ND: Do you regret the wild days at all?
Waylon: Shit no. I wouldn’t want to try to live through ’em again.
Billy Joe: Oh, I tell you what.
Waylon: But I wouldn’t take for a minute of it. You know what? They were dead wrong in Nashville, in the music business. They were robbing us, and they still do. They’re thieves.
Billy Joe: Well, the art is really suffering now. I feel that. Over in Europe they seem to hang in there with the artists.
Waylon: They know all about it. They know who wrote it.
Billy Joe: The machine they got goin’ now’s got different kind of cogs in it. And if we come back around, with this simple stuff — it’s not really simple — simplicities don’t need to be greased, I think. And it just don’t fit in what they’re doing, and that’s why it’s a little bit hard for ’em to accept. I understand all of it, but it don’t change the way I write songs. And I probably won’t get very many recorded today (laughs), especially after you saying all those bad things you did about me. (laughs)
Waylon: I don’t care, because, you know I don’t want to do that kind of songs, I won’t do that kind of record, and I feel sorry for the artists. But there’s two or three of ’em can’t sing, and they have to use these little note-benders to bring their voice up. They do a thing called “comping,” where you do five different versions, and they’ll take one word outta here, and a half-word out here and all this stuff. It’s pitiful.
Billy Joe: But the live performance, you get to really see how that is. (laughs)
Waylon: You’ve got to face the music, yeah.
Billy Joe: They don’t let ’em lip-sync much anymore. I was out here doing that this morning. Out here doing a video, lip-syncing.
Waylon: Was you? That never ceases to embarass me.
Billy Joe: I did lip-sync, and I done it good, too.
ND: Was that your first time?
Billy Joe: Yeah. I was singing, I was trying to get over that monitor. I was singing louder than the thing.
Waylon: Well you’ve gotta sing it. Or it ain’t goin’ work.
Billy Joe: Yeah, it’s different for me. It’s new for me.
Waylon: I’ve never liked that. I keep thinking of Lawrence Welk.
Billy Joe: (laughing) And the little bubbles?
ND: Does it aggravate you both of you that, after all the songs you’ve written and sung, all the records you’ve sold, that it’s now a lot harder to get played on country radio?
Billy Joe: You know, I never had it. So I don’t miss it. But Waylon…
Waylon: I don’t see what age has to do with it.
Billy Joe: …it just kind of upsets me. It seems like it’s against the law to do stuff like that.
Waylon: If they said to me, said, “Waylon, you could be big, selling millions of records, or you could be the biggest star in country music,” I’d say no. I’d say no, really. I wouldn’t want to mess with it anymore. You know what I like? I like 2,000 people. When they listen, they listen to my songs. I’m really not crazy about this [Willie’s picnic]. I just did Lollapalooza, and I’ll tell you what: that’s one of the best audiences I’ve ever played to. Even all the wild stuff that goes on with it. Because you know what? You can look in their faces. And see. And I never saw a mean-lookin’ face there. (Someone enters the bus to remind Waylon he has a show to do.) I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do here.
Billy Joe: Man, I really want to thank you for letting me come in here and talk with you.
Waylon: What are you talking about? Sit down. Just give me your money, don’t be giving me your goddamn thanks.
Billy Joe: I got no damn money. I ain’t got no money.
Waylon: (mimics) “Ain’t got no money.” (leans into the mike, quiet) Some of us has got a hit. [Patti Loveless is running Shaver’s “When the Fallen Angels Fly” up the charts.]
Billy Joe: No, I hasn’t either. IRS got it.
Waylon: Oh, IRS. Yeah, that’s what Willie said, too. He kept whining about that, till here come all these people, bought all that shit and give it back to him. (laughs) I tell you what happened. I tell you how he got out of it. He told on all of us.
Billy Joe: (serious) He did?
Waylon: Yes. You wanta kill him first, or you want me to? I’ll kill him and you can break his legs.
Billy Joe: I can’t kill him, didn’t bring any silver bullets. And I even’t real sure I might even have to have some stakes. (laughs)
