Talking with Boxmasters Billy Bob Thornton and J.D. Andrew

Rock ‘n’ roll bands with a movie star in the ranks historically don’t have a long and healthy shelf life. The road is littered with cash-in careers, unsold concert tickets and records that languish, forgotten, in the dollar bins of life.

Don’t tell that to the Boxmasters, the pop/rock band from Southern California whose chief songwriter and lead singer is none other than Academy Award winning actor, writer and director Billy Bob Thornton, of Sling Blade, Bad Santa, Primary Colors and Monster’s Ball fame, along with the acclaimed streaming series Fargo, Goliath and Landman. (He’s also the guy shilling for T-Mobile in current TV ads.)

The Boxmasters haven’t exactly sold a million records, but they’ve been going strong for nearly 20 years, and their shows frequently sell out.

Formed in 2006 by Thornton and multi-instrumentalist J.D. Andrew (who won a Grammy for engineering a Kanye West album), the Boxmasters have written and recorded Americana, hillbilly and hardcore country music, psychedelia and, for the better part of the last decade, melodic pop music that recalls the genre’s golden-haired heyday in the mid 1960s. The band has issued a whopping 19 albums (including two, thus far, in 2025). “Prolific” doesn’t even describe these guys.

Thornton, an accomplished drummer who lays down the rhythm tracks in the studio, plays a little guitar onstage, but his primary role is vocalist. Focal point. Alongside he and Andrew, the stage band includes Nick Davidson (drums), Kirk McKim (lead guitar) and Raymond Hardy (bass).

The Boxmasters perform Friday at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater. Tickets are at this link.

The Catalyst spoke with Thornton (aka “Bud”) and Andrew from North Florida, where the band has been rehearsing (the Clearwater show is the tour kickoff; the following two dates find them opening for the Who).

St. Pete Catalyst: Can you guys describe how you met, what you wanted to do and how that moved on from Bud’s solo albums?

Billy Bob Thornton: What happened was, Jim Mitchell, who was my engineer on the solo records, got a job in the sound department at Fox Sports. I had to have an engineer to help me finish this record (Beautiful Door) up, so J.D. came in and helped me finish it up. Through that, we formed the Boxmasters. It was basically us sitting in the studio, just kind of shootin’ the shit and everything, and we started picking up guitars and drums and things and just started playing together a little bit. And we kinda liked the sound we had.

It started with our mutual love of the British Invasion, Southern California pop and Memphis kind of stuff, like the Box Tops, things like that.

The sound of the Boxmasters, even in those early days, was a quantum leap from your solo material. Was that a conscious decision – ‘I don’t want to do this any more’ – or a natural evolution?

BBT: Well, I was influenced on the solo records by the people who were making them with me, producers, label people, y’know? They were trying to make me into a country balladeer, in a lot of ways. And it just wasn’t in me. I like those records – Private Radio is still a favorite of a lot of people. And Dwight (Yoakam) loves Hobo. I like the songs; I’d like to re-cut it.

I liked the records, but it wasn’t what I grew up as. I grew up as a rock ‘n’ roll kid, y’know? Beautiful Door is my favorite of the solo records, I think that’s pretty good record, but after that, once J.D. and I started doing this, it was ‘OK, well, I’m just going to do what I want to do, now.’

Those first couple Boxmasters records were kind of an experimental thing. We were just talking about Frank Zappa and hillbilly music, and we said ‘What if we combine all kinds of stuff. I’ll sing it like David Allen Coe, and we’ll make something that Frank Zappa would make if he were going to do a country record.’

So one way or the other, those first two records were not really what we sound like now. But that’s how the Boxmasters started, almost like a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. After that, we started doing things the way we sounded.

On the new album, Pepper Tree Hill, the track ‘I Know it’s Over’ … take the organs out of the mix, it could be on the That Thing You Do! soundtrack. That song is ‘60s power pop.

J.D. Andrew: That’s what we love. We love songs like ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ We’re trying to write that, y’know, write a two-minute pop song that’s just, not a wasted note, not a wasted word. Just making pure, fun pop music.

J.D., let me ask you about the musical evolution of the band.

JDA: When we start a record, we always have an idea: ‘OK, this one’s gonna be …’ We’ve got an idea for a direction we want to go. ‘OK, this one’s a garage rock record.’ ‘OK, this one’s just a pure ode to late ‘60s pop.’ As long as we have an idea what the record’s gonna be, then we know what road we’re going to go down.

We’ve never been ones to go ‘All right, we’re gonna just make another record.’ There’s always a concept that Billy’s working on.

The album Stranded in a Stain is a concept album in two parts. With some serious dreamy psychedelia.

JDA: We record so much that we end up with stuff we don’t know what to do, so we just press ‘em and sell ‘em on our website. We know we’re not going to sell a ton of copies on our website, but we want the people that like us to hear what we’re up to.

We love music that’s slow and dreamy and spacy. So we went into that Stranded in a Stain stuff like ‘OK, we’re going to make a concept record that has a lot more ambient psychedelia.’ As long as we have an idea of where these are gonna go … we write ‘em pretty much all the same, it’s either piano or guitar and vocals. If we’re just sitting around a table, we can play the song. But then, once we start putting stuff on there, it pretty much all starts with ‘What are the drums gonna do?’ That kinda leads the way for everything else.

We’re big fans of Pink Floyd and other British art rock bands and things like that, things that I’m always a little less knowledgeable about. Billy likes to bring it up.

Early on, I said ‘You know, I’ve never really liked Led Zeppelin. I think there’s just too many songs about fairies.’

And I just watched a video where it was asked ‘Why are there so many songs about fairies and goblins and demons?’ And somebody’s response was ‘Well, we’re nerds.’

BBT: J.D. would really love Uriah Heep, wouldn’t he, Bill?

Bud, you’ve always said you were a musician first, and that’s why you went west to California from Arkansas. Are you at a place now where you have the perfect balance between the two sides of your career?

BBT: Oh, yeah. My year is pretty full, every year. Several months with the family, go on tour, make a record, go do some kind of cinematic project … and then start it all over again the next year. So it works out pretty well. There’s usually no conflicts or anything.

JDA: Oh, there’s conflicts, ‘cause when he’s gone for several months doing stuff, it’s like we can’t make enough records, man! [BBT laughs]. Only making one or two a year is not really our style.

We got a whole ‘nother record cut, and we did it before Billy left, and got all of his parts on there. But I have a ton of stuff to put on it. While he’s gone, I had all these great plans for things I was gonna do, all these ideas about parts I want to put on these songs … but I got three little boys, and a wife that expects me to take care of them when I’m at home. [BBT laughs again].

So I didn’t get anything done on this record that I wanted to. And I’m very disappointed in myself! Gotta cut some tracks, man.

The band has a large and dedicated fan base. Bud, are there still people out there who might be surprised that you do this? Or do people come to the concerts expecting the “other” thing? The other guy.

BBT: In the beginning, it was like that. It was that way probably for about a decade. Not any more. I mean, the band’s gained so much popularity over the years that that’s not really the deal any more.

When you were a renaissance man in the ‘40s and ‘50s, people thought it was a good thing. Or ‘60s, ‘70s too. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, any of those guys, that used to be cool. Just like auteur filmmakers were popular for a while in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

But these days they don’t want you to be able to do more than one thing. It’s like ‘You’re a painter – what are you doing being a plumber?’

Yeah, so it’s dissipated over the years. So now, if somebody comes to the show expecting that, they’re either Helen Keller or they just never read anything.

Did you ever stop to think what would happen if you suddenly had a massive hit? Boxmastermania!

JDA: With the shows we’re opening next week for the Who, and some of the other places we’re playing, I said it to Billy on the phone a couple months ago: It feels weird to be a 20-year-old band and almost breaking!

BBT: We’re still tryin’ to make it, Bill!

JDA: We are! It is like we’re 19-year-old kids trying to get our record to the top of the charts. We still remember what a chart was, when it actually was meaningful, having people buy your record and show up to your shows. That stuff still means something to us. That was ‘making it’ when you were a kid.

Hey Bud, I think the Who are looking for a drummer!

BBT: [laughing] That’s what I hear!

JDA: [laughing] I don’t want him to die in a bizarre gardening accident!