As we push on into 2017, it isn’t surprising to find Keller Williams hitting the road and playing under multiple musical formats – solo, acoustic dates with Leo Kottke and reuniting with his magnificent 2016 band project KWahtro – that allows him to touch upon his interests in folk, rock, bluegrass, pop, funk and EDM.
In addition, he’s making the bold move of releasing two albums simultaneously. SYNC finds him collaborating in a studio setting with the three other members of KWahtro—Gibb Droll, Rodney Holmes and Danton Boller. Despite the musicians recording their tracks in their separate residences across the United States, KWahtro’s debut album maintains an organic and exciting sensation as if the quartet is playing together in one room.
Originally, he wanted the music to reflect the acoustic dance sounds of their concerts but it “morphed into a type of acoustic acid jazz that draws on imagery in both the lyrics and the music.” The release also includes special guests Mike Dillon and The Accidentals.
As if one album release wasn’t enough for 2017, Keller’s first all solo acoustic album, RAW, will also be released in January of 2017. Keller started working on RAW in 2011, but got sidetracked by a number of other projects that began to take form.
Inspired by Leo Kottke during their Shut the Folk Up and Listen dates last year, Keller returned to his earliest roots when it was just one man, one guitar, no loops, no bandmates and just inventive acoustic musicianship and catchy songs.
JPG: I reviewed the KWahtro show for Relix. After seeing all your different band projects that one’s my favorite. We’re going to get back to that but first since you’re about to do some more dates with Leo Kottke. I don’t think we discussed him in the past but listening to his playing and then yours, particularly on the new solo acoustic album RAW, I can see the influence. Which brings up this, tell me what it is like to hear and perform with him each night?
KW: It is like no other inspiration I have ever gotten in any kind of co-bill or anything. The quick answer is sure positive outlook on what I could possibly do with my career. Watching him and how he operates and how he travels and how simple he keeps it is not only an inspiration in life but also in music and personality.
This concept of he and I touring together has been around since the early 2000s but he’s always been adamant about wanting to play first and not wanting to play second. And I always had a real problem with that. It seems disrespectful for me to go second. That was the mentality in the early 2000s. It took that long to come around and be okay with it. I understand now. He wants to sit down and talk and play and then he wants to stretch and then he wants to leave. (laughs) And I totally get that. After he’s been doing it as long as he has he’s entitled to that.
He doesn’t use any monitors. So, the first couple shows that we did, I use in-ear monitors. I have these little headphones that go to a wireless belt pack. Then, that goes to a transmitter and the monitor board. I can hear every single thing that he’s doing. I’m offstage during his set with my headphones in listening to everything that he’s doing – his voice and his guitar. People backstage are talking to me and trying to carry on a conversation with me but I have to shush them because when he’s onstage I want to hear every single note and song that he played and every story and every deviation that that story takes. Usually during that time I should be warming up. I should be playing. I should be getting my fingers ready. I should be tuning guitars…but I’m definitely right there listening.
The weekend before we did, my cases didn’t show up with my pre-amps and my in-ear monitors. Nothing. I just had a monitor wedge. What I did was I put a little monitor wedge offstage because I didn’t have my in-ears. That really opened up my whole world to something completely different. When I’m solo with no looping or no other humans, and it’s just me and a guitar and the room and the speakers filling the room, without in-ear monitors—I’ve been using them for so long, there’s nothing we have to play along to—it opened up a whole new world for me and I’m real excited to approach this project with no in-ears at all and just listening to the room and listening to people sing.
When Leo and I play together, I’m totally in on his sonic level because he’s not using monitors. What we do is he plays his set. We play at the end of his set. He’s first and then he’ll say, “The show’s now over. This is the encore.” Then, he brings me out and we play three songs together. Then, there’s an intermission and then I do my set. Playing with him without monitors was a little bit frightening but it makes perfect sense when people actually shut the folk up and listen (laughs)
JPG: How did you come up with the name of the tour?
KW: Shut the Folk Up and Listen was a concept that my wife and I came up with. Leo Kottke has that dry sense of humor and he’s not super-artistically uptight. And he’s funny. He liked the dryness of it.
I’m used to playing places without seats. When you play a place with seats and people are used to seeing you without them a lot of people can be social and chatty in that kind of theater environment. Playing with Leo brings in that crowd that’s used to being totally quiet; mixing the two, that’s where the name came, kind of stay on that path for a night at the theater.
JPG: That brings us to a nice segue to talk about RAW. Like your dates with Leo, it’s going back to your roots type of album. In hindsight all those years ago when you first started and played solo acoustic in coffeehouses and small places like that did you learn anything that you use today?
KW: Yeah, absolutely. It was the simplicity of trying to create a dance vibe with just a guitar, pre-looping, pre-everything. Just trying to kick a beat with my right hand as I’m playing to the point where it can translate into at least a head bob. That’s kind of what I was going with at these places where there’s music in the corner and it’s not meant to be paid attention to. I was there for ambience and atmosphere. People weren’t necessarily coming to see music. So, people weren’t paying attention to me. I didn’t pay attention to them and I was able to hone what I was going for.
Also, at those types of places whenever the song stops and there’d be no applause, no anything like that, that taught me to string everything together so there was no awkward silence. (laughs) I took that and ran with it, too. The list could go on, man. I could go probably come up with all kinds of things I took from that – hours and hours of entertaining myself in the corner.
JPG: Well, at least you had that. As far as RAW, you started it in 2011. There was a version that you completed in 2012 but scrapped it.
KW: Yeah, the whole record, the idea was 12 songs on 12 different guitars. That was the idea. At the end there were three songs that I liked out of the 12. So, it was the concept and I ran with it but what I did was I took those three songs that I liked and moved them over to this record. Then, I recorded seven other songs.
On the SYNC record “Missing Remote” was on three different records that I scrapped – the Travelin’ McCourys record, the Bass record as well as that solo 2011 record. I think that’s kind of off topic there.
JPG: That’s okay. It connects with everything here. Anything goes. You’re in a safe place…to talk. By the way, thanks for the shout out to Relix in “Missing Remote.”
KW: My pleasure.
JPG: Speaking of lines in a song. After all these years listening to you this particular one in “Short Ballad of Camp Zoe,” may be my favorite one ever — “The DEA and the IRS, FBI and the ATF they all carpooled one day to the show.” Maybe it’s the visual of all those federal agents stuffed together in cars. It’s such an Arlo Guthrie type of thing.
KW: Yeah. (laughs) Do you know about that whole debacle? That was a huge sting that went down. The band The Schwag, I think they were out of St. Louis. The main guy, the bass player, Jimmy Tebeau. They were a real deal Grateful Dead cover band. They bought this old summer camp down in central, southern Missouri. A lot of the old folks went to camp there when they were little. They bought this thing and started having four festivals a year. They called it Schwagstock, these little camping festivals the bands would play and have other bands. It grew into this big huge utopian thing, possibly ungoverned. I played it a bunch of times but I think it was a glorious place. I think String Cheese took it over one year.
Long story short, just a looong sting operation on all fronts came in and took the place down and took Jimmy with it. Jimmy did time but everything’s clear now. Jimmy went on to play bass with Melvin Seals and JGB for awhile (and is with The Schwag playing dates now). There was a lot of really good times there.
That song went down really quick. Luckily, it just made it into the 90-second mark, which allows me to put it on iTunes. (laughs) I don’t think you’re allowed to put anything under a certain time frame on iTunes. So, when you say “Short Ballad of Camp Zoe” that’s what it is.
JPG: Speaking of time frames, I noticed that RAW is a little over 34 minutes and SYNC is 39 minutes. Your previous albums usually run in the 49-60 minute range. Were these two albums shorter due to creative reasons or because you released them on vinyl and they would fit on one LP rather than two
KW: That’s right. I usually like to go at least an hour but the way things are these days, the way my songwriting is becoming, it’s hard to stay the course when you know that a record is gonna get chopped up and individually sold as tracks. Maybe it’s the fast shot mentality of quick thinking, moving around, jumping around, once you get an hour into a record these days, for me personally, I start thinking about other music.
It’s kind of like going along with the times and not trying to use filler, not trying to put something on a record just to make it an hour, not trying to put something on a record just to have 10 songs or lengthen songs to try to them longer. It’s just this is what I’m doing right now.
And yeah, the vinyl thing definitely played a part in the SYNC record—four songs per side—and how I was perceiving side one and side two. That stopped at eight to make it even like that. That was a little a bit of my romantic side of trying to stay the course. Even that, I’m just happy that that music is out there. Even if it’s get played a track at a time on a cellphone speaker, hopefully, that’s put into a porcelain coffee cup to get the bass.
JPG: Soundwise, I know what you mean. I still hate the sound of mp3 files. On a complete side note to a fellow Deadhead, let me bring this up and see what you think. Most people didn’t like the “Dylan & the Dead.” I always wondered if it would have been a double album with “Joey” starting off side three if it would have worked a lot better than it did and got a better reaction.
KW: (pauses) You know, that album is a tricky one, man. The whole later Dylan world is really an acquired taste that’s hard to dig into and comment on as far as that goes.
JPG: I’ll let you contemplate that and someday when we talk again you can let me know what you think.
KW: Okay. That’ll be my assignment.
*JPG: Now SYNC, I saw the show in Cleveland and was impressed. Based on that, I was hoping that a live album from one gig or a compilation from a bunch of dates, similar to what you did with Keith Moseley, Gibb Droll and Jeff Sipe, would have resulted. Why did you go with a studio representation instead?
KW: I, 100 per cent, did that. We record every show. Every show is on like a flash drive on this TASCAM handheld. (pauses) Danton Boller, Rodney Holmes, Gibb Droll, these guys have done a lot of records. They played with a lot of people. Two of those three, by hanging out with them and listening to stuff; they would have never signed off on some of these versions that I compiled.
The way it should have been done was all the shows should have been multi-tracked. When you’re a sensitive artist and some of these guys are sensitive artists, it’s really important to maintain perfection. I just know…that was the idea in the get-go was to multi-track as much as we could and to do what I did with Moseley, Droll and Sipe, and that’s to put together a real live thing.
It’s a very open free mentality as far as the band goes. There’s definitely arrangements but everything gets played somewhat different every night. We’re all on in-ears. I can talk to them and them only. We can change on a dime. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. The versions that I chose, some of them I tried to find something that wasn’t on the record, like stuff that was on other records but playing them live with this band. I’m not saying that it’ll never see the light of day. I think it will but I’m just waiting for time to pass a little bit and let this record sink in.
What it comes down to it, they’ve done so many records. Rodney Holmes has a studio in his house. He gets tracks from all over the world. He is a renowned drummer. You can send him your ideas and he’ll send out a drum track over top. Danton Boller has this amazing little studio with several basses and all kinds of microphones. He’s savvy. Gibb Droll is a producer. He’s no stranger to the studio.
Instead of going through just painful personality type of arguments on trying to get people to settle for these takes that they just know they can do better, I’m like, “Why don’t I just do my tracks and send ‘em to you? You take your time, in your own space in your own time. You send it off to the bass player, Danton, and he’ll do the same thing.” I was like, “This is gonna be great! Everyone’s gonna do their own thing.” I figured we could knock this out in six weeks. But I forgot that I told them, “Take your time.” The project took about eight months. I got my tracks done in three days. I was super-excited. I was really happy with them. Then, it started from there. The drums were done in three-and-a-half months. (slight laugh) The bass was done in two months. Then, there were the schedules of actually getting Gibb into a studio because he was working with Brandi Carlile and Bruce Hornsby, two incredibly touring acts. He was bouncing back from bus-to-bus on different tours; getting him in, which I’m glad I did, he really took his time for a few days.
So, there we are. The record is finally finished. It’s right when we wanted to release, obviously. We wanted folks like you to process it. Take time with it.
Then, this Leo thing came around. So, both records kind of lined up and became a double release. That’s how that happened.
JPG: Well, it’s amazing that SYNC sounds like four guys in a room despite the recording process.
KW: I’m really grateful you said that. That is something that appeared to me as well; that it does sound like we’re in the same room at the same time. And all with the exception of “Watchoowantgurl” these were songs that we were playing onstage and got comfortable with. So, it flowed pretty easily for the guys in the studio, especially as I did all my stuff to a click, and Rodney Holmes is an incredible metronome. That’s where it started. And the bass easily dropped in. The upright bass is so difficult to …the electric bass, you plug in. These are all microphones on that thing. It’s just amazing.
JPG: I describe Rodney as a human 808.
KW: Yes. Yes.
JPG: That’s why I’m still holding out hope that some of the live material sees the light of day because as successful as the studio versions work in what you describe as “acoustic acid jazz,” the stage versions have the acoustic elements as well as very pronounced dance rhythms to them. Now, Mike Dillon contributed to “SYNC” as well as The Accidentals. I saw the trio open the first of three dates for you in Cleveland. How did that happen?
KW: That’s right. The KWahtro started as a trio with Rob Wasserman and Rodney and I. Then Rob split off to do his thing. Then, we lost him last summer. The idea was to do a 100-minute headlining set and to abandon the whole two-set show and to bring in wonderful people that we like.
I guess it started as a demo video that I got pitched by The Accidentals to do shows. I was really impressed with how interesting this act was and how versatile, and I thought it was a right fit. They turned out to be these super, positive, young and hungry, sober, awesome people.
JPG: As a final thing, from someone who is getting over a cold to someone who travels a lot and stays at hotels and deals with all kinds of different situations while touring, how do you stay healthy?
KW: Well, the first thing I did was I switched all smoke to vape. (laughs) That was step one. That immediately improves everything. I was a smoker for a loooong time. Then, it took a long time to be totally completely off all smoke. It did wonders for everything. Granted, there’s those few flower moments with old friends but it’s pretty much way different.
Vocally, step number two, I’ve always let the microphone do the work and not project the way that my sound engineer wants me to…ever. That helps the strain of the timbre of my voice as well as just keeping it.
Then, I try to build my defense system in my body by usually only eating processed meats and cheeses. (Laughs) That seems to build my immunity and for some reason I rarely get sick. I’m definitely not one to take advice from because it doesn’t work for everybody. I definitely keep an eye on my numbers. My blood pressure was a real problem for a long time and I just got that to a wonderful range that I’m very happy with. Along the way I got allergic to something and it puffed up my fingers and my hands and it sent me into a pretty heavy survival mental state these past 10 days. Today, I’m very positive because today’s the first day in a long time that I’m being able to make a fist. Usually by night time, I’ve gotten through five, six sets of music since this has happened. Today is a positive special day because I’m able to make a fist before noon, which is really great.
JPG: Oh, wow. I hope it’s not carpal tunnel…
KW: I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, a lot of specialists. I’ve had biopsies. We don’t have to get into it…it could be a carpal tunnel thing. It could very well be that. That’s totally normal for someone that uses the hands as much as I do, and I’ve made some mental breakthroughs the past couple days because you go through your adult life playing guitar every day and then all of a sudden you can’t, it’s gonna do things to your psyche. I’m think I’m gonna be alright. That’s why I’m wreaking positiveness into your earhole right now.
JPG: Well, thank you very much.
