That Genius R. Kelly: An Interview with Bonnie “Prince” Billy [Part One]

I think it was the alchemy between the two, because, it definitely, there's a woman I know that works with R. Kelly and I think we were talking about the idea of doing an interview, maybe even a couple of years ago, I think I just threw it out there just 'cause she said if there was ever an opportunity to interview him for some publication that would give me authority to ask whatever I wanted to ask about music at least, and she was intrigued by the idea so I prepared for it because she was excited about the idea and it always seemed like a possibility.

I don't just like R. Kelly because of melodies and rhythms, there's something more, there's some other kind of connection to how and why he goes about making music and presenting his work to the world. So there may be another kind of journalist that might observe but not have the sympathy or the fascination or the emotional connection to it. I just felt like I follow a lot of what he does, and even the way he write lyrics pushed certain buttons, so I felt like I could push some buttons of his, just through intense observation of how he does things.

It was an interesting mix, because you were obviously incredibly familiar with his work and his techniques and all of that, but then simultaneously he hadn't heard of the show “Thirty Rock” and those other instances that just tip you off that he's operating in a different type of world than a lot of people.

Yeah, for sure. I felt like the editors of Interview did a really, really praise-worthy job in how they presented the interview because they began with that, which is really significant, and it could have been put in a way that was potentially damning, or mocking. But they put it right out there in the beginning to give people a cool little beginning, like that of a James Bond movie where they set up the crime that establishes the plot of the movie. They just gave this little teaser to break down the defenses I think. And then subsequently they chose to reveal other things which would have been equally as intriguing but ultimately distracting from the meat of the conversation.

Because that “Thirty Rock” fact alone could have been presented as "oh, look at how out of touch this guy is." But it wasn't presented like that. It was more just that idea of a man who, in a strange way, has a higher calling.

Exactly, exactly you put that in the right way so you might go into the interview thinking “oh I’m going to be entertained by this interview” and then the more you get into it, the more you realize he's not out of touch, he's just in touch with the things he needs to be in touch with.

Were you nervous when you were going into that?

Of course, I was very nervous. It was all I could do to prepare and prepare and figure that I was going to do the best I could, but I was very nervous because I didn't think I would get the opportunity ever to do it again necessarily and it was important to me. That’s the third occasion on which I’ve met him, and I still don’t think I rate as a human being to him. I figure, even after that conversation, that I haven’t slid across his brain since that moment, since that hour that we conversed. So I knew that I wanted to just dig in as much as possible while I had the moment. So, yeah [laughs], I was nervous.

Do you think you're going to try to do more interviews, given the positive reception?

I don't know…I mean there aren't a lot of people, I mean there are a lot of people I’d like to talk to but not necessarily have the opportunity to talk to. And this was such a freaky fluke. And I would only want to talk to somebody that I’ve thought about a lot, so that’s a short list of people who are alive or who might subject themselves to an interview because it has to be this magic confluence of elements where it has to be somebody alive, somebody I can ask interesting questions of, and then somehow some publication has to agree that I can be a valuable interviewer and that they're valuable interview subject, and that just keeps making the list shorter and shorter.

I did get to interview Merle Haggard for a magazine, and he’s very, very important to me, and I also got to interview Dwight Yoakam, whose music I’ve known and listened to a hell of a lot for, god over 20 years, 25 years probably. I got to interview Diamanda Galás once. So those were great subjects and it’s a good opportunity but, I don’t think there will be a lot of it. But I like it. It's like going to college. It's like taking a class, but having an entire semester's textbook in a living person sitting right in front of you.

One thing I think that's fascinating about this is that if you look up “interview of R. Kelly,” it obviously links you to that. And then you get linked from there, and, via the magic of the Internet, to the new charity single.

That would be great! But I don't know if it works that way [laughs]. I guess that's the nice thing about the interview appearing in that magazine, is that there's the chance that someone who reads that magazine might make that connection. Whereas if we had done, for some crazy reason, we'd been able to do that interview in something like Ebony or Vibe, people might not. They might just be like, "That was a good interviewer." And end it right there.

But because it was Interview, there's a possibility, at least, that somebody might say, "I feel like I've heard that name before!" And that's kind of nice because it would allow someone to maybe approach listening to a Bonnie “Prince” Billy song, knowing that in the creation of that song, in the creation of that recording, in the creation of that performance, that R. Kelly plays in. Whereas probably a lot of listeners come to Bonnie “Prince” Billy from an angle that would not ever consider that R. Kelly might play a role in the creation of that song.

When people are playing word association games, those two names probably aren't going to show up together very often.

Yeah. Right, and I don't necessarily feel an affinity for the success that R. Kelly has achieved, but I do feel an affinity for ways in which I see him keep it. The way he approaches making things, and making them subsequently available to his audience.

Do you think the fame he's achieved is distasteful?

No, no. I just mean I can't ever imagine selling as many records as he has. Other than that, I don't mean distasteful at all. I just...you know, he and I have been making music for roughly the same amount of time, and he's sold exponentially more records than I have. So using the past as a model, I imagine that the future might hold similar numbers, or a similar relationship between numbers.

Maybe this is the nexus, you know, where your paths cross.

Yeah, let's say we trade sales. We have our own little "Freaky Friday" moment. It's like he'll sell tens of thousands of records, in exchange for my millions. Yeah, that’s good.