You were born and raised in Reno, Nevada. How deep are your family's roots there?

My great great Grandfather worked thirty miles away in Virginia City, home of the Comstock mine, and my great Grandfather was a lawyer in Reno. Supposedly he divorced some pretty famous Hollywood actresses when Reno was the divorce capital of the USA. My Dad grew up in San Francisco but spent his summers in Reno and eventually moved there with my mother.

What does a kid do for kicks in Reno?

Really it's a town like any other. It was only when I got older that I discovered what made Reno different. It has the casinos and old-man bars. The town has a great underbelly. I've always been attracted to that side of life so being born there was a serous stroke of luck. But for a normal kid it's just a town that has mountains 10 miles away in one direction and the desert 10 miles away in the other.

As surnames go, Vlautin is rather invigorating. How, though, does one end up with a name like that?

It's Croatian. My Grandfather was named Paul Vlautin. He was born and lived in San Francisco, but his family emigrated from Croatia. He was a great man and could quote Shakespeare at the drop of the hat. Supposedly he was a real ladies man as well. I didn't inherit either of those qualities but I sure liked him a lot and glad to have the name.

Your alt-country band, Richmond Fontaine, formed over ten years ago. But what came first, Willy the writer or Willy the rocker?

I wrote stories for myself in high-school but I never thought much of it. I wasn't a very good student and had a hard time in English and just assumed that I wasn't smart enough to be a writer. So I really gravitated towards music. Because anyone can join a band, and I loved records, records were my best friends. So I started playing guitar when I was 14. I wrote story songs and more than anything I wanted to make a real record and have it be in a store. Have it sitting there next to all the great records of the world. So from when I was a kid up until I was 35 or so I just wrote novels and stories for myself. I'd just finish one and throw it in the closet and start another one.

The UK's Q Magazine called your album The Fitzgerald (2005) "the most beautiful sad album of the year." Which is sadder, this album or The Motel Life?

Both of those were written with the same feel and really centered on Reno. In general I always think my fiction is a bit more easy going than my songs. I have a hard time being light in a song. In a story you have more room to breath. You can be dark with moments of light, good times and hope. It's always been harder for me to write upbeat songs. It's just in my blood to write sad ones.

What kind of extra-literary and -musical jobs have you held—anything dangerous or notably mundane?

I've had a long series of miserable jobs like anyone else I guess. But my first real job was at a chemical company where I loaded trucks and answered phones. After that it was mostly warehouse jobs and trucking company jobs. I did that for maybe 13 years. I really grew to hate warehouses and even now when I drive past them I get depressed as hell. After that I became a house painter. I'd always hated house painters, and suddenly there I was one. I did it for years and eventually grew to like it alright, but Jesus, I hope I don't have to go back anytime soon.

You somewhere expressed a fondness for John Fante and Charles Bukowski. When did you first stumble on their fiction?

I found out about John Fante later in life. A friend of mine gave me "Ask The Dust" and I plowed through it and then all his others. I think he's a great writer. Bukoswki on the other hand I read in college. I didn't do much in college but hang out in the library and I read a lot of him there. He's one of the only things I got out of college. Crazy thing is I was young and I had no idea about anything but I knew I liked to get drunk and I knew I thought Bukoswki was funnier than hell. I started buying all his books, and let me tell you they're expensive and you can never find them used. So I had them lined up in my room like a shrine. At the time it was summer and I was working for my mom. I was helping park planes during the Reno Air Races. I was hung over and sweating to death 'cause it was so hot and it was there I had this revelation: Maybe if I got rid of the Bukowski books I wouldn't be a loser anymore. Maybe if I sold the books I wouldn't be sweating do death and hung over. Maybe I'd have more confidence and be more normal. Maybe I'll amount to something. It had to be Bukoswki's influence that was ruining me. So I went down and sold all his books and I thought I'd straighten up and fly right but then I had almost fifty bucks in my pockets and well….

Let's get back to your music. An AllMusic.com review of your album Miles From admired "the quality of Willy Vlautin's songwriting; suggesting the clean narrative lines and morally troubling perspective of Raymond Carver, Vlautin's tales of damaged lives and lost souls are vivid, honest, and evoke both horror and compassion in equal measures.…" Do you get that a lot—the Carver comparison?

I started writing seriously when I first read Raymond Carver. He changed my life. There is a Australian songwriter named Paul Kelly who wrote a song based on the Carver story "So Much Water So Close to Home." I liked the story of the song so much I went down and found the Carver book and I swear Carver just killed me. I was living in my girlfriend's parents garage at the time and I spent all my free time beating myself up for what a bum I was. And then I read Raymond Carver. I swear I thought I understood every line. He wasn't better than me, he wasn't from Harvard, he didn't get a scholarship to Oxford, he was just a man from the Northwest trying to hang on. I was never adventurous or smart enough to be Hemingway or Steinbeck, and Bukowski lived too hard for me, but Carver was just a working class guy with an edge that was trying to kill him. Boy, that time was something. I started writing as hard as I could from that moment on. The stories just started pouring out. I had all this sadness and darkness on my back and I didn't know what it was. I was just a kid. But Carver opened it all up. So yeah, I'm always grateful to get compared to him. It's a great honor and I'll take it where I can get it. I know I'm just the janitor where guys like Steinbeck and William Kennedy and James Welch and Raymond Carver are the kings but for me just trying to be a part of it is enough.

Esquire magazine called The Motel Life "A hugely compassionate, wildly original road movie of a novel." So there you have it: one reviewer compares your music to fiction, another compares your fiction to film. Are the effects you strive for this deliberate?

I never think about anything like that when I'm writing. I write to escape, to be in another world. And while I'm in that world I try and look into things that eat at me or worry me and hopefully lay some of them to rest. That being said I have lived a lot of my life disappearing into movies and songs so maybe that comes across. Songs have gotten me through my darkest times and movies, well, I've lived a large amount of my life being in them. I can't tell you how many actresses were my girlfriends and how many times Harry Dean Stanton was my father, telling me what a great guy I was. For awhile, maybe six months, I spent hours a day going out with Carole Lombard. I know it's a foolish way for a grown man to spend his time, but it's hard to stop and really it's a pretty good time when Carole Lombard is your girlfriend.

You've been known to hole up in a casino hotel in order to write lyrics. Is that how you approach your fiction, too?

I wish I could. I just don't have enough dough to live in a decent motel full time. Mostly I write at the local horse track here in Portland, Oregon where I live. It's called Portland Meadows. It's a great place to write. It's like being in the library but once in awhile you can bet on horses or look around and see all the interesting guys. It's a great time. It's my favorite thing in the world to sit there and work on stories. If I'm home I'll always screw around. I'll always find something else I have to do. Plus there's Matlock and afterwards Perry Mason and I'm a real degenerate when it comes to TV.

Which is harder, writing a story or a lyric?

They're just different. I think it's easier to write a story, but to write a good one, well, that's hard. I usually try and take care of myself when I write stories. Maybe try and go running. Lay off getting drunk and staying out late. I try and eat better. It's all about discipline and putting in the hours where songs are about emotion. I always write best on a hangover or when my life is falling apart.

Let's discuss some things you've said in interviews. Interviewed by Comes with a Smile in 2002, you said this about your music: "A lot of the time I suppose I'm trying to confront things that worry me, or scare me in a way that won't leave me alone. That's why a lot of the things are so dark. Alcohol has a good hold of me, and has been such a part of my life that it has to be in the songs as well as violence. I'm scared of violence, of seeing it, of being in it. It haunts me, they both do. They're some of the themes that run in me and I can't get them out yet." Heavy stuff, Willy. Has your pursuit of writing allayed or aggravated your fears and compulsions?

One of the great things about writing is that you can drink an awful lot and never be hung over. I wrote this one novel and I swear each guy drank about seventy five beers a day. It was fun as hell to write and it really did get it out of my system. I could drink all day with these guys and then put them away and do something else. So in general, at least so far, writing has always eased my mind and not aggravated it. It only aggravates it if I'm worried about being good. But that's just a bad habit to think like that. You just have to do your best. The great thing about writing is you can control your fear and compulsions. You can look at them in silence in the corner of room and try to figure them out, and most of all you can see them and study them without them physically coming after you. It's your world and if you bring fear into it then it's by choice.

Interviewed by Uncut magazine, you touched upon a certain pastime of yours: "My mom's boyfriend and I go camping a lot out in Nevada, in the desert, and we look around old mines and I remember seeing a pair of women's underwear and a shoe at the foot of this mine. We were fifty miles from any resemblance of a town. It took us a half hour on foot to get to this old mine. What the hell were a pair of women's underwear and a single shoe doing there?" This, if I'm not mistaken, resulted in a song, correct?

I put that idea into a song called "Conklin Creek." It's on our record "The Fitzgerald." I've always liked exploring Northern Nevada. My mom's boyfriend is a big fan of Northern Nevada and so I grew up really loving it out there. The problem that I have, that I've never understood, is how can I be out in the middle of nowhere and be more scared of people than I am when I'm walking down a street in the middle of a city in the middle of the night. It drives me crazy. But I guess all you have to do is see something like a pair of women's underwear at the edge of a mine shaft sixty miles from the nearest town and a mile from the nearest drivable road to understand it. You know it's not some high school girl and her boyfriend or a couple campers on a hike. You hope it is, but in your gut you know it's probably not. You know it's probably something a lot darker.

Whom do you admire most among those artists who write both fiction and music?

To tell you the truth I don't know very many. I haven't read Nick Cave's novel or Jimmy Buffet's or John Wesley Harding's novel. I know there are a lot of others. But I am a big admirer of Dave Alvin (The songwriter for the Blasters) and he wrote a collection of poems called "Any Rough Times Are Behind Me Now." It's a great collection and was very inspiring for me. I used to carry it around with me wherever I went.

Do you still send your grandmother a postcard from every town you visit on the road?

I wish I did. She died a few years back and I got to say it's horrible not to have her around. She was the greatest person to me. She was an English teacher and smart as hell and she liked me. She always took care of me and looked out after me. One of the best things about being on the road was writing her postcards even though they were G rated and not like the ones on "Post To Wire." Then after I'd get home I'd call her and she'd have the postcards there and she'd ask me about all the places I'd been and I'd lie and say "Oh that place was great and the other was wonderful. Stillwater, OK? Oh yeah I remember that one. They treated us great and we made a boatload of money and they fed us like kings."

You gave readings in England, Ireland, and France to support the release of The Motel Life. I believe you played an acoustic set at one of the readings. What were the highlights of this junket?

There's been some great times. The people at Faber and Faber in the UK are just the nicest and so are the people of Albin Michel in France. But I guess the best single time was in London. I was reading at this small bar that turned out to be Shane MacGowan's (of The Pogues) drinking bar. Well this place is small and there he was in the corner. I was nervous as a man can be because Shane MacGowan is one of my biggest heroes. I started getting worried. Maybe he'll know I'm a bum and stand up and say, "This guy is a moron! I can't believe they'd publish him." But I guess he liked what I read alright, supposedly he stood up and yelled out that it was the real deal. Afterwards, he kissed my hand, and Jesus, I about died. I really could have been alright with it. I didn't sleep that whole night. It was like my hand and arm were on fire, but a good sorta fire. I kept waking up my girlfriend and saying, "I can't believe he kissed my hand!" Finally I got up around 5 in the morning and just walked around. I was out of my head. It was really something else.

What are your pastimes?

Well, they aren't much. I really do like horse tracks and spent a lot of my spare time going to them. I also like driving around in the desert. I could do that forever and hopefully some day I will. Horse tracks, bars, the desert, reading, watching movies, seeing bands. That's about enough for me.

What has been the low point of your life?

I've had low points like everyone else. Some lower than others, but I'm still here so I guess I'm doing okay. Really with the lows I just try to forget they ever existed and hope to hell they don't come back.

And the high?

Well, I've had a few. Having a girl like you, actually think you're alright and worth spending time with, that has to be the highest. Other than that meeting the guys in my band, and getting to play for so long with them has been a real lucky break. And of course getting the Motel Life published. I remember when I heard I just couldn't believe it. Part of me kept thinking that they'd change their mind that they'd call the next day and cancel. So for a couple weeks I'd call and ask if they'd change their mind yet. Luckily they never did.

Name something you must do before you cash out.

I've always wanted to buy a place out in the boonies in Nevada, near the border of Oregon. Since I was a kid I have dreamed about that. I hope I can do it someday. Nothing much just a shack that has water, a fire place, and maybe a bathtub.

What are you reading these days?

I've been re-reading James Welch, the great Montana writer. I've always been a big fan of his. I just read a great one called "The Night Buffalo" by Guillermo Arriaga, and also a book by Bohumil Hrabal called "Too Loud a Solitude." I've also been going through a big Walter Macken kick. I love the Irish writers.

And what are you listening to?

Lately I've been on a big Louis Armstrong kick. the Hot 5's and 7's. Also I just picked up the new Richard Buckner record and think it's one of his best. Also South San Gabriel and John Doe's new one. Other than that it's just the same old thing for me. Bing Crosby, Tom Waits, X, Willie Nelson, Calexico.

Thanks, Willy, for breaking from your literary and musical exertions long enough to talk.