Photo:  Michaelrshipp.com

Brad Schmitt
The Tennessean: On Nashville Entertainment
Sunday, June 25, 2000

Billy Bob Thornton is getting ready to put out a rock album through a major Nashville record label, and he's leaving Hollywood for a while next year to go on a tour to support the album.

Billy Bob's longtime music partner insists the actor/director/screenplay writer is much more committed to music than some other Hollywood types who dabble in it ..."We're serious about this," said Michael Shipp, who has played in rock bands with Billy Bob since the two were in high school in Arkansas in the mid-'70s.

Billy Bob started out as a drummer, and he and Michael launched their music careers playing high school gigs as the band Nothin' Doin'. Eventually, Billy Bob went to Hollywood and Michael moved to Houston.

But the two reunited in Houston after Billy Bob's screenwriting career sputtered at first. And they formed a ZZ Top tribute band called Tres Hombres in the early '80s. (Michael's brother Nick was the third hombre.)

"We could just nail ZZ Top," Michael said.

After several successful years in Tres Hombres, Billy Bob returned to Hollywood, and things took off for him. But the music bug bit him bad, and it's an itch he's been dying to scratch since...

Seems Billy Bob has many talented friends

Billy Bob Thornton, a drummer since high school, invited his longtime music buddy, Michael Shipp, to his wrap party for SLING BLADE. The two jammed for the cast, and Billy Bob suddenly got really interested in music again.

"It kinda gave us the fever again, and me and him started talking more and more about music," Michael said.

The two have been writing since, and this eventually brought them to Nashville this year to cut a rock album.

There's no band name yet, but now Billy Bob is the lead singer. The two have written several songs for the project, including one called If You Had a Soul, which digs at their old flames.

"He wrote verses about his (most recent) ex-wife, and I wrote about my ex," Michael said.

The band also covers Spooky and Everybody's Talking. Billy Bob's singing voice is much deeper than his speaking voice, and the whole sound is like this mellow Metallica meets Pink Floyd thing. Michael and co-producer Frank Bacus were kind enough to play me a couple of songs last week.

Nashville musicians were more than happy to jump into the project, done here at Ocean Way and other studios around town.

And talk about a diverse group: Billy Bob and Michael had bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs, rockers Peter Frampton and Andy Summers of The Police, and country's Marty Stuart, Clay Walker, Travis Tritt, Connie Smith, Rodney Crowell, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and actor Matt Damon all contributed to the project.

Billy Bob will be back in a month or so to record some more songs and do some more mixing. The album will be out by year's end.