Filmkr�nikan interview -

Title: Filmkr�nikan interview
Source: Filmkr�nikan TV program (Sweden), November 1987. By Gunnar Rehlin. Transcription from tape by "Pieter from Holland" as published on the Tom Waits Library
Date: November, 1987. Aired early 1988
Key words: vioice, acting, public image

Accompanying pictures (screenshots)

Source: Filmkr�nikan TV programme (Sweden), by Gunnar Rehlin. Date: November 1987 (aired 1988?). Credits: video screenshot. Filmkr�nikan/ SVT

Filmkr�Nikan Interview

Part 1: (Female interviewer and Waits at the piano)

Q: Is it true that you were born in the backseat of a car?
TW: No! I wasn't born in the backseat of a car!
Q: I read that! Is that true?
TW: No, I didn't. No, I was born in Iowa... in uh... 1932. And uh, my father is the president of a small South-American country.
Q: Where did you get your voice from? It's very...
TW: I bought it at the Salvation Army...
Q: You did?
TW: ... it cost me $29,95, and you can have one too! (arpeggio at the piano and takes a drink). Cheers! (walks off)

Part 2: (Gunnar Rehlin and Waits)
Q: Were there any moments that you feel they wanted you to play "Tom Waits the myth" more then being an actor?
TW: Well you bring some of yourself into a character, which is I guess, what attracts you to it to begin with. You see something of yourself in a part, that you can plant the seed of, water it and watch it come up.
Q: I don't know if you like it or not, but I mean, obviously now you're some kind of a cult hero. How do you react to that?
TW: Uh... Ghees... Uh, you mean like a ...?...
Q: A cult hero. I mean: "Tom Waits is cult" as they say.
TW: Is cult...
Q: Yes.
TW: Yeah well, I guess that's alright, you know? I'm not sure what that means really.
Q: In a way there are certain myths floating around you. Do you feel comfortable with that or uncomfortable? People having a pre-conception of how it should be when they meet Tom Waits or how it shouldn't...
TW: Well, you know, I guess when it gets to the point where you feel like it inhibits the growth of your personality and your ideas, uh... You know, I feel like I broke out of some of that, cause I used to be more... wound a little tighter when I came to what I thought I should sing about, what I thought I should write about, and how I should approach it. I think I've loosened up a little bit more about it. I got married and uh... I got kids. And my wife's had a lot to do with uh, you know. She took my hat off and she took my head off, and taught me a lot about, you know, physics and gipsy music and uh... make-up secrets, and uh... auto mechanics. Uh, so I've learned a lot from her, loosened up a little bit.
Q: ...?... people thought would be best selling for Tom Waits. They want the whiskey glass, the cigarette, the piano.
TW: Yeah... Well, you know, an image is a blessing and a curse. You spend a lot of time trying to tap the world on the shoulders, so they'll notice what you're doing. And at the same time, uh, in the same context, and the same environment, so they... you know, they made a little house for you in their head and they always want you to, you know, sit on the same chair. So, I think, yeah, you take it with a grain of salt, as long as it doesn't keep you from growing and changing and developing.

Part 3: ("Sixty Shells From A Thirty Ought Six", Big Time version)

TW: You know music, you have to really kind of make an antenna out of yourself. You know, you receive all the cha-cha's, and the foxtrots and the mambo's. You know be...Stay liquid.

TW: ...?...you feel like you're trying to always, you know, you wanna be in a place where life will still continue to happen to you. You don't expect it will always be there. Remain spontaneous and open.

TW: I always thought, the best actors are children and insane people. They still have their innocence. So, I wanna stay in touch with all those things.

Notes:

N/A