From his Academy Award nominated role in Sling Blade - which earned him the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay - to memorable acting turns in dozens of films and TV shows including his blood chilling Emmy nominated role in the FX mini-series Fargo, it's clear that Billy Bob Thornton can act, write, direct and produce for the screen.

But his first and foremost creative passion springs from a love and encyclopedic knowledge of music - first inspiring a three project solo career before Thornton met up with engineer and musician JD Andrew, discovered a common affinity for alt-country music, and decided to form a band which he dubbed The Boxmasters.

That was back in 2007, when the band's founders freely admit they were finding their feet with a styalized, concept project that may have not been producing the kind of music they were meant to play.

Flash forward to 2015.

Today, The Boxmasters have morphed from a quasi-novelty act singing tongue-in-cheek ditties and making occasional live appearances, to a crack touring outfit quicly becoming serious contenders on the alt-country/Rockabilly - or what Thornton refers to as 'Psychobilly' - scene.

Thornton and Boxmasters Teddy Andreadis and JD, will be arriving at The Ridgefield Playhouse Wednesday, June 9 for a headline set with special guest Abby and The Roadsters.

In an engaging interview with The Newtown Bee ahead of their Ridgefield stop, Thornton and Andrew talked primarily about The Boxmasters two new projects: Somewhere Down the Road, and a self-released album Providence.

The band produced Providence as a labor of love for fans, as well as a means of downsizing their burgeoning inventory of new recordings.

Newtown Bee: So did the creation and production of Somewhere Down the Road differ from your previous Boxmaster's projects?

Billy Bob Thornton: It was different. When you've done something like this for a long time - with Teddy, we're talking 14 or 15 years - there's a confidence level that rises. The more you do something the better you get at it. So the first couple of Boxmasters albums were done in a very stylized way. We took hillbilly music and married it to the British Invasion, and we put out one record of originals and one of covers - kind of a psycho-billy thing. So those records are specifically stylized. But now we're playing stuff from the new records, as well as some of the older stuff, and we sound much more organic. You know how the Beatles were influenced by Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry, but when they played a Carl Perkins or Chuck Berry tune, they had a sound like nothing else. Now we play and sing the way we naturally do, so it's kind of an easier process.

JD Andrew: Somewhere Down the Road is a lot different (because) those early projects were really experimental - Billy was singing in the persona of a crazed David Allen Coe. So when we got to the point where we were ready to put out this latest project, we had a record company that was open to us releasing a double album - a record that features the two kinds of sounds that we do - part LA rock and roll band and part moody, darker, introspective stuff. The stuff we are doing now is a lot more natural and easy - we don't have to think about it as much because we aren't trying to find our true sound. And the production is much more blended - kind of all part of the same. When Billy and I put it together, we were the main songwriters - and it's just easier putting it together and achieving our own true sound.

Newtown Bee: You guys have also done something cool and pretty unique in releasing Providence on your own, versus waiting for any record company interest. What's the story behind that?

JD Andrew: We have all these records that are done because we never stop recording - and we were trying to figure out what we were gonna do with all this stuff. So we had been performing a few songs that ended up on Providence during our live set and people kept walking up asking where they could get those songs - especially the songs "Providence" and "Beautiful." And it was great that we were able to release that through our own website. It's opened the door for some other ideas like producing some limited run EPs and stuff that we can offer to the fans. We won't make a lot of money off them, but it's great that we have an avenue to get this material out there for people.

Newtown Bee: Were you familiar with any of Billy's material when he invited you to assist on his last solo album Beautiful Door - and before he shelved that career in favor of starting up The Boxmasters?

JD Andrew: One of the guys who I worked for a lot worked on Billy's first couple of records, but I hadn't heard much until I was brought in on the sessions for Beautiful Door. Billy's regular engineer also worked for Fox Sports and wasn't able to be as available as Billy wanted to finish the record. So I originally got brought in for three weeks, and it was somewhere in that third week that Billy showed up and asked me how well I play guitar. And I was like, (stammering). And he said we needed to record a cover of Hank Williams' "Lost Highway" for a Canadian TV show. So we discovered this thing between us that was really mutually inspiring for us, we finished Beautiful Door and began this experimentation that laid the groundwork for what The Boxmasters would become.

Newtown Bee: Billy, was there anything that you learned in your early days of songwriting and recording - before The Boxmasters - that serves you, or maybe serves you better now that you have a couple of decades of music business experience under your belt?

Billy Bob Thornton: Absolutely - I made my first recording in 1974 in Mussel Shoals (AL) so I've been around the studio and music business most of my life. Those first couple of solo albums were produced by somebody else, and I think maybe they didn't have the confidence in me that I had in myself. I look back at those early recordings and I realize now that you just don't do what your told - you don't sit in the spot where somebody else thinks you belong. On the new records I sing all the high harmonies and play drums, and the main thing is having confidence in ourselves. I don't think I put my actual stamp on those first records. I deferred to the guys who make records all the time. But I know now, whatever your best foot is - you've got to put it forward. JD and I feel very comfortable in the studio. We have a great working relationship - also with Teddy and the rest of the guys. 

Newtown Bee: Did you write the material fresh for Somewhere Down the Road, or did you cull it from this massive inventory of songs you had already recorded?

Billy Bob Thornton: While we wrote (the material on) Providence for that record, Somewhere Down the Road is about three-quarters written for the record, but the rest are from other sessions that were taken from as far back as 2010. 

Newtown Bee: As a drummer, how do you come up with the songs?

Billy Bob Thornton: I can peck out a few tunes on the piano but I write on guitar. So say I'm writing a straight ahead pop rock song. I generally have some words or a piece of the melody or part of a chorus, and then I get to the bridge. That's where Teddy comes in. I tell him I want something different than I would typically do here - and he thinks like a keyboard player, and he'll come up with a whole new idea using that piano sensibility. That really helps us. So the songs we put on the records usually come pretty quickly. We're pretty strong on melody - so we usually have a concept of melody when we go in. The ones we sit down and try to construct carefully, those usually end up in the trash can.

Newtown Bee: I meet a lot of creative people that split their talents like you as a musician and actor, or as an actor and writer. Do you find that you draw it all from the same well - or is there a creative switch you flip to go between music and everything else you do?

Billy Bob Thornton: I think it all comes from the same place. Business wise, I try to separate the two - but creatively I think it all comes from the same place. I will say that it feels differently. You get a whole different feeling from doing music than you do from doing a movie. If I'm playing a heavy character and I disappear into the head of that person and into that story, it can be a very solitary and very lonely feeling. But when you're playing music with other people, it's a joyful thing. And when you make a movie, it may not come out for a year and you're not necessarily there when people are seeing it. But with music, specially playing live, you're seeing people face to face. In visceral terms it's quite different. As far as the process, I take both things very seriously. You know, I'm not much of a painter, but if you saw something I painted, you'd probably recognize something in it from the music or the movies I do.

For tickets to see the show, call or visit The Ridgefield Playhouse box office at 80 East Ridge, call 203-438-5795, or order on line at ridgefieldplayhouse.org. View the promo video here.

Billy Bob Thornton dedicates The Boxmasters tune 'Hope for Glory' to veterans and armed forces personnel during this April 2015 set in Montgomery, Alabama.

An early Boxmasters performance from 2009 features Billy Bob Thornton up front singing 'Girl of the Side'.

Check out The Boxmasters video for 'I'll Give You a Ring'