Sheila Rene was talking to Willy

Discovery Records
Freddy Koella, guitar
John Phillip Shenale, keyboards
Michael Urbino, drums
David Farragher, bass

Co-producers: John Phillip Shenale
and Willy DeVille



This man has soul and more soul. Willy was born in New York on August 25, 1953, as William Borsay. At 14, he taught himself to play guitar. At 18, he moved to London looking for a band. At 19, he played the San Francisco scene. At 20, he returned to New York and landed at CBGB's. I started interviewing Willy in 1977, and I'm very happy to be back on his bandwagon...

Sheila René: Willy, Willy, Willy. Hello darlin', it's so good to be talking to you again. I've been missing you these past few years.

Willy DeVille: Thank you. It's great to be back.

Sheila: I love this new album. It was on my turntable the moment it got here.

Willy: I like it, too.

Sheila: How many years have you been away from New York? I hear
you're living in Mississippi now.

Willy: I moved to New Orleans a little over ten years ago. I just bought a spread in Mississippi where we're raising Spanish horses. I still keep an apartment and studio in the French Quarter.

Sheila: Is this the 12th album for you?

Willy: Actually, it's the 13th, and there are 13 cuts on it - isn't that weird? It's the 13th record that I've had anything to do with.

Sheila: Who impressed you at the age 14, when you taught yourself to play guitar?

Willy: Oh, John Hammond, Jr., Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker...not the Beatles.

Sheila: You give a nice credit on the album to Lady Lisa D. I hear your wife turned your life around.

Willy: She got my business together. (laughter)

Sheila: Is "When I'm Away From Me" written for Lisa?

Willy: Actually, in a way, yes. It's funny - I wrote that with Freddy Koela, my guitar player, and I never had written with him before. He came over and had some chord changes, and I said, "It could be a song, so just leave it with me and I'll come up with some lyrics for it." That's how that came around. I think if there is a song for Lisa, it would be "My One Desire (Vampire's Lullaby)."

Sheila: America is certainly transfixed on vampires of late - at least on the television networks, wouldn't you say?

Willy: It's very weird. It seems like New Orleans has become very vogue.

Sheila: Maybe because Ann Rice has moved back there.

Willy: Yeah, yeah. I spoke to her in San Francisco about 12 years ago when I first read her books. I called her up and told her who I was. I said "I know this is going to be a movie. I want to play the part of Lewis." Being naive, I thought she'd have control of that, right? Anyway, she didn't want it to be a movie at first, but she was really taken with how much I loved the Vampire Chronicles.
When she came back to New Orleans, I called her up and she invited me to a party. Her son is a big fan of the movie "Princess Bride," so I hung out with him and she came over and told me that she had lost control of the movie. I responded, "It's Hollywood." I identified with Lewis, but not Lestat. Everybody likes Lestat, but I didn't like him at all. The way I would have done it - I would have played Lewis and Christopher Walken would have played Lestat. Walken is an amazing actor.

Sheila: Have you seen Toots lately? She was one fascinating character.

Willy: Oh, I really don't know. I haven't seen her in over ten years. I ran off on her, I guess. She was fascinating, all right. She loved to fight and pull knives out. She used to get me into a lot of trouble.

Sheila: I worried a lot about you during those years.

Willy: She did some serious damage to my career. (laughing) It took me ten years to get it back on track.

Sheila: Anyone who thinks you haven't been making music should read your bio. I'm shocked that I've missed out on a few records. I've somehow been out of the DeVille loop for a while. The Mark Knopfler-produced "Miracle" in 1988 is a case in point. The same year you did an album called "Victory Mixture," where you worked with Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John and Eddie Bo.

Willy: Oh, yeah. You didn't hear the Knopfler thing? I was nominated for an Academy Award. It was very strange. I was working with Mark and it turned out to be a very good record. The songs were excellent, but unfortunately, A&M here in the states were assholes. They were going through changes.
Anyway, I wrote a song called "Storybook Love," and Knopfler heard it and asked if I knew about this movie he was doing. It was a Rob Reiner film about a princess and a prince. The song was about the same subject matter as the film, so we submitted it to Reiner and he loved it.
Lisa kept talking about the Academy Awards, but the movie didn't do that well. About six or seven months later, I was half asleep when the phone rang. It was the Academy of Arts & Sciences with the whole spiel. I hung up on them! They called back and Lisa answered the phone. She came in to tell me that I was nominated for "Storybook Love." It's pretty wild. It's not the Grammys - it's the Academy Awards, which is different for a musician. Before I knew it, I was performing on the awards show with Little Richard. It was the year of "Dirty Dancing," and they won.

Sheila: I've got to get a copy of your "Willy DeVille Live," which was recorded in New York and Paris. What label is it on?

Willy: I can send you a record, anything you want. (Willy calls off to Lisa for the name of the label.) It's on Finack/Eastwest Records, which is Elektra/Warners in Europe. It was recorded at the Bottom Line, with a couple of nights at the Olympia Club in Paris.
Before that, there was this great record I did called "Victory Mixture," because I was pissed off and I didn't have a record deal for a few years. At the time I didn't want one - I was getting very gun-shy about labels. I was performing in Europe and I was doing great without one. When you get to that stage in your mind, they all start coming around. It's pretty strange the way that happens.
A friend of mine who owns Orleans Records here in New Orleans approached me with the idea of working with him on a Delta record, a blues record where you just play acoustic and do what you want to do. There's so much good material here in New Orleans from the early '50s and '60s, and he still had a box of 45s. We went through them, and there were all these hit records that weren't hit records; maybe regional hits by artists from New Orleans. I picked out the stuff that worked with my voice.
I got all the original guys to come back in, like Earl King, Dr. John and Eddie Bo. Allen Toussaint played side piano. I brought in the rhythm section of The Meters on a couple of cuts. We call it the "little" record. It's funny, because I was just trying to get them money, the writers of the songs, 'cause they all got ripped off in the '50s and '60s. They were all fascinated, and Dr. John convinced them that they wouldn't get ripped off by this Northern white boy. That's when I crossed over to being a local here in New Orleans.
We were all pleased with it. It's recorded the way it was originally done back then. It's live with no overdubs anywhere, no digital, no editing. We played the song several times and just picked the best take...the one that was the most natural. It's on Finack/Orleans Records. I'm really proud of that one.

Sheila: Tell me about this Finack label.

Willy: Finack was a big label in France, out of Paris. They folded because they got crazy and signed Moon Martin, for instance. Martin is really a nice guy, but he's boring. They put a bunch of money behind him. I was the biggest act they had. Do you have the "Backstreets Of Desire" record?

Sheila: Willy, I'm sorry, I don't think I have that one.

Willy: That's also a great record on Finack. I did a version of "Hey Joe" in mariachi-style. I talk through the lyrics. It was a big hit for me in Europe - number one in Spain and France. "Victory Mixture" went gold in two weeks. It just proves that when you do right by people, things happen.

Sheila: Didn't you work on the Doc Pomus tribute in 1992 with Dr. John, Zachary Richard and Los Lobos' Dave Hidalgo?

Willy: Oh, yeah. It was weird. I didn't partake in that album. I was with Rhino at the time. It's really a dumb-ass label. You have to be dead to sell records on that label - black, crippled and blind. Anyway, "Hey Joe" was too violent for them. This is at the time when all those rap records were getting attention and they were really violent. They're just full of bullshit. They had Dr. John on it, but they didn't have Ben E. King and they didn't have me and we were two of his best friends. I don't think it can be a real tribute.

Sheila: I'm really wild about Zachary Richard.

Willy: He's around. I don't think he has a label now. He recorded with A&M, I believe. I warned him, but they put him in with a heavy metal producer and then told him, "With all this money we're putting into you, you have to have a hit record." Then they recorded every song in ten different tempos. You don't put him in with a heavy metal guy. His best stuff is on his live albums. He's better live when the tunes aren't really thought about. It goes to show you. Music should just feel good.

Sheila: There are so many good songs on your new one. "Still I Love You" has that older Spanish flair you had with "Spanish Stroll."

Willy: That's the first single in Europe. I don't know what they're going to do here, maybe the Chambers Brothers' "Time."

Sheila: You really do a great job on that old favorite.

Willy: I've been wanting to record that song for a while. I wanted to give it a '90s feel. The Brenda Lee duet on "You'll Never Know" is one of my favorites on the album. It was great working with her.

Sheila: It's one of my favorites, too.

Willy: That's a really beautiful song. She's amazing, and so professional. She's just this tiny little woman who has this great big voice. I had to cool out her accent a little bit. She had a real cracker-type of accent. I guess it's gotten thicker over the years, because she didn't sound like that when she was a teenager doing "Sweet Nothing." (Willy demonstrates the accent.)
She didn't know who the hell I was. I just called her up, played the song for her, and she loved it. She had her business people check me out, and they reported that I was big in Europe and had been recording for 20 years. So I flew to Nashville, which is a very weird place. Everybody is in the music business - every cab driver, waiter and busboy.
She was very shy. I thought she didn't like me at first, but once she got into the studio and saw me with all my dogs, she realized I was a very normal person. I told her I'd seen every show she ever did in New Orleans. I was the guy in front, and I had a picture of her sitting on my lap. I had my proof. That's got to go down in my book as one of the most memorable experiences in my career.

Sheila: Chris Spedding plays on a couple of cuts. How's he doing today?

Willy: He came in when I ran a little dry for a guitar sound. I stuck him on a Rickenbacher. I don't know if he liked it very much, but he sounded good, I thought. I've worried about Spedding and his addictive personality. He's in Los Angeles today. I worry about any English person who's in L.A.

Sheila: I'm curious why you recorded in L.A.

Willy: I say it every time I record in L.A. - that I'll never do it again, and I keep doing it. But I never _will_ do it again. It's crazy - I just record and go to the hotel, and never go out, then back to the studio. I hate L.A. It's the worst. I think they eat their children there...I never saw any kids. It's a pity there aren't more studios in New Orleans.

Sheila: Tell me about "White Trash Girl." It's got very catchy lyrics.

Willy: It's really dumb and really simple. That's what I like about it. It reminds me of an old Yardbirds record or something. Mom would say, "You're hanging around with so and so, he's from the wrong side of the tracks." She used to say that about people on the wrong side of the river, which we were, so that phrase was always around. I was looking for funny phrases. My father used to say, "She's shakin' like a bad girl in church." I've been waiting years to use that line. I work hard on the lyrics. I try to rewrite and rewrite and edit them down.

Sheila: I pulled up the Discovery Records Website last night.

Willy: Somebody told me I have a page there.

Sheila: I couldn't get it to come up, so they must still we working on it. (Editor's note - it's up now.)

Willy: You're talking to the wrong guy. I'm the last of the 20th Century men. I know nothing. Actually, I wasn't too comfortable in this century. I'm still reading books.

Sheila: What's the latest book you want to turn me on to?

Willy: I have it right here. It's "Ceremony," by Leslie Marmon Silko. She's an amazing American Indian writer. I'm a little behind. I just read "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." I'm spending a lot o f time with my horses, more than reading. I got into horses since my wife is into them. We're raising Spanish and Portuguese bullfighting horses. The bloodline is 2,000 years old. She's into breeding, but I just love riding. I've also got five dogs, four
cats and a partridge in a pear tree.

Sheila: You've always been the elegant country gentleman, and now you're living it.

Willy: I finally got the plantation. I just bought this house and 11 acres. It looks a little bit like Graceland.

Sheila: I see you as absolutely right for those surroundings.

Willy: Oh yes, I walk around in my riding boots and my long black coat.

Sheila: I want to congratulate you on this album cover, speaking of long back coats. The artwork is exemplary.

Willy: It is nice. It looks like the old tin pictures that have been up in the attic for years. I wanted something that didn't look like a flat, modern photo. I wanted it to be timeless and old-fashioned. That's in front of John Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. They say it's the oldest bar in America.

Sheila: You're using some of your old band members.

Willy: Yeah, John Phillip Shenale is the guy who co-produces with me. He's worked with me now since Desire. I ran out of producers. I was going to work with Jack Nietzsche, but he had a lot of personal problems. His heart is still broken over Buffy Saint Marie. I sat here for a month with him and we weren't getting anything done, so I started looking for a producer.
I went up to everyone's big white house and they were saying, "I love your sound, babe. I love your sound." All these assholes! So the last guy I went to see had been thrown out of his house by his wife, and he was sleeping on the floor. I played him one of the songs and he was tapping his foot. He asked me to leave it with him and come back in two days. I just had an instinctual feeling. He reminded me of a young Nietzsche, because he had classical influences along with some modern influences.

(Willy pauses to answer his other phone.) That was John Phillip Shenale on the phone.

Sheila: You're kidding...just as we're talking about him.

Willy: I just told him. He'll call back. Anyway, I went back after two days and he had this great thing figured out for a song called "Nothing Is As Heavy As An Empty Heart," which was on the "Backstreets Of Desire" album. You've got to get that one, too.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it - so I'm working with Shenale. He's fun to work with. He's very inspiring and eccentric. He's also a good musician.

Sheila: Is the John Carter on your credits the same Carter who took Tina Turner over the top?

Willy: No, my Carter is the engineer. He's another great guy. John is the first engineer who does the carpentry work on the original track. He's not world famous, but I liked everything he did, so we brought him in.
I was working with Al Schmidt. He's on so many friggin' records. He's just done too many records, so everything sounds the same. He's really well-respected, but I got pissed off at him. We got into a little fight.

Sheila: Any touring happening yet?

Willy: Yeah, I'm leaving in a couple of days. It's getting harder to leave with this house and all the horses and the swimming pool. I'm going into the Quarter and I'm re-recording a tune called "The Moonlight Let Me Down." I'll do that, and then we'll head to New York to rehearse, and then I'll go to Europe and do some festivals.

Sheila: One last thing - have you written your best song yet?

Willy: I certainly hope not. Being in this thing for almost 20 years now, you do get those fears that there's nothing left. I don't think I'm going to be singing "Little Girl" when I'm 60, but I'd like to grow old gracefully and be able to someday be Billy DeVille and sit at a piano. To be able to be that older gentlemen and to take the same material over into that age group.
You've got to forget any ideas about being a teenage craze when you're 45. I had my time with that when I was 27 or 30. I just want to make records until I drop. If Muddy Waters did it, I can do it, too. Although that's quite a statement because Muddy Waters did a lot of things I can't ever do. (laughing) He was great right up to the minute he passed over.

Sheila: I love this quote of yours: "To stay young means to be permanently in action, to experience and learn new things. When music has a soul and deeply moves you, that's my music. And I'll play it as long as I can."

Willy: That's it.

Sheila: I'm so glad you're back into my life. You sound so peaceful and happy.

Willy: Actually, I'm getting a little itchy. I love being at home, but I've got to get into the Quarter. I'm a Quarter rat, you know.

Sheila: I want to say that I love you, and I look forward to a big hug.

Willy: Come on down to the plantation when you can!

Interview conducted by Austin-based Sheila René