Richmond Fontaine – Radio Session + Interviews
I recently remembered that Willy Vlautin and Dan Eccles from Richmond Fontaine had recorded a radio session for Songs To Learn And Sing, my radio show on 103.2 Dublin City FM, back in 2010. I found the session on an old hard-drive and then found two other old interviews with Willy on an old mini-disc. I’ve shared the radio session and the old interviews below along with some images.
Interview 1 - 2006
Willy Vlautin in conversation with Paul McDermott on Songs To Learn And Sing Episode 90, 24/05/06
Willy chats about recording The Fitzgerald, touring outside the US for the first time after the acclaim for Post to Wire, his first novel The Motel Life and more. The chat is interspersed with a few Richmond Fontaine songs introduced by Willy.
Richmond Fontaine - ‘Black Road’
Willy Vlautin interview Part 1
Richmond Fontaine - ‘The Warehouse Life’
Willy Vlautin interview Part 2
Richmond Fontaine – ‘Polaroid’
Willy Vlautin interview Part 3
Richmond Fontaine - ‘Laramie, Wyoming’
Radio Session - 2010
Willy Vlautin and Dan Eccles performed 5 songs in studio.
Willy in conversation with Paul McDermott. Willy introduces all songs.
1. ‘The Boyfriends’ (taken from We Used To Think The Freeway...)
2. ‘Maybe We Were Both Born Blue’ (taken from We Used To Think The Freeway...)
3. ‘Alison Johnson’ (from Post to Wire)
4. ‘St Ides, Parked Cars, and Other People's Homes’ (from Thirteen Cities)
5. Two Alone (taken from We Used To Think The Freeway...)
Photograph: Dan Eccles and Willy Vlautin by Paul McDermott
Interview 2 - 2011
Willy Vlautin in conversation with Paul McDermott - July 2011.
Willy Vlautin was in Dublin on his way to the Galway Arts Festival to do a reading with Roddy Doyle and play a gig. We had a quick chat about The High Country, the then-upcoming Richmond Fontaine album. The High Country is described as "a song-novel, in which a gripping tale is spun with fully fleshed-out characters, changing scenes, snippets of radio and spoken word passages." The album is a gothic love story, "between a mechanic and an auto parts store counter girl, whose secret love inspires an effort to escape the darkness of the world that surrounds them - drugs, violence, madness, loneliness, and desperation set against a backdrop of endless logging roads and the remains of a forest brutalised by logging."
Willy explained the concept of the record for me: "It is kinda like a concept record, its a linear story about a woman who lives in a small town, is married to a really rough guy and falls in love with another guy. It's very gothic, there's light versus dark, the romantic songs I think are really over-the-top romantic, and then there's a really twisted dark side to the record."