Willy Vlautin: “You are three missteps away from living in a car”

The sun is shining through the window this afternoon. Willy Vlautin (57) is sitting in the attic room of his farm, where he lives with his wife 30 kilometers outside of Portland, Oregon. The reason for this conversation is the release of "Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom," the new album by his band The Delines, full of moving songs about underdogs and losers. The title track has – a first – a happy ending. He had to promise that to singer Amy Boone – and it also fits the Valentine's Day release.

Hello Willy Vlautin! On the new Delines album "Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom," whose lyrics are literary, you hear about people struggling to survive. Where do your characters come from?

Sometimes they come from a story I hear from friends. Some are completely made up. Often they're people you meet on the street. New songs like "The Haunting Thoughts" or "Her Ponyboy" deal a lot with substance abuse. It has to do with the opioid crisis in our city of Portland. It's heartbreaking. There are a lot of young people here living in tents or on the streets. I don't even have to think about it—it automatically flows into my songs.

Are these characters rooted in your own life?

Yes. I've been writing since I was a child. And I write about damaged people because I'm damaged myself; I write about people who struggle because I've struggled myself. I feel comfortable writing about these characters because it makes me feel less alone.

Did you want to give these people a voice?

I always knew what I wanted to write about. By the age of eleven, I was already writing about the working class. That stuck. I once worked as a janitor and said to myself: Why can't a janitor be a hero? I had fallen in love with the cashier at a grocery store. And I said: That woman deserves a novel. My mother was sexually harassed, was paid less than a man, and she told me about it every night. And I thought to myself: Why can't a woman like that be a hero? Because raising two children on her own is heroic. She never gave up. To me, that's the most heroic thing of all.

Your texts often have an open ending – like in "Little Earl": Two kids, one injured, drive through the night. In "The Haunting Thoughts," the protagonist reflects on beauty after all the gloom. One can hope.

As a fan, I love it when songs or novels simply drop me into a world. In "Little Earl," for example, there are these two brothers who have too much time on their hands and mess things up. They rob a convenience store to get something to eat: pizza, beer. And the brother gets shot. I wanted you, the listener, to sit in the car with them. You don't know what's going to happen—that's my thing. "The Haunting Thoughts" is a song I feel every day. You wake up in the morning, think about your greatest fear, and hope it doesn't consume you. When I walk around Portland and see all these troubled people, 35 and under, I get scared that one day it will happen to me, too. I know, of course, that it won't happen. But I can't shake that feeling.

Soul with a pinch of country and a touch of jazz: bassist Freddy Trujillo, singer Amy Boone, guitarist and songwriter Willy Vlautin, keyboardist and brass player Cory Gray and drummer Sean Oldham are The Delines from Portland/Oregon.

Source: Paolo Brillo

Where does this fear come from?

My mother always said, "If you're in a lower-class family, you're only three missteps away from living in a car. So be careful." She was very worried about it, and so was I. I was afraid that I would be drawn there, to the idea of ​​giving up, of destroying myself. When I was young, I would sneak into old men's bars and try to act like an old man. At 16 or 17, everyone else went dancing, to parties, while I hung out with old men. I guess I thought I was going to be a bum anyway, and I wanted to get used to that feeling early. (laughs) This kind of sounds like a Tom Waits romance.

Did you write songs or stories first?

I've been writing songs since I was eleven. My brother was a high school folk singer—four years older. And I did everything he did. When my brother got a guitar, I started playing guitar. He wrote songs and said to me, "You should write songs about how you feel." I was a sad little kid, so I did. And I loved records so much I wanted to be in a band. You can't sleep with your records, you can't eat them—to get closer to them, I thought, I had to join a band. I was in such bad bands, and I was such a bad musician with such a bad voice. (laughs) But I wrote a lot of songs.

What has music given you?

What killed me about music was the escapism. You could put on a song and be somewhere else entirely. It changed my life. It helped me get through my childhood. I put on a record and suddenly I'm in the world of "Nebraska" (album title) with Bruce Springsteen. When I listen to "Swordfishtrombones" (album title) by Tom Waits, I'm stepping out of a merchant ship and—with a tattoo of a naked woman on my back—playing cards and drinking a Singapore Sling with a dwarf. That world-building was what drove me. More and more, I wanted to do the same. I loved the area where I grew up (Editor's note: Reno, Nevada), and I wanted to write about those places. Like early Springsteen, like Waits, The Pogues, The Jam. When The Jam broke up, I cried.

Did you have someone who encouraged you?

Not for years! But when I was about 26, I took a night class in creative writing. I didn't know anyone who wrote novels. The teacher was really pretty; she was a poet herself, a flamboyant cowboy poet. She wore turquoise cowboy boots, was very flirtatious, liked my stories, and said, "I read your stories to my boyfriend in bed at night." (laughs) And from then on, I would write her about 30 pages every class, and she would pull me aside and say, "You're killing me, man! I don't have time to read all your novels." But that was the first time it ever worked for anyone. And I didn't want to stop. I never showed my stories to anyone except in that class. And I liked being in a band. At that point, I wasn't in a band that anyone liked. But I liked the camaraderie. I'm a good cog in a machine.

Today, your songs are compared to those of Springsteen. And as a writer, you're mentioned in the same breath as John Steinbeck.

Steinbeck... (he gets the old Steinbeck photo that used to hang next to his crib.) I don't have the gene for a big ego; I've always had self-confidence issues. But when I'm mentioned in the same sentence as either of those two guys, I definitely feel good about myself. It spurs me on to work even harder. Springsteen is a legend. From a very early age, Springsteen was a brilliant performer. He could walk on stage—a ragged little guy in dirty clothes—and people would be mesmerized.

Her songs are like cinema.

Cinematic songs – that's always been my thing. My biggest dream was to disappear into them – to be able to make a song that transports you into a house, a shop, a car, a love. When Deline's producer John Askew and I look at each other and stop thinking about Amy, we know we're in the world of the song, then we feel like we're onto something. I want to feel like I'm living in a little movie. Then I'm content.

As soon as someone describes the US underclass, they say, "If you read this book, listen to these songs, you'll know everything about Trump voters." Are your characters MAGA people?

I write a lot about emotionally damaged people, it's true. I write about people who have sustained wounds or inflicted them themselves. But you're right: The working class has been hijacked by Trump. I live in a rural community 30 miles outside of Portland, and it's clearly Trump country.

How did that happen?

My mother was a middle-class Democrat who became right-wing like many in America. She died before Trump. I witnessed her transformation. Personally, I feel like I'm walking down an alley getting beaten up right now. I don't understand where America stands now. Rural people and the working class have been gripped and seduced by Trump. It never ceases to amaze me when a rich man who has absolutely no idea about the problems of the working class is trusted and thinks he has the answers. I'm baffled and struggle with this every day. He's left a strong footprint on us.

What role does the media play?

One thing that would be interesting to think about—regarding America's slide toward Trump—is television, Fox News, which most rural residents, small-town residents, most Republicans, watch every day. They are relentless—a propaganda machine. The same goes for rural radio. They have real influence, they work very well, and they just don't stop. When I was younger, my mom had a friend who listened to some right-wing radio guy every day. My mom didn't believe that stuff for a long time. But then life got harder. And she got angrier and angrier. And she started to swing to the right. It didn't take six months, it didn't take a year. It took 10 years, with this guy spouting his propaganda every single day. And I think that's the hardest thing to defeat. If there were truly honest and fair news, Trump would never have been elected.

Can this be changed?

The media has moved in a way that's really hard to combat. Civil discussion, empathy, concern for your fellow human being is much more complicated than saying, "That guy over there is the bad guy—let's get him!" We'd all like to have someone with the answer to everything. The thing is, democracy is messy, and ours seems to have been broken for some time. Ordinary people get tired of their voice not counting. And that's when the strongman comes in, doesn't he? And that's exactly the situation America is in. It's a scary time because I also don't think that's changing. They're brilliant in the media; they have a drug that really works.

After your Americana band Richmond Fontaine, the Delines came along with elegant, jazzy country soul. Their lead singer was a woman. Does that call for a more feminine, screaming style?

I wrote the novel "Northland" – it had a female main character. I wrote female characters at Richmond Fontaine. I was raised by a woman, and the best people in my life were all women. That's perhaps where my ability to embrace writing for a woman comes from. When I write for Amy, I listen to her a lot and think about her a lot. And: Any song she doesn't want to sing, we cut out.

Amy Boone is a true fighter. For the Delines, it could have been over after just one album.

She was in a parking lot, walking on the sidewalk. They'd removed the safety barriers. A woman was driving with a cast on her foot, caught the gas pedal, and rammed Amy into a rock face. It took Amy almost two years to recover. She had eleven surgeries. At the time, she wasn't living in Portland yet and could barely walk. She flew here anyway to finish the second album, "The Imperial." I don't think there was a dry eye in the Delines world for six months because we were worried about her.

They were waiting for Amy.

There are no Delines without Amy. I started the band for her. I'm patient. I've written a lot of songs for her during that time. She's my friend, you know. The band meant nothing to me at that point—you just want your friend to be okay and get her life back.

Do you write novels because some characters need more space than a song can provide? Like Frank and his brother Jerry Lee, who runs over a child in "Motel Life," or teenager Charley, who goes on an odyssey with a racehorse that's about to be slaughtered in "Lean on Pete"?

Only one of my novels, "Night Comes to Me," didn't begin as a song. In the case of Frank and Jerry Lee in "Motel Life," I wrote a song about the difficulty of standing up for yourself when you've never been able to. One of my main themes. And then, for fun, it became a book. Then I tried to quit horse racing and wrote a folk song about it—"Lean on Pete." Nine minutes long! I only played it twice. First for my wife, and she started crying halfway through. I thought, "Man, I'm a genius!" and asked her afterward, "Do you like it that much?" And she said, "No, I'm crying because I don't understand you. Why do you write a song like that? It's awful!" (laughs) Then I played it for a friend of mine who likes to listen to my songs. So he said, "All right. If it takes nine minutes, I'll lie down on the couch." And I'm not lying, he fell asleep halfway through. That's when I knew this song wouldn't make it. So I turned it into a novel. "Northline" came about that way. "A Fine Guy" did too. I always imagine the songs and the novels all living in the same apartment building and running into each other every day.

Do you know when there's a book in a song?

Take "JP and Me" on the new record. They're a couple on the run. You can tell they're living a wild life, hanging out with people like one-legged Kyle and broken-down Sid. They live in hotels and motels. Then the man goes berserk. I was done with those characters as soon as I finished the song. With "Nancy and the Pensacola Pimp," about a 16-year-old who falls for a pimp, I felt like there was a novel inside Nancy. I don't know if it will ever be written. But some songs open more doors; they tell me, "Keep going."

The musician Al, the hero of your recent book "The Horse," gave away his guitars and retreated to the desert. Did you ever have similar thoughts about escaping the world?

Only hourly (laughs). You know, I was driving through rural Nevada with an old friend in 2014. And we were 30 miles from a paved road, we were really far out. That's when we came across a wild horse that was completely blind. When we spotted it, it was on a big salt flat. There was no water for five miles, there wasn't a single tree for three miles. I have a soft spot for horses, and I thought about all the scars on this old horse and I said to myself, "Oh, that's an old man! He's got all these scratches, been through fights and mishaps in his life, only to end up blind and alone in the desert." That hit home for me. The two worst things for a horse—to be alone and not to see what's spooking him. What a hard way to end up.

What did you do then?

We camped nearby, and the next day the Bureau of Land Management came and took care of the horse. Then we drove on and came to an abandoned mine site from the '50s. There was just a small shack left. And I said to my friend, "Man, just leave me here, I'm done, I can't look at this stuff anymore. I've been drinking too much, touring too much, and my life has kind of spiraled out of control." His first comment was, "Where are you going to plug your record player in here? And how are you going to get your wife back if she leaves you? She'll change the locks!" Well, there's that side of me too.

You often have animals on your record covers. There's a wolf on the new Delines album. Are these animals souls, ghosts, mirrors?

That's a coyote. The coyote is known as a rogue. Coyotes are thieves. And the record is full of thieves on the run. When I saw the picture of the animal, I thought, "Ah, it's like all the characters from the stories in the songs are lined up." The thing with the horses and me—maybe it's a romantic feeling because I've seen too many movies.

You have a strong band, are a successful writer, live on a beautiful farm – are you a completely happy man?

Let me say I'm a lucky man. I have a small office in Portland. And I see the people there working hard all day. Not a ten minute goes by where I don't feel happy that I get to write stories. I feel like I've won the lottery because I get to write. And because, at 57, I'm in a band where I don't have to dye my hair and try to look young. But completely happy? I wish I were, man. Like everyone else, I have my demons and my scars. I'm as happy as you can be, and I try to be completely happy. But you know, life is a hard place to be happy.

"The Coyote is known as a crook": The cover of the new Delines album "Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom", which - according to Willy Vlautin - is "full of thieves on the run".

Source: Missy Prince

The new album: The Delines – “Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom” (El Cortez Records/Decor)

Concerts: The Delines on May 6, Nochtwache, Bernhard-Nocht-Straße, Hamburg; May 12, Privatclub, Skalitzer Straße, Berlin; May 13, Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Bremen; May 14, Wunderbare Weite Welt, Eppstein.