Hank Williams III, like Lisa Marie Presley and those fuzzy little babies allegedly spawned by Michael Jackson, is musical royalty by virtue of his birth alone. Yet unlike the others, he possesses musical talent. Well, maybe the Baby Jacksons do, too—time will tell. But not Lisa Marie. No fucking way.
In a recent sold-out performance at Dante’s, he blew through an exhilarating honky-tonk set that shamed most of the high-sheen twang-monkeys currently churned out by Nashville’s sausage-makers. Then he took off the cowboy hat, let his hair down, and metamorphosed into an eardrum-pummeling metal machine called Assjack.
Turns out he’s also a fan of mine and still has his collection of ANSWER Me! issues from back in the day. We sat in the back of his tour bus along with his pet Dobie, puffing on “green crack” and talking about things dear to our low-rent Caucasian hearts.JIM GOAD: Do you look at a lot of porn?
HANK WILLIAMS III: Into massive amounts of porn, definitely.
What kind? What’s the specialty?
Ahhhh…I guess for me…group sex. I guess my ideal, it goes back to when I was eight years old, I was molested by somebody in my family that molested my mother and my uncle—everybody—and I never said anything about it. You know, I dealt with it myself until after the dude was in the ground, I got a little older and I heard some stories, and I was like, "Huh—interesting." But going back to being exposed at, you know, "Here, look at this, let me get your dick hard" when you’re a young kid and shit like that, so I got exposed to porn at a very young age, and "Hey, why don’t you do this to your cousin?" who was a girl, and he’d try to send me on missions and stuff. So it always played a role as far as I guess the masturbation thing kinda stuck around a little bit. So I’ve been around. You know, I’ve shot a few myself.
You’ve shot some porn?
Yeah, you know, it never got released.
Which side of the camera?
Both sides. I’ve done both sides. On both angles. It’s more of a tri-state, southern Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia thing. You know, I’m pretty into that for now. Almost got to be in an official non-porn movie that Ron Jeremy was wantin’ to do about some country shit. You know, in like the hills of North Carolina.
Like a documentary?
No, a real movie, man. And he had the funding all ready to go. This was probably about five years ago. Had the funding, had the script, and was very serious about it, so I’ve gotten to shoot the shit with one of the kings of porn the last six or seven years, man. You know, he’s a workaholic in reality. He wants to be an actor.
So do you actually own these tapes that you made?
That I made?
Yeah.
I do own them, and they’ve only surfaced through one swingers’ website that I’m on. So that’s the only way it’s kinda out there.
Do you find that exciting? ’Cause in my case, I finally got a cell-phone camera and started takin’ pictures of my dick and sendin’ it out to chicks. It’s a real rush. I’m not exactly proud, but like, it was kind of a thrill.
[laughs] Definitely.
You got off on just—
—Somethin’ about bein’—you know, even when I was a young kid on the road, besides the shit that was happenin’ to me on the fuckin’ farm, when I’d go on the road, I’m seein’ this guy gettin’ his dick sucked in the hallway, I’m seein’ this guy fuck a chick in the back of the bus at the same time, and it just all kind of—yeah, it goes back to that kind of a rush feelin’, but yet I’m comfortable in that environment also.
I remember back in Mardi Gras in ’87, my wife took a picture of me nude, and I’m like, ‘There’s no fuckin’ way I’m ever showing this to anyone.’ I guess it was a bad angle or something. Then a girlfriend like a year ago insisted on takin’ a picture and when she did, I’m like, "Ahh! Yeah, all right!"
[laughs] Yeah! Once you get some certain angles, it’s more rockin’, man. It’s kinda forever endless.
I know my kinks are like a big bush, like Jimi Hendrix down there. And fucked-up grilles.
Oh yeah?
A missing tooth or—not rotten teeth—but like, braces or a missing tooth? Yeah. I’m all about it.
Well, there’s one in Florida that would drop you to your knees, man. She is GORGEOUS! But when she smiles? She’s got at least one or two missin’ right there. But she’s fuckin’ hot as fuck! You wouldn’t expect it.
Somebody sent me a postcard of an ad for Russ Meyer’s SUPERVIXENS in the joint. I put it up on my wall and I’m like, "Ehh…" I blacked out one tooth, and it was on. That was jack fodder for about a year.
[laughs] Right. Yeah, man, that’s funny.
Do you like eatin’ pussy?
If that machine is clean. It goes back to the old sayin’, you know. I’ve been pretty lucky, you know, no warts or shit like that on the tongue or eyes or, you know. I’ve had one pretty serious infection that got up in my nose and it looked like a clown nose. And that’s what it had to be from—I know which girl it was, too, man. And they had to cut it and squeeze it and drain it...What kind of infection was it?
My doc was like, since I had my old lady with me, I don’t think he officially said. He just said, “You got some really bad, fucked-up fungus up in there, man.” And I was like, “I know what it is.” ’Cause it happened like, started off kinda small, and within four days after bein’ with that girl, I couldn’t even put on a T-shirt. The shirt just barely touched my nose, and I was like, “AGGH!” I felt like somebody was stabbin’ me. So that was the weirdest sexually transmitted disease I’ve gotten, and it’s a little mysterious, whatever it was. Some uncleanliness thing goin’ on, I guess.
What’s the oddest proposition a groupie’s ever made?
Ahh, well, I would have to say, it wasn’t a groupie, but it was a promoter and his wife. So, after the show—”Why don’t y’all come up to the house and fuck my wife?” “Are you sure?” “Yeah, come on, everybody!”
Run a train on his wife?
We went up there, and I had like a sixty-five-year-old fiddle player with me at the time, man. I said, “Vernon, c’mon, man, you gotta check this crazy shit out.” He was like, “What are we doin’?” I said, “It’s a surprise, just come on up to the house.” So we all, like eight of us walk in there, and he pours us drinks and then goes back and he’s like, “Who wants her?” My drummer said, “I’ll take her!” He starts off, goes and takes all her fuckin’ clothes off, and then the next thing you know, she’s doin’, like every hole’s filled, and I’m lookin’ over at Vernon, and I’m like, “What do you think, Vernon?” And he’s, “Ahh, I don’t want none of that. I can’t even look at any of that.” But that was pretty fuckin’ weird, havin’ somebody book us, and then after the show, bring us to their house, and everybody fucks his wife. And then one of the sons walks in toward the end of it—
—How old are we talkin’ about? Teenage?
Yeah. Old enough to know what the fuck’s goin’ on, man. And when he walked in, we all started laughin’ and freakin’, and we all just hauled ass back to the bus and left. And it was the same town that Johnny Paycheck shot somebody. It was the last town where he shot somebody. Somewhere in Ohio.
The LAST town where he shot somebody?
Yeah. I’m not tryin’ to name names, but goddamn, that’s like the biggest beyond-groupie kinda thing—
—You ever see the video where some chick sends Steve Vai—
[laughs] Yeah. The pussy farts.
You ever get any shit like that?
No.
Pictures?
Lotta pictures. Get some pictures. We got a nice little “Hellbilly Honey” calendar goin’ on. It’s not X-rated or anything, but it’s comin’ along. It might get a little bit more interesting, because I’ve been kind of taken for the last six years—to a point, you know? Bein’ as good as I can.
Actually, when I hung out with Jesco [White, "The Dancing Outlaw"], we went over into Vulcan, West Virginia, a place where they raise hundreds of roosters with their little fuckin’ tents and shit, like they raise them for fighting. We went into a trailer where they were breeding chickens, and they had a Rebel flag with a picture of your dad.
Oh, yeah.
Somethin’ about, like, “Oh, how it would have been if we had won.”
“If the South woulda won, we’d have had it made.” That’s it, man.
So what’s the deal with your dad?
Nowadays?
Hank’s like a, Hank Sr.’s just, I mean, a god, but [your dad] doesn’t get nearly the respect. I hear a lot of people talk like, “Oh, he’s like his grandfather."
Who—Jr.?
No, you.
Yeah, but you’re goin’ and sayin’ how Jr. didn’t get the respect.
Not from the—I mean, you appeal to a kind of a hipster element.
I guess. But no matter what, man, back in ’85, that Hank Ruger emblem was every-fuckin’-where. I mean, all of the keg parties in the South and all of that crazy drinkin’ and bikers and, you know, people can say, “Hank Jr. this and that,” but no matter what, man, he carved a huge fuckin’ niche. He’s released over seventy-four fuckin’ records. Forced into the business. Did his fuckin’ thing. Even though me and him don’t get along and I talk shit about him, I still praise what he’s done, man.
Well, even GG Allin did [Hank Jr.’s song] “Family Tradition.”
Yes. And my dad could never understand people like that at all. Jr. got a piece of Jesco’s artwork once and sure enough I’m like, “Do you still have that?” “Hell, no.” He don’t know how priceless little things like that are, man, but he carved a niche, and he did a LOT, man. And me, I think I’m more unpure, you know? Hank Williams Sr. sang about the light, and I sing about the dark. And more the bad than the good.
Was “I Saw the Light” a Hank Sr. song? He wrote that?
Yes. For real.
[I was in] Jolo, West Virginia, [at a] snake-handling church—they did like a twenty-five minute version of that. It was like the greatest live music experience I’ve ever seen in my life.
Wow.
The pastor looked like Timothy Leary.
Whew! [taps his head] That’s just in here, huh? Is that on tape anywhere, or is that just in your brain?
It’s just in my brain, yeah. I wonder if they’re still doin’ it. This was back like in ’97 on that little Jesco tour I took....What about black chicks?
Uhh, never been there, but I’ve never been asked, either. [Phil] Anselmo [ex-singer of Pantera and bandmate of Hank III in Superjoint Ritual], for instance, he’s fucked over five thousand chicks, man, and he’s like, [imitates Anselmo’s gravelly voice] “The best is that black fuckin’ pussy.” And that probably goes back to that he’s hung like a fuckin’—
—Yeah, he’s legendary.
Yeah, he’s hung like a fuckin’ full-on big-dick black motherfucker, man, you know, so those gals are kinda used to catering to that size, you know. Pussy—it all depends on how good they are in the end, but I would never turn it down if it was there and I was feelin’ right and I had a little bit of whiskey dick goin’ on, I might go down there, but my biggest thing is Asian.
You like Asian?
Asian owns my heart.
I’ve been with a handful of black chicks. Wildly attracted to Asian chicks. Never had the opportunity.
I had a dream come true in Japan.
Oh, man.
Fuckin’ one of the assistants workin’ the club. My manager was like, “Well, are you doin’ anything tonight?” She’s like, “No”—she could speak English, too—and he was like, “[Hank’s] pretty bored if you wanna take him out.” “Ah, really?” That’s the only girl who’s ever like, took me out on the town, got drunk, went back to the room, fucked my brains out and then two minutes later, she’s like, “All right, good to see you!”
Oh, how perfect is that?
But I was like, “Wait, hold on, don’t fuckin’ leave!” For me, I was just like, “Hold on a minute!” and she was like, “Nope. See you later.” Boom! Pow! And I was like, “Well, at least I got to fuckin’ try the real deal.”
See, I remember a chick once, she was like, “I wanna suck your dick and go home,” and I’m like, “Where you been all my life?” It was perfect.
[laughs] Right….yeah, I know, man.
Who needs the pillow talk?
I know it, man. But that was back in like ’94, I guess. Hopefully I’ll get to make it back there soon.
Do you ever get static for the Rebel flag stuff?
Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s—OK, here’s how I gotta look at it. I’ve already told you about how I look on the race issues. No matter what, hate is hate. You respect where you’re from—period. And that’s the way I look at it, man. You respect where you’re from, all right? Hank Williams [Sr.] got taught his shit from a black guy. I mean, that was the gift from them to him, to our blood, our bloodline, or whatever, man. So as much as I am flyin’ the flag for the South—you know, I’m forty miles from where the Klan was fuckin’ originated.
Where do you live—in Tennessee?
Yeah.
Pulaski?
Yeah, outside of Pulaski, man. And you know, so I get shit about it. I’ve done my time because of being around skinheads. Even though I’ve never officially had a shaved head, but bein’ around ‘em, I got classified real quick. And I like that style of music, man. If it’s SHARP skins or racial skins, they have an energy in their music that is somethin’ that I feel. And, you know—am I racist? I would have to say yes, I am.
[laughs] You’re the only person in the world I’ve ever heard say that. Everybody else is, “Well, no, not really, it depends on how you define it.” The way I look at it, it’s like, yeah, I’m not ashamed of who I am. Am I a white supremacist? No. In my experience, Asians and Jews are more intelligent. Where does that fit me in? I don’t believe in equality, but I don’t believe in white supremacy, and I don’t hate who I am.
Right, and that’s where sittin’. Yes, I am racist, but yes, I do support this camp, and this camp, and this camp that’s all fightin’ for where they’re from. And that’s it, man.
[Your dog] got a little relaxed there. I think he just farted.
Aww. You know, I have a black guy out on this tour, I have a guy from Vancouver whose skin isn’t white, but I don’t look at it like that. I’m just lookin’ at the whole picture, you know? And the band that I listen to that throw the race issues—KILL WHITE BOYS, and stuff like that—well, I take my hat off to them for havin’ that much balls and goin’ for it and doin’ that thing, man. Today it’s cool to hate the white man finally, you know it’s come up to fuck whitey, his time has come to beat that motherfucker down in the ground, you know? And here soon, the Mexicans are gonna be beatin’ everybody in the fuckin’ ground, dude. You know, it’s all where you come from, you know?
The only experience I’ve ever had with a hooker was in 2001, we did this thing called the Angry White Male Tour. W played at the Bunnyranch in Reno and we got free passes. So I picked a 19-year-old chick from Compton—did her with my Confederate soldier hat on.
[laughs] That’s funny man. Compton—we weere close to there a couple days ago, but we didn’t roll through it. But I get a kick out of it…can’t make everybody happy, you know? It’s not like I’m out sayin’ “White Power” everywhere I fuckin’ go, you know? But I’ve gotten shit for it onstage, man, and that’s just one of them things. I’m from the South, and I’ve had my truck full of pissed-off motherfuckers before.
Do you think Southern chicks are different in bed?
Ahhhhhh—maybe a little bit, I don’t know. I guess the sounds.
The sounds?
The sounds. Pronunciation.
Ahh, yeah.
“Fuck me hahda, fuck me hahda,” if you’re up in Boston or somewhere, opposed to a girl from the South, full-on from the South, “Ahhll cunnntryfied.”
Not more eager to please?
Yeah, some of them, yeah, it depends, I guess, man. But I would just say maybe on the accents. If she knows how to fuck, she knows how to fuck.