Bill Callahan has always been one of rock’s greatest mysteries. Not because he refuses to talk about his songwriting process (“There isn’t one, I just get out of bed”) or his personal life (he married Hanly Banks, a filmmaker who in 2012 came to make the documentary Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour Film). Growing up, his parents worked as language analysts for the National Security Agency, and he was forbidden to tell his friends what they did for a living, so you can say he came by his inscrutability naturally.

One of the finest songwriters of his generation, in 1989 he began releasing lo-fi music cassettes under the obfuscating sobriquet of Smog, a name as metaphoric as it is evocative of the dark, melancholy world that he visits in his songs. He followed the cassettes with 11 strange, fraught albums, all with a strong sense of isolation and space—dark and melancholy ruminations that made you question everything about yourself, and about him. But good luck ever getting the musician to elaborate.

Callahan has always been a reluctant witness if not an unnerving interviewee. His answers are long considered, measured, and often terse, followed by a sometimes terrifying awkward silence. He refuses to be rushed to respond and has been known to break the interview’s fourth wall and question why you would want to know whether he cares what people think of him, or why the strange grammar of 2009’s Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle. Of course you would ask! Because Bill Callahan leaves very few clues to who he is, and it feels important to know who is behind the characters who inhabit his albums—even if he claims his songs are only 1 percent autobiographical. Although let’s be real, they seem unnervingly like him: solemn, stoic types who use few words yet impart great wisdom as they pick their way through their daunting landscape and even more daunting relationships.

Callahan stopped recording under Smog with 2005’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love and began recording nine exceptional albums under his own name, beginning with 2007’s Woke on a Whaleheart, through 2022’s dyslexic’s nightmare YTI⅃AƎЯ (“reality” spelled backwards), each album exploring a little more of his place in the world and within his own family, with songs that find him experiencing a kind of wonder and contentment that seemed to have eluded him in the compressed, minimal, sometimes disappointed and cranky tales that preceded YTI⅃AƎЯ. In 2024, he released Resuscitate, a live album containing many of the songs from YTI⅃AƎЯ and, as the title infers, breathing new life into them. But it appears the 58-year-old minstrel isn’t done yet. At press time we got the news that he has unleashed something tantamount to his own baby picture: The Holy Grail: Bill Callahan’s “Smog” Dec. 10, 2001 Peel Session, a live recording that strangely shows that the more things change, the more they don’t. We swear he still wears the same blue flannel shirt that’s on the cover. While normally Bill Callahan would be a perfect candidate for Nine Perfect Minutes—it’s where we put recalcitrant interview subjects—he perverted the paradigm and answered almost everything we asked. Even that he can read auras!

You’ve named your recent live album Resuscitate. Did the songs need resuscitating? If not the songs, then what did?

It was the idea of breath in a song, in singing. Breath is everything. On this tour I had a fellow breather for the first time—a sax player—Dustin Laurenzi. I asked a lot of Dustin, not being a sax player myself, I do not know the physical limitations of the instrument. Sometimes I would ask him to play constantly and he would do his best. In another sense, the songs are like balloons—the type of thing you see in the Macy’s Day Parade. They need to be inflated and paraded. There is also the sense of mortality on stage; you could die up there. The goal is to not die, I think. The original title for the LP was Do Not Resuscitate! Having buried both of my parents in the last few years, I realized I was too young for that title. That can be the name of a live album I make in my 80s.

You did the artwork for the front and back of the album. Can you tell me what was your inspiration? Have you always painted, or is that new?

I don’t paint. I did paint for the album cover, but that’s just an album cover, not art. Same with the back cover, I just did some drawings because the back cover needed it. I don’t do drawings any other time. The inspiration is that images are needed for the cover.

Dreams play a big part in your lyrics. One of the lines in your song “Coyote” cautions: “They say never wake a dreamer. Maybe that’s how we die.” Why do you think that? Or is it just metaphoric?

It’s a nice thought that this is all a dream we’re all dreaming together and when we wake we die. It flips death into a more positive light, too.

Do you have prophetic dreams?

I think there are important dreams and not so important dreams. When you have an important one, you know. These are the ones that I try to pay attention to. They don’t come often, but they are like pages from the Bible. I don’t think there’s a definitive interpretation of a significant dream. I think they are there to be collected and reflected on for the rest of our lives. The meaning will change. The messages will change. It takes discipline to truly converse with your dreams. I don’t always have the time.

In your 2005 song “I Feel Like the Mother of the World” you say, “Whether or not there is any type of God, I’m not supposed to say.... God is a word and the argument ends there.” If not God, what is holy to you?

Relationships, friendships. You can have a holy relationship with God. But how far will that get you in your daily life? How will that really serve the people? How will that really serve yourself? We are really only as good as how we treat other people. When you die, it’s probably nice to have God by your side. It’s probably even nicer to have a friend.

You reveal so much in your songs. Where do you draw the line about what is private?

You just don’t say anything that you think might embarrass somebody. You only say things that you think might instruct or depict in a propelling, positive, or illuminating way. Shame is not art.

How would friends describe you?

I've been wondering lately. But I have no idea. I think there is the way that I think they would describe me that is not the real way that they would describe me, ha ha. Fuck ’em!

Is the public you much different from the private one? Or similarly, are you more you off stage than you are on stage?

I try to bring the best parts of offstage me to the stage, or not necessarily the best parts, but the parts that will best serve the show. I am pretty much myself when I’m on stage. I mist up a lot. But no one seems to notice, which is great. Otherwise it would become shtick. I don’t like to can my responses to the moment like a lot of performers seem to do. I am there with you. I think that is a product of the music that we make. This music requires each band member to listen to the other. To never be on autopilot. To never be playing to a click track in your ear. So if I’m listening, I’m just like an audience member.

Is it important to you to be understood?

It’s a funny and strange feeling when someone has an interpretation of your song that is completely different than what you intended. But the world keeps on turning. So I don’t think it really matters. There is still some sort of relationship there. If I watch a movie and think one thing, who’s to say if that’s right or wrong or permissible? Who’s to say if I misunderstood? The world keeps on turning.

A couple of legends who are truly legendary. Willie, Wayion, Merle, Hank Jr.

What food group do you most identify with?

Pizza.

Was music a big part of how you grew up? What was the soundtrack from your early years?

It was such a stimulant in my youth. Mostly classic rock on the radio and whatever punk stuff I could get my hands on.

What’s the best cure for the blues?

Being aware of what’s needed in the moment. There isn’t one cure. It may be a drink. It may be watching TV. It may be talking to a friend. It may be going for a walk. You have to know what’s needed in the moment. If you go for a walk when what you really need is a drink, it may not work.

What’s the worst job you ever had?

Probably a janitor in a warehouse where people would shit on the floor to express their anger to the management. They would page me over the intercom, and I always knew what that meant. They’d hand me a pair of surgical gloves and tell me what sector to report to.

When did you know you had grown into your voice?

When it stopped getting deeper.

How do you sum someone up? Is there some standard you use? Like, can you tell more about a person by their handshake or their shoes?

Both are good tells! But there’s a glitch in the footwear matrix these days. Suddenly grampas are wearing Air Jordans. Every walk of life is wearing radical or retro sneakers. The Korean granny, the Irish toddler. So we’re left with handshakes and eyes. I’m pretty good at picking up vibes. Auras. Those things that emanate from our bodies.

How do you get ready to write?

There’s no preparation beyond waking up and getting out of bed. These days I have a bunch of chores I have to do first—get the kids to school, clean the kitchen, walk the dog. All the things I’m responsible for, you have to clean that slate.

Is writing autobiographically important to you? Why or why not?

It has its place. Also useful to step outside of yourself sometimes, too. I think once you’ve written something, whether it’s autobiography or pure fiction or somewhere between, once you’ve written it, it becomes something else. It’s another category. A category where the biographical nature is completely irrelevant to the value and function of the work. It’s divested of all that. So in that light, I put very little value or consideration into the autobiography of it. Because that evaporates.

What do you consider your secret for success?

Not wanting to be anything, just wanting to do something. You can’t control who you are, but you can control what you do.