Keller Williams Continues to Work Out His Musical ADD
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Recording and touring as a member of one band simply isn't enough for Keller Williams. The Virginia-based musician, who's been called a "one-man jam band," frequently juggles several musical projects -- both solo and with bands -- at once as was the case when we caught up to him by phone in mid-December.
He was at home in Fredericksburg, mixing his next album and preparing for a few weekend gigs and some other shows rounding out the year, each with a different set of musicians.
The forthcoming album is titled Va.P.E., an acronym for "Virginia Psychedelic Excursion," Williams says. He hopes to release it on April 20 or 4/20 to tie into the other meaning of the album's title. "With the name of this and what went into it and the people that listen to this music and like this music, I think it all kind of comes together and makes sense," he says of the title.
Va.P.E. follows Williams's other one-word, one-syllable album titles that include 1994's Freek, 2006's Grass, and 2013's Funk, though he's cheating a little by using an acronym. "It's definitely pushing the envelope a little, but staying with the theme of one syllable," he says. "I like the simplicity of trying to sum up an entire record with one syllable and each one I think has done that. Trying to create more with less has been my goal over the years. Va.P.E., that's the one word that has really been a part of this studio mixing sessions. It was always prominent in that sense of the word 'vape' as well as having a psychedelic excursion, and it was in Virginia. Va.P.E. just resonates from those sessions."
As for the music on the album, "It's a big, thumping chest, sternum-pumping, bass-y kind of beats on the dance tip; with acoustic upright bass and acoustic guitar, with a few guests on the record," he says. Williams also took some liberties on a song he recorded with acclaimed bluegrass combo the Travelin' McCourys. "I made a kind of an acoustic dance music track, in the sense of taking all acoustic instruments, but adding different kinds of beats in the right places and changing it into something very different from what it started as," he explains.
As far as his recent live musical excursions go, Williams's December dates included a few gigs in Keystone, Colorado, the weekend prior to Christmas, which he says is "a fairly new tradition." One of the gigs is billed as Keller and the Andys, featuring Andy Hall on dobro, Andy Thorn on banjo, and Andy Falco on guitar with Williams on bass. "It's just interesting bluegrass," he says. "Some songs that we all know, some songs that we're all learning and hopefully going to put together that afternoon and then we're going to wing the rest of it. That's always exciting, the winging-it part."
The following night Williams got back together with Moseley, Droll, & Sipe, who initially called their 2007 combo WMDS. "Some of the most memorable times in my career was playing that kind of music with this kind of musicians in front of that kind of audience," he says. "It was kind of living out my childhood fantasies. The economy was bad, but the music was a lot better than the actual business around us."
As if that wasn't enough on his plate, Williams was set to play with his six-piece funk band More Than A Little on Dec. 26 in Fredericksburg and Dec. 27 in Philadelphia and Dec. 30 in Chicago, before ringing in the New Year in Chicago with Leftover Salmon. In January, he has three solo shows booked in Fairfield, Conn.; Londonderry, N.H.; and Killington, Vt. before he hooks up once again with More Than A Little mid-month in New York.
While such a schedule might drive some people over the edge, Williams says his musical ADD keeps him entertained. "I'm not a doctor and I've never really been diagnosed with ADD, but I would say that would be a huge part," he says. "Adderall, Ritalin, all that stuff works for me, but for some reason, no one will prescribe it for me, but it's probably for the better."
As Williams explains it, he usually only performs live on the weekends. "Each weekend may create some kind of different scenario and I'll just mentally prepare for it on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so when the weekend comes, I'll be ready," he says. "It keeps it really interesting and I feel really grateful to be able to do that and not stagnate in some style or set list. I really don't want that to happen, so I try to keep it interesting and this is a great way to be able to do that. I surround myself with amazing musicians that allow themselves to be in my world, which kind of baffles me sometimes, but everyone's got to eat."
Throughout his career, Williams has played with various collaborators and dabbled in numerous genres, which has resulted in such albums as 2000's Breathe, his collaboration with the String Cheese Incident which was billed as the Keller Williams Incident; as well as Keys, his 2013 album of Grateful Dead covers played on piano.
One genre Williams has yet to explore is on record is punk; though if you read deep enough into his bio, you'll find that he was once into Black Flag, the Sex Pistols, and the Ramones. So, we just had to ask, is an album titled Punk in his future? "That's a good question," he says. "I can see maybe doing some covers of original punk rock. That involves anger, so I'd have to go out and find something that really pisses me off [to write originals]. I don't think I have the mentality to look for trouble, which I would have to do. I could do it as a writing assignment. I have a couple of things locked and loaded, because that idea has come up -- my surroundings and there's a lot of anger in some regards, but I don't like to mix that with my happy-go-lucky world. But, there could be a bluegrass record of all angry punk songs, done with a bunch of real, angry pissed-off bluegrass players on banjo and mandolins. That's been tossed around, but will people buy it?"
