For years, actor Billy Bob Thornton was approached by various parties looking to convince him to write a certain kind of memoir. But he had no real interest in writing an autobiography, let alone one that might rate as People’s juiciest.

However, as Thornton explained last night on Tavis Smiley, another rascally son of the American South finally convinced him to give the book-writing game a try. As a result, there is this month’s new release The Billy Bob Tapes: A Cave Full of Ghosts:

“People have asked me for years to do it. But they want some gossipy celebrity book and I just wouldn’t do it. But [co-author] Kinky [Friedman] said, ‘Hey, why don’t you tell some of those funny stories about growing up and then give you a couple of chapters to gripe about how our society is crumbling, and, you know, we’ll go from there.’”

With this interview, Smiley once again reminds that he is the west coast’s equivalent to Charlie Rose. A smart, unhurried and engaged one-on-one conversationalist who remains genuinely curious about life’s more complicated issues. To watch the rest of the interview, which includes Thornton’s great takes on TMZ and reality TV, click here.