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Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy: ‘With music, we give ourselves up. It’s when we’re allowed to be ourselves’

Revered American musician Will Oldham on recording his new album with some of Nashville’s finest, helping Johnny Cash sing I See a Darkness, and his dismay at US politics

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, where he still lives today, Oldham began adulthood as a young actor, impressing critics as a teenage preacher in John Sayles’s 1987 epic, Matewan, before leaving “the repulsiveness of Hollywood”, and having a breakdown in his early 20s. To help, his older brother, Ned, suggested he start writing songs: 22 solo albums, more than 30 EPs, countless singles, and many collaborations have followed, some with friends from alternative and folk scenes, but also names such as Björk, Candi Staton and the National’s Bryce Dessner. His voice, sometimes tender, sometimes frisky, carries songs about longing (Spend the Whole Night With You), infidelity (Boise, Idaho), and overcoming divisions: “No matter what side you’re standing on/ Can’t we all just get along,” swings the catchy opener, Turned to Dust (Rolling On).

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