Billy Bob Thornton might be best known for slinging a hammer in Sling Blade or terrorizing shopping malls in a Santa suit, but he’s just as prolific behind a microphone as he is in front of a camera. As one half of The Boxmasters, alongside JD Andrew, Thornton has cranked out eight albums in just twelve years, which would make even Guided by Voices pause for breath. Their latest, Speck, isn’t just another notch on the discography—it’s a tribute, a statement, and, improbably, a showcase for tuba.
“It’s a pretty special record to us,” says Thornton, and not in the usual press-junket, please-stream-our-album way. Speck was produced by none other than Geoff Emerick, the same man who engineered Revolver through Abbey Road and basically helped sculpt the sonic identity of the latter-day Beatles. “We’d known Geoff for quite a while,” JD Andrew adds, “and he always said he wanted to mix a few of our songs. Once we got into the studio, we were like, why don’t you just produce the whole thing?” He did. Then, just months later, he died. “We think it was the last record he produced,” says Thornton, his voice trailing into the gravity of that fact. “So we’re trying to keep his name out there.”
That kind of reverence comes naturally to Thornton, whose musical awakening came courtesy of the Fab Four. “I actually saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show,” he says. “The first record I ever bought with my own money was ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ Changed my life. Seeing those guys… that’s what made me want to do everything I’ve done since.”
If Speck is soaked in 60s influence, it’s not just musical. There’s a sociopolitical current that runs deep through the album—less flower power and more apocalypse fatigue. “Right now, the country’s pretty divided,” says Andrew. “It’s more like it was in the 60s than it’s been in decades. Young people protesting, social issues on everyone’s mind… you can’t not be influenced by that.”
Not that they’re planting a flag on either side of the aisle. “We call ourselves radical moderates,” Thornton quips. “We don’t get too political in most songs, but it seeps in. You look around and can’t help it.” The album’s title track plays with the idea of human insignificance (“we’re all specks in the universe”) before flipping it on its head (“when the speck gets in your eye”), shifting from cosmic scale to intimate discomfort in a single line. “Glad you noticed that,” Thornton says. “When you write something and someone gets it? That’s the good stuff.”
The song “On Their Days Gone” dives straight into homelessness, inspired by the people they saw living in Westwood, LA. “We were talking to a guy who works with the homeless, and he said that song really hit him,” recalls Andrew. “That meant a lot.”
As for the album’s less weighty, more brass-heavy moments? Yes, that really is a tuba you’re hearing on “Shut the Devil Up.” “It’s just guitar, vocal, and tuba,” Thornton says with an audible grin. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier to tour if all our songs were just guitar and tuba.” The punchline lands, but the truth lingers—The Boxmasters might be playing with sound, but they’re not playing around.
They’re always recording. Always writing. “If I’m not creating, I lose my mind,” Thornton says. Andrew echoes the sentiment: “We’ve got several records done that haven’t even come out yet. It’s just what we love to do.”
This summer, they’re taking Speck on the road, with a Kentucky stop nestled between Kent, Ohio (site of the Kent State shootings) and Flint, Michigan (still fighting for clean water). “Funny you bring that up,” says Thornton. “I didn’t even realize those were the cities flanking Lexington. But yeah, that’s… wow.”
Maybe it’s just coincidence. Or maybe it’s another speck—small, overlooked, stuck in the eye of the country—and The Boxmasters are here to make us blink.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
