve always been too worried about that to get in too deep. And horses, I just like horses and I like the environment at the track. Plus it’s hard to lose too much money ’cause the races are every twenty minutes and I don’t really bet simulcast.

  “I always thought I’d end up dating a cool cocktail waitress [at the Cal Neva]. . . . That’s why I had Allison Johnson work there.”

  Name your favorite casino.

  I really like the sports and race book at the Cal Neva in Reno, Nevada. It’s where I’ve spent the most time. For years I ate there, and it’s the place where I used to cash my paycheck. I always thought I’d end up dating a cool cocktail waitress there. The problem was none would ever give me the time of day and all I ever did was sit by myself and watch horse races and get drunk. But the place is all right for a casino. That’s why I had Allison Johnson work there. I’ve met some great waitresses there. But all in all I’m not a big fan of casinos. They do have interesting people to watch, and in the old days when I was a kid there were great lounge bands, but if you stay in there too long you end up getting suckered into gambling, and once you do that you’re ruined.

  “I’m a real romantic about places and the desert is a very romantic place,” you told the Sun (London). “I listen to bands from the desert and I love movies set in it.” How often do you get back to the desert?

  I’ve always liked movies and novels and records set in the desert. I spent years as a kid driving around in the desert with my dad and then with my mom’s boyfriend. Both of them loved it out there. Nowadays I try to go to the desert as much as I can, but the band and my girlfriend are in Portland, Oregon, so I’m pretty entrenched here. But the high desert has always been my favorite place. Eastern
Oregon and Northern Nevada. I also really like Arizona and New Mexico and I think in that quote I’m talking about those states. The last Richmond Fontaine CD, Thirteen Cities, was recorded in Tucson, Arizona. I was really excited to make Richmond Fontaine’s version of a desert record.

  Name your favorite desert band.

  I’m a huge fan of Calexico. They’re based out of Tucson, Arizona. I think they’re the best for desert music. Their instrumentals are really something, and if you ever get to see them live you’ll be hooked. Hot Rail and The Black Light are good ones to start with but my favorite is Feast of Wire.

  “I’ve always liked movies and novels and records set in the desert. I spent years as a kid driving around in the desert with my dad and then with my mom’s boyfriend.”

  Your favorite desert movie?

  It’s probably Gas Food Lodging. It’s a movie set in a desert town in New Mexico. In a lot of ways it’s the story of my brother and me and our life with our mother. It’s a movie that’s stuck with me for years and years and one I really wish I could have written. It’s not often that a movie feels and seems like your real life.

  The Irish Times (Ireland), reviewing your latest album, Thirteen Cities, said: “Willy Vlautin’s songs are musical bedfellows to his novels and short stories. They come from the same space and the same desperate, lonely outsiders populate them, hovering on the edge of despair. . . .” Do you ever tire of this, of the insistent—if inevitable—comparison of your songs and stories?

  No, I never really think about it. But in my head the two forms are married. They both come from the same part of me, and my songs become stories and my stories become songs. The comparisons are just easy to make because I have a book out and I’m a story-based songwriter. They compare the two because they’re there. The only real difference between the two is I think I have the ability to be lighter as a novelist, where I’ve always had a hard time being easygoing in my songs. It’s one of my biggest failures as a songwriter.

  Also, my songs are usually more personal, even if they just seem like a story. I started writing songs as a kid to help me get my head straight. I was too shy and insecure to talk or admit I was having a hard time, but for a while I had a hard time. So my songs always come from that side of me, even twenty-five years later. But my stories, although dark, seem to breathe a bit easier.

  “I have the ability to be lighter as a novelist, where I’ve always had a hard time being easygoing in my songs.”

  “I’ve been writing novels since I was twenty-one,” you told the Rocky Mountain News (Denver). “I’ve written five of them. I’ll write a draft and put it away.” So much talent, so much energy—one half expects to learn you never tour without your easel and watercolors. Into which additional genres does your mythic creativity take you?

  I guess more than anything I try to be a writer. I got into a band because I wanted to be a part of music, to be around people who liked music, but I’m not much of a natural musician. Not like the guys in my band. I just wanted to write songs. I had a hard time in school and my ability with the English language was average at best, so I never thought about writing novels. I think all my English teachers would have rolled over laughing if I told them I wanted to try. So I joined a band, ’cause everyone can be in a band. And being in a band got me writing story-songs and the story-songs gave me the guts to write fiction. I wish I could say I could do more. I can’t dance and I don’t know or care to know anything about acting. I don’t think I’ve ever even met an actor. But I wish more than anything I could draw like Nate Beaty, the illustrator for The Motel Life. He’s a genius. If I could do that then I could write graphic novels. That would be something. I’m a huge fan of graphic novels, but I think a fan is where I’ll probably end up staying. I can’t draw at all.

  What has been your hardest scene to write?

  A lot of Northline was difficult for me to write. Jimmy Bodie took a lot out of me. I tried my best to show all sides of him. Both good and bad. I think at his root he’s decent. He’s just lost his way. He was a hard character for me. But the hardest scenes were when I was rough on Allison Johnson. Writing the scene with the busboys made me cry, and the scene with the guys who take her to their house made my heart sick. I cut that scene over and over, but the thing is it’s true. When your self-worth and confidence are gone, it’s easy falling into bad self-destructive situations. I hate that scene because she let it happen and I didn’t want her to let it happen. I really like Allison Johnson. I want her to be all right, but if I was to be true to her character I had to let her get beat up by the decisions she made. If you make decisions out of weakness, a lot of the time you pay the price.

  Name your favorite bookshop.

  Sundance Bookstore in Reno, Nevada, is probably my favorite. They’re the nicest people around. Another great one is called Green Apple in San Francisco, and you can’t beat Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. Man that’s a great book town! And you can’t forget Powell’s in Portland. That place is like a mall of books. That’s one of the lucky things about traveling—you can find great bookstores.

  “The hardest scenes [to write] were when I was rough on Allison Johnson. Writing the scene with the busboys made me cry, and the scene with the guys who take her to their house made my heart sick.”

  What is on your desk right now (e.g., photos, books, dictionaries, and bills)?

  I have a dictionary and a few CDs. I have a picture of Shane MacGowan and a picture of Carole Lombard. I have a couple quotes from William Kennedy there, too. He’s one of my biggest writing heroes. And yeah I have a few bills and a half dozen Post-it notes to remind me not to forget certain things or fuck up other things, and I have a copy of The Ring magazine. I think some of the writing in the magazine is really great. I read it when I get burned out. My desk ain’t much, but if you blew up my house the desk would probably make it out unscathed.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  About the Book

  “She Fell into Me One Night and I Began Writing Her Story . . .”

  FOR YEARS I worked at the main branch of a trucking company. Then they moved me to a warehouse in a different part of town to load our company’s freight into trailers. This warehouse was the size of four football fields. When I got there the best thing about it was that there were two women working there and they were my age, in their mid-twenties. I’d never worked around women, and most of the time in my daily life I never saw any, except in restaurants and stores. So it was great just to see a girl during the day, to see her working. To see her walking by. I can’t tell you enough how nice that was.

  One of the girls was quiet and plain-looking, but there was something about her. She had black hair and blue eyes. She dressed in jeans and a flannel coat and a ski cap. It was cold in the warehouse. Everyone dressed the same. After a while I found out she was dating a man who worked there, and it turns out he was a skinhead, a sort of neo-Nazi. I didn’t know anything about him or that way of life. I didn’t know if she was a part of it or not. She didn’t seem that way, she just seemed sort of beat up.

  After a while I began to get a crush on her. I used to feel guilty about it. What if she was skinhead? What if she really felt that way? But really I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and the truth is I never found out either way because I never had the guts to talk to her. I just created a life in my mind with her and me in it. And there were no neo-Nazis or warehouses in that world, just her liking me and me liking her.

  “I’d never worked around women, and most of the time in my daily life I never saw any except in restaurants and stores.”

  Later on I met a rockabilly kid who worked at a different warehouse. I began drinking with him and his rockabilly friends after work.

  They all drove old classic cars and greased their hair back and smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drank whiskey. It was like they were from a different time. Also, they liked music, they liked seeing bands, they l
iked punk rock. So I fell in with them for a while hoping maybe they’d be more open-minded to things. But slowly they loosened up around me and started saying things about Mexicans and African-Americans and Asians. It seemed to be a part of their whole language together, so I quit hanging out with them.

  At the same time I had a couple childhood friends who were construction workers, and slowly over the years they were getting more and more angry and worried. They knew contractors who were hiring illegal immigrants and paying them low wages. Because of it the contractors could undercut bids, and they began to get more jobs. My friends were having a harder time getting big contracts. Most of the immigrants were from Mexico and soon parts of Reno were becoming Mexican. Store fronts began to have Mexican names and the restaurants in the area suddenly became Mexican restaurants. Reno was changing, the western U.S. was changing. My friends were changing, too. Subtly they were becoming more and more racist. So finally I quit hanging out with them as well.

  “Reno was changing, the western U.S. was changing. My friends were changing, too. Subtly they were becoming more and more racist.”

  I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be around people like that, but for a while it seemed like that world was chasing me. The hippy bar I liked to go to became a skinhead bar for a time. A friend of mine was stabbed by a skinhead, and for a while the only girl I ever saw went out with a neo-Nazi. And me, I was just trying to find my own place amongst all that. Like the characters Allison Johnson and Dan Mahony, I was looking for a place that wasn’t so rough. But, like them, I just wasn’t quite strong enough to get there on my own.