Foto-© Paolo Brillo

So etwas erlebt man nur ganz selten im Pop-Business: Ein Band-Frontmann (ein Mann!) tritt freiweillig zurück in die zweite Reihe und überlässt einer Frau das Rampenlicht, weil sie seine herzzerreißend schönen Lieder einfach besser singen kann. Willy Vlautin tat das vor gut zehn Jahren, nachdem er die emotional tiefgründige Stimme von Amy Boone gehört hatte und sofort wusste: Die will ich haben für meine traurigen Songs über die Beladenen und die Verlorenen, also über die Kehrseite des „American Dream“ (und damit letztlich die melancholische Absage an diesen Mythos).

So kam es, dass sich Vlautin nach fast zwei Dekaden als Band-Leader der (by the way: ebenfalls schon grandiosen) Folkrock-Truppe Richmond Fontaine seit 2012 auf die Rolle des Songwriters und Gitarristen beschränkte, um The Delines zu voller Blüte zu führen. Als Schriftsteller hatte er schon 2005, mit dem später verfilmten The Motel Life, Erfolg. Weitere wunderbare, an John Steinbeck oder Raymond Carver erinnernde Bücher wie Lean On Pete (zu Tränen rührend auch als Film), The Free, Don’t Skip Out On Me, The Night Always Comes und zuletzt The Horse (2024) kamen hinzu.

Warum diese Romantitel unbedingt allesamt genannt werden müssen? Weil sie in enger Beziehung zu den Songs und Alben stehen, die Vlautin mit The Delines seit Jahren aufnimmt. Und weil sie auch in dem Gespräch auftauchen, das wir mit ihm führen konnten.

Aus Anlass der neuen Delines-Platte Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (VÖ: 14. Februar 2025 – Review hier!) erzählt der 57-Jährige aus Portland/Oregon über seine fabelhafte Americana-Band, die Verbindungen zwischen Schriftsteller- und Songwriter-Dasein, die prachtvollen Lieder, die mit „Country-Soul“ nur unzureichend beschrieben sind (per Track-by-Track-Analyse).

Hi Willy, so great to meet you. The well respected online magazine Allmusic writes: “The Delines, from Portland, Oregon, combine alt-country and country-soul and are the result of Willy Vlautin’s obsession with the intense, smoky voice of Amy Boone and her ability to bring his melancholy characters to life.“ I think that’s actually quite ok, but stylistically you have so much more to offer than just „country“ and „soul“. How would you describe your music and its recent stylistic elements with Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom?
Willy Vlautin: It’s hard to describe one’s music. There’s so many influences going around in the Delines. Cory is a great jazz musician, Sean grew up playing jazz, and Freddy is a serious soul and blues and rock bass player. He’s my favorite bass player in town. The talent of those three guys is unreal. So much of the time Amy and I can’t believe we get to play with them. And I bring in a mood, a song with a world and a story, and Amy brings in the soul. We all love American music: country, R&B, and jazz. You just throw all our loves into a blender with a bit of age and tequila, failures and heartbreaks and minor triumphs, and you have The Delines.

You‘ve taken an interesting turn for The Delines – from frontman of the renowned cult band Richmond Fontaine to the stripped-back songwriter and lyricist of The Delines. Was it a relief for you to no longer be at the front singing? Or was the discovery of Amy’s magnificent voice the decisive factor in your retreat to the second row of the stage?
I always struggled being a frontman. I loved being in Richmond Fontaine, it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me, but I don’t think I was ever meant to do it and in the end I don’t think I was that great at it. I always wanted to be in a band like The Delines. Women singers have always been my favorite and when I heard Amy sing I was like, “I want to grow old in a band where she sings all the songs.” The Delines started as an experiment, we were a band only for a week when we recorded Colfax. And we got lucky. People liked it and we loved it.

You were more commercially successful as a novelist than with Richmond Fontaine. It’s a rare thing for a writer to finance a career as a musician. Are you still surprised by this development today?
Ha, man, a day doesn’t go by that I’m not floored that I get to write stories for a living and get to be in a band. Every time I see a guy in painting clothes or pass a construction site or a warehouse I’m shaking in my boots that I’ll have to go back and I’m so grateful every day I don’t have do that sorta work. And you’re right it’s hard to make a living as a musician. For The Delines we’d have to tour a ton more to squeak out a living. We’re just lucky that we all have other ways of making dough and we can tour as much as we want and still have enough money to make the kind of records we want to make.

At some point there was actually an overlap between the Vlautin books and Delines‘ records (The Night Always Comes, Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom/The Horse). How did that come about? Did you think at some point that the figures and characters in your novels and in your songs had a lot in common? And, because I’ve just read the book in tears: Are Charlie and Lean On Pete perhaps mirrored in Delines songs?
I always think my songs and stories live in the same apartment complex. They bump into each other all the time. The thing with novels is that they take so much time to write. Years of thinking about one story, years thinking about one set of themes, one set of characters. During that time I get worn out, I get confused, I get perplexed, and so I start writing songs to give myself a break. Those songs are always influenced by what I’m writing.

So yes there is an overlap. Lean On Pete first began as a song called Laramie, WY (Richmond Fontaine). The Free began as a song called A Letter to the Patron Saint of Nurses (Richmond Fontaine). The novel Don’t Skip Out On Me began as a song called Don’t Skip Out On Me (Richmond Fontaine). A different thing happened in The Horse. The song titles in the book led to actual songs: Nancy & The Pensacola Pimp, Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, Sitting On The Curb Watching Our House Burn Down, and There’s Nothing Down The Highway But The Darkness Of The Road all became real songs and are on the new Delines record.

Allmusic wrote about The Imperial, the first great Delines masterpiece in my opinion: „The ten tracks play like interconnected short stories, not songs.“ Some critics compare your writing to John Steinbeck or Raymond Carver, some of your novels are linked to Bruce Springsteen’s short story collection Nebraska. Wouldn’t it be enough to earn good money with books that often are later turned into movies? Why are you still a musician who plays on small stages, as you will soon be doing again in Germany?
Thanks for saying that about The Imperial. I’ve always liked that record. We sure tried hard on it. The song The Imperial is still one of my favorites. Why am I still in a band? That is a question! I’ve always loved the camaraderie of a band, the sound of being in a room with a band, writing songs for a band, creating a world inside a three minute song. The hardest thing about being in a smalltime band is the grunt work: setting up gigs, getting to the gig, vans and motels, making the records, helping design them, t-shirts, etc. There is so much grunt work. A band spends more time trying to get to place to play than they ever do playing. Writing is the opposite.

So please let’s have a closer track by track look at the Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom songs. Give us some thoughts about the music, the words, Your intentions, the subtexts etc.

1. Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom

A rare happily ever after love song, the song that started the whole idea of the record. I love Cory’s horn parts on this one.

2. Her Ponyboy

The most romantic and tragic song on the record. It’s that idea of ragged romance, on the run romance, madly in love, and living the reckless life. But the reckless life is a dangerous life. I love the baritone guitar on this.

3. Left Hook Like Frazier

The poppiest side of the Delines. Again great horns by Cory. It’s a song where Amy’s warning women with broken hearts not to fall in love with men who will break their hearts even more. A pop song warning tale. I love when pop songs have dark lyrics and this one sure does.

4. Sitting On The Curb

An old school soul ballad. A woman realizing that her world has collapsed when she learns her man has cheated on her. It’s like he’s burned down their house and their world together.

5. There’s Nothing Down The Highway

The most desert influenced song. It reminds me of driving late at night in the middle of nowhere. It’s that old idea that you can’t escape yourself by running because eventually, always, you realize the person you’re running from is you.

6. Don’t Miss Your Bus Lorraine

The most political song on the record. A woman gets out of prison on marijuana convictions only to see that marijuana is now legal while she is now a felon and can’t get a decent job. I love the way the guys sing backup on this one.

7. The Haunting Thoughts

It’s about a woman who can’t shake the fear that the world she’s in is going to collapse. She sees all this desperation around her on the streets of Portland, Oregon and she’s worried it’ll catch her, too. That she’ll end up on the streets. We wanted that uncertainty and vulnerability inside the fabric of the song. It one of those rare tunes that worked from the get-go. It just played itself. Cory’s piano is so great on this one and it’s my favorite Amy vocal to date. Amy has this pure way of getting inside the world of the lyrics. She just kills me on this one.

8. Nancy & The Pensacola Pimp

The wildest song on the record. Cory’s horns are amazing and so is Amy’s vocal take. A song of madness and revenge all while driving through the south.

9. Maureen’s Gone Missing

This was one of the first songs I brought into the Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom sessions. Amy told me once she wanted a song where a woman on the edge makes good, makes an old school getaway with a bag full of cash. The song is told from the point of view of a woman sitting by a pool at residential motel watching as all these various criminals stop by to look for Maureen. Little do they know that the woman sitting by the pool has given Maureen her car to make the getaway. I love Cory’s horn arrangements on this one and Sean’s drumming is pure aces.

10. JP And Me

It’s my favorite song on the record. The tale of a grifter couple on the run but the man in the couple has a mental breakdown on the road. It has that old 70’s movie feel. It’s a song that takes its time getting to where it needs to go. Again Amy sings this one so great.

11. Don’t Go Into That House

This is almost a begging song, begging Lorraine not to give up. Please don’t go into the party house, don’t give up, keep trying to be straight and keep trying to stay out of prison.