Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 96

Music Musician's artistic career started out in Hollywood mmtrr mm! DJ Radar says, "The turntable, to me, Is a valid Instrument because It does make rhythms and melodic stuff." scratching breaks By Michael Swift michael.senftarizonarepublic.com For more than 10 years, Will Oldham has been mining the forgotten recesses of Americana, exposing the dark corners of traditional folk music and filtering them through a Postmodern lens. But the Kentucky-born singer, who performs tonight at the Rhythm Room as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, wasn't always a musician. The 33-year-old started his career as an actor, starring in John Sayles' 1988 movie Matewan, where he played a teenage West Virginia coal miner. Oldham would later star in such films as the made-for-TV Everybody's Baby: The Rescue of Jessica Mc-Clure and the Western Thousand Pieces of Gold before switching to music. "Basically, I started playing music because acting wasn't fulfilling me artistically.

I wanted to create my own art, rather than interpret someone else's," the soft-spoken Oldham says from his Kentucky home. His first musical endeavor was the song Ohio River Boat Song, released in 1992 by the band Palace. The song was an acoustic, indie-rock interpretation of the Scottish folk song Loch Tay Boat Song. Oldham rewrote the lyrics to make the traditional song more relevant for his American audience. "I loved the song, but I didn't want it to just be some obscure love song," he says.

For almost five years, Oldham led Palace through a dizzying variety of lineups and name changes, including Palace Brothers and Palace Music. Throughout the years, Oldham's tremulous vocals and dark, traditional-inspired songs of hellfire and brimstone held Palace together. "It was me figuring out how to make a record, how to write a song, how to work with other musicians," Oldham says of Pal- Lokey new ground dale Community College. "It's on scratching techniques. It's just basically about using the turntable as an instrument," he explains.

"Turntablism is really taking off, and people are starting to realize that it's not just some gimmick or some fad." LA's Linkin Park Hybrid Theory. So it wasn't like I was still an outsider. We had really just started over. "It was bound to work, and we knew it was going to work." It works in part because of a tremendous, grass-roots fan base. Bennington says the band has finally had to cap the number of fans wanting to be part of its street team.

Linkin Park rewarded the faithful members of the LP Underground by buying their tickets to the shows in their area during the tour leading up to the release of Meteora. "We definitely have one of the strongest, if not the strongest, fan bases around," he says. "We go from city to city, and we see the same faces over and over again. It's crazy, because we meet a lot of our fans, and I've met some of these kids 10 or IS times. We're building relationships with these guys.

"A lot of bands neglect the fact that the reason they're able to tour and sell T-shirts is because of the kids. It amazes me to see the bands that take their fans for granted. They forget who got them there. "It's like, 'Hey, your music got you your fans. But your fans got you your DJ Radar's record From Page 40 ery U.S.

state but Hawaii Radar has won numerous awards for his groundbreaking style, including Urb Magazine's Next 100 in 2001, the Rep's Best DJ in 2000 and Spin Magazine's ninth-best Valley guy no longer From Page 41 It was a disheartening period for a young rocker, a diehard Depeche Mode fan who lists his artistic influences as that band's lead singer, David Gahan, along with Glenn Danzig, Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. But before chucking his dream, Bennington got to try out as the singer for a Los Angeles band also struggling to make a breakthrough. "They were trying to get a record deal while we were trying to get a record deal," he says. "It was at a point where I wanted to quit, then here comes this tape, and these guys were doing something new and exciting that I hadn't heard before. "When I was there trying out for them, my attitude was, 'If they don't choose me as their singer, they're But that band, Hybrid Theory (on its way to becoming Linkin Park) wasn't stupid.

Made up of creative technical brainiacs who had known each other since junior high, they had the sound. They just needed the fury. Bennington had plenty of that, so he had a new gig and said goodbye Will Oldham Is the man behind Bonnie "Prince" Billy. ace's many permutations. But in 1997, Oldham abruptly retired the Palace name.

Having figured out the business of making music, he sought a new moniker to reflect his "informed" musical persona. And so Bonnie "Prince" Billy was born. The name refers to the exiled Scottish rebel Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart, who led the Jacobite rebellion in the early 18th century. "I am of Scottish descent, but the name is more of a reference to Robert Louis Stevenson's books, like Kidnapped," Oldham says, explaining his stage name. Despite the new name, Oldham's music hasn't changed dramatically.

His new album, Master and Everyone, which will be spotlighted in its entirety tonight, lurks in the same dark corners of the Old South that Palace's music did. And Palace tunes sit comfortably next to Bonnie "Prince" Billy songs throughout his live sets. Oldham insists there are differences, though. "Palace was more esoteric, more formless. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is sort of the culmination of my music." If you go Bonnie 'Prince' Billy WHERE: Rhythm Room, 1019 E.

Indian School Road, Phoenix. WHEN: 8 tonight. TICKETS: $12. DETAILS: (602) 265-4842 or (480) 784-4444. turntablist in the world in 1999.

Despite his popularity, Radar retains a down-to-earth quality; he's soft-spoken, serious and straightforward. Radar, who is working on a record deal, teaches a class, Turntablism 101, at Scotts- an outsider with "It's just pretty unreal. I'm a guy from Phoenix, Arizona, who could never get anybody to listen to my stuff. And now, to have this, is unbelievable." Chester Bennington Singer for Linkin Park to the saguaros. The fact he was the last man in, then also was singled out for Grammy honors, brings a question about "outsider" status with his close-knit mates.

That gives Bennington a chance to clarify Linkin Park's "overnight" success. "When I joined the band, we pretty much trashed everything they did, and we pretty much rebuilt the entire band, everything they had done. We took just a couple of songs as they were from before for (the album) Hybrid Theory. "After we put a year of work in and finally got signed, we put another year of work in before we put out.