Ben Dickey: The Man Who Would Be Blaze

To see Ben Dickey at all is to spot him from a country mile away. The 41-year-old musician is milling about something called the Gibson Showroom in Austin, a sort of multi-purpose space decorated in vigorous 21st-century guitar chic, and clocking in well over six feet tall, the Little Rock, Arkansas, native dominates whatever square footage he is in. The dude is big, and a little husky. But you wouldnt call him intimidating. In fact, when you watch Dickey in Blaze, Ethan Hawkes semi-biopic about singer-songwriter Blaze Foley (it opened in Austin on August 17th, and starts going into wide release in September) one of the first things you notice about him is a sort of sheepish, yards-wide smile. Granted, that grin can become a sad-clown grimace as life breaks the late, great Foley down; theres a reason that Lucinda Williams was compelled to write the heartbreaking Drunken Angel about this legendary beautiful loser. But in person, the man who would be Blaze seems like a guy upon whom life would be hard pressed to leave a scratch.

Lets head into the back, Dickey says, gesturing to some couches as Hawke takes a call from his mother, a camera crew sets up and several publicists zip around. Much easier to hear.

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A running buddy of Townes Van Zandt (and like Dickey, a native of Arkansas), Foley was a skilled, if troubled, songwriter who cut one album a self-titled 1984 LP in his lifetime. Something of a legend in his community, he was shot to death in 1989 after an altercation involving the son of a friend. His craft inspired songs from fellow troubadours like Williams, Van Zandt (Blazes Blues) as well as four tribute albums and numerous covers notably Merle Haggards elegiac version of If I Could Only Fly.

Its a difficult role and Dickey is in virtually every scene of the emotionally complicated picture, playing Foley as an optimistic young man in the 1970s and an increasingly drug-and-drink-addled artist in the 1980s. But the first-time actor does a savvy, emotionally detailed job and he seemed awfully comfortable with the music bits, thanks to the fact that this self-describedspelunker, a music history buff has been kicking around the American musical underground in various outfits for the last 20 years.

I was surrounded by music as a kid, he says. My grandfather had a Gibson L30 from the depression era. And when he got sick in 1987, when I was 10 years, he used to always let me play the guitar supervised. He gave it to me about eight months before he passed away, and I took it really seriously, I was like, This is my granddads guitar, so I just took it upon myself to start learning how to play songs. Various record collections from relatives filled out his informal musical education: I had a huge library of [records] at my disposal, and I considered it very crucial to who I was.

In high school, in the middle of a solid arts local scene, Dickey discovered punk and started sneaking into shows, though he admits he was never much of a hardcore kid. Mosh pits were less interesting than what was happening on stage, he admits. I was never a hardcore kid, but the energy of the community made sense to me. Then when he was 17 or 18, Dickey saw Fugazi in Oxford, Mississippi, and I saw this enormous power emanating out of peaceful creatures. It wasnt snarling for the sake of snarling. I was like, Wow, thats really what I want to do.'

Soon, he and some pals started the post-hardcore act Shake Ray Tubine in 1995. Clay Simmons the other guitar player and I wrote songs, wed present them to the other guys in the band and they would turn into something else, Dickey says. Were searching together and finding things and I got addicted to the process. The band cranked out a solid LP The Sauce of Solution in 1997, played their final Arkansas show with Fugazi in 1998 and soon decamped for Philadelphia, where the band dissolved in 2000.

Once in the city of brotherly love, Dickey ran a trio called Amen Booze Roster that disintegrated quickly; his classic rock urges found stronger purchase in the group Blood Feathers. (The Kinks, the Beatles and the Stones, Dickey says, by way of explaining the bands sound.) They made three albums, one of which remains unreleased, of complicated pop rock starting around 2005. It was during the Blood Feathers era that he first head Foleys Clay Pigeons, covered by John Prine on his album Fair & Square. It was a revelation.

I was like, How did I miss this?,' Dickey says. He began digging online and elsewhere for Blazes music. Hes got a line on the song For Anything Less thats like, Dont try to change me, I cant even change myself. I know, Ive tried. How did this not grip hold of that whole scene? How do we not know this guy?!

And roughly around the same time, Dickey ended up becoming pals with Hawke, who was married to Ryan Shawhughes, the best friend of the singers girlfriend. Hes from Texas, Im from Arkansas, were both kids of divorce and we both had to go back and forth between our parents thing, Dickey says, We both loved Southern culture and rock and roll and movies. Over the next eight or nine years, the two men would bond over their mutual interest in Foleys work. Dickey even helped out Hawke by being a glorified extra in the actor-directors 2006 movie The Hottest State (He said to me and my sweetie, Hey, would you guys be the kissing couple in this scene?'). But he wasnt particularly interested in acting, and Dickey eventually decamped for Louisiana in 2014, intending to give music his full attention.

Then, on a dime, New Years Eve 2015, he says with a laugh. Its like Ethan got possessed [with Blaze]. He may have been percolating on it, but he didnt let on that he was. To hear Hawke tell the story, Dickey had been staying with at the actors house and sleeping on his couch when, late one evening, the singer picked up a guitar and starting reciting the stage banter banter from Foleys posthumous concert Live at the Austin Outhouse. Suddenly, the concept of doing a Blaze biopic, an idea hed been toying with for a while, didnt seem so far-fetched anymore. I said, Itd be a lot of work....Would you do it? Would you take acting lessons? Would you go down that rabbit hole? Hawke says. He replied, Fuck, yeah. The electricity went through my back.

I got involved in this to stand up for Blaze Foley, Dickey says. He told Hawke he would be happy to do the music. Hawke wanted more: He said, I know I have to do this and I know you have to do this.

Complicating matters was Dickeys roots/indie 2016 solo album, Sexy Birds & Salt Water Classics, which he had recorded piecemeal over the preceding years. I was preparing to tour, he says, and Ethan was like, Look, we can do this and we can start shooting in 10 weeks. If you want to do it, the preparations gonna be serious. So, I had to dam up my own songwriting and turn towards toward Blaze.

He began studying Foley music with laser-like focus, especially the late artists singular playing and singing. That loping three-fingered style with his voice rolling over it it isnt that easy, Dickey says. And I wanted to represent that to a T. He also began studying acting with Vincent DOnofrio, who teaches on the side. Vincent helped me chop out all my overthinking. The basic rule is: I dont have permission to think. You have permission to flatly ingest that words that youre supposed to say, and use your mind and your imagination to understand what the directors asking and then go breathe in front of a camera.

Dickey also bonded quickly with both Sybil Rosen, Foleys ex-partner and the author of Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley, the 2008 memoir that Hawkes movie is largely based on, and the actor Alia Shawkat, who plays Rosen in the movie. I was listening to Blaze talk, he says. He has such a particular way of talking, and I wanted to represent that but not do an impersonation. And Sybil said, Be yourself and thats Blaze. And Alia wildly generous to somebody that was as green as I was.

After shooting wrapped, Dickey got to work on his next album, which his costar Charlie Sexton (he plays Townes Van Zandt) produced. And hes the first to admit that embodying Foley and studying his work changed his own songwriting in a big way.

About 20 years ago, I went through a period of only listening to Mississippi John Hurt, Dickey says, Just that simple boom-boom, boom-boom, that two-step loping blues. Once I went deep into Blazes stuff and we started filming, the more I started getting into that lope, into how much you can do with so little. It recalibrated a bunch of my tendencies. I mustve written 25 songs in two weeks. Its like theres been a secret revealed to me.

In December 2017, Dickey recorded nine of those songs (and a Foley cover) with Sexton at Austins Arlyn studios; according to him, the album, A Glimmer on the Onskirts, is about hope in any form from, Hey, lunch is in 10 minutes to The house is on fire and someones bringing water.' (He also recently shot a Western called The Kid, which was directed by DOnfrio and stars Hawke and Chris Pratt.)

I keep thinking about the lone, roving fixer, Dickeys says. The Eastwood character that comes roving in to bring justice, and Blaze having those ideologies of Just theres hope coming, its out there, on the outskirts.'

Additional reporting by Patrick Doyle.