Interview with Bonnie Prince Billy

Because I am good or bad

FW: You're about to leave for a tour of Japan. Are you looking forward to it?

BPB: Yeah, its my first time in Japan—I am. I know it'll be a nonstop barrage on the senses as well as a work trip. But I'm looking forward to that.

FW: My girlfriend was visiting Kyoto a while back, and she said it was incredible — that the temples were incredible it was one of the only cities in Japan that had not been bombed in World War II, and the temples are still standing. And she was there when the Iraq War broke out. And it was tough being in a place as an American and trying to represent to an international community, because that's who she was there with, why Americans were doing this thing. Because you as an American carry that responsibility with you.

BPB: Yeah yeah totally.

FW: Do you feel like you identify yourself as an American?

BPB: Yeah, totall. I mean I've been in similar situations. I was in Prague just before the first Gulf War. Or within three or four weeks after Sept 11th, flying to Europe to do shows and interacting with an international community there. Or not long after that going to Morocco for a month and being one of few American tourists there at the time. Or being in France not long after the most recent Iraq War began. I was taking a subway—I got into the Metro and came up, came up in the middle of tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the war. And just how, walking in the demonstration for the next hour and a half, fully afraid of being an American, but fully aware of it and also knowing its fine. Frank Capra you know did a good job, you know infusing me with a degree of patriotism, if not just responsibility for saying, I'm not going to hate men, I'm not going to hate the masculine dominance of world culture, I'm not going to hate America because I am all those things, and I can't do anything productive if I hate what I am.

FW: If there is something you as a person visiting Japan, or even Iraq, what would you want someone to know about you as a songwriter, an American?

BPB: I don't have that kind of agenda, you know? Its basically just accepting that I have certain privileges… you know you have increasingly things that are negative—actively negative things about being an American. Definitely, there was a lot of fear in people's voices when I was in Morocco… but basically, people stated the obvious, which was, you know, "I don't really care." I mean somewhere out the blue, someone would say, "I don't really care." I'd be like, what do you mean? And they'd be like "It doesn't matter to me, let's have some tea." Yeah, totally, let's do it. I'm not gonna prove to anybody that I'm good or bad. Because I am good or bad.