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KELLER WILLIAMS Biography 2008
Keller Williams has built a career on his uncanny ability to captivate a packed house—all by himself. He’s been called a “one-man band.” A “solo cult-hero.” “Music’s mad-scientist.” All of which are clever labels for what seems to be an essential truth: On stage, Keller Williams works alone. So why now, after fifteen-years as a solo artist, is he releasing a live album—simply titled, Live—with three other names on the cover? Turns out that since he first picked up a guitar, this troubadour has wanted to front a band. “When I started, I could barely afford to pay myself, let alone three other guys,” Keller says of his dive bar days. “Then later, the solo show was going so well, it was like, if it ain’t broken . . .”
But when you see a chance to tap the world-class talent of Keith Moseley (bass – The String Cheese Incident), Gibb Droll (guitar – Marc Broussard, Brandi Carlile), and Jeff Sipe (drums – Aquarium Rescue Unit, Leftover Salmon), you don’t wait for things to break. You get the players on stage, count to four, and let ‘em rip. And at a few select shows in the summer of ’07—most notably a crushing set at Bonnaroo—that’s just what happened. “It was too good to be true,” Williams says. “I’d been friends with and fans of these guys for so long. This was my dream band.”
The musical horsepower of four friends playing together was stronger than even Keller had dreamed. He found himself fronting not a band so much as a bullet train. “With group improvisation you can go so much farther than you can solo,” he says. “There’s this camaraderie that allows everyone to play more freely.” The summer shows were so exciting, so energizing, Williams brought the quartet out on a 2008 winter tour—captured on the stunning two-disc set, Live.
Featuring seventeen tracks that span Keller’s career, Live is a testament to how a band, with the right chemistry and chops, can take a song to places even the writer couldn’t have imagined. “What a treat after so many years of being in control,” Williams says. “The band has a knack for hanging a sharp left that I don’t see coming.” As the principal singer/songwriter, Keller may be driving this musical train, but he doesn’t always know where it’s headed.
These unexpected turns make older songs new again. “The Juggler,” for instance, a track from Williams’ 1994 debut, has taken on a world beat/disco vibe that makes it one of his favorite tracks on the record. “Same Ole’” is another early nugget that the band has injected with new life by amping it into a ten-minute jam. “It’s liberating to let the guys work within a song,” Keller says. “We’re so new and spontaneous; we can’t yet complete each others musical sentences—which I like.”
Williams puts unyielding faith in Moseley, Droll, and Sipe’s ability to sustain the conversation. They’re musicians Keller trusts, respects, and admires. And they’re uniquely able to help him achieve his musical vision. Take guitarist Gibb Droll: “I could never play the expansive, Garcia-esque solos they way I heard them in my head,” Williams says. “But Gibb just nails them. He’s left his mark on this record, for sure.” Keller is no less effusive in his praise of Jeff Sipe: “He’s an incredibly brilliant, all over the map type-of-drummer. There’s no beat he can’t play.” And like the best bassists, Williams says, Keith Moseley knows when to be flashy and when not to. “For as many notes as me, Gibb, and Jeff play, what we need from a bass player is in-the-pocket, feel-good, goodness. And Keith’s rock solid.”
On Live, the band contributes more than big beats and killer licks; they also bring songs to the show. Some of the album’s most accomplished playing is on Droll’s “Reinhardt Rag”—a tribute to jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Another highlight is “Look at Where We Are,” a tune Moseley penned with country/bluegrass legend Jim Lauderdale. On this track Williams mans the bass, while Moseley takes over guitar and vocal duties.
Clearly this is a band for whom any style goes: country, bluegrass, jazz, and—who’d-a-thunk-it—hard rock. Williams’ instrumental “Newness” has been juiced into a heavy anthem complete with a devil-horn-raising middle section. “I get to release my childhood rock fantasies of playing loud, distorted guitar in front of large audiences,” Keller says. “It’s only one song, and we don't play it every night, but when we do, believe me, heads bang.”
The audience is an integral part of every live recording worth a damn. On Live the crowd sizzles with energy; they know they’re witnessing something special. And the band feeds off this excitement. As Williams says, “They push us, and we push back.” Because this dual exchange of energy is captured on the recording, Live feels nearly as powerful as an in-the-flesh concert. “You get everything but the encore,” says Keller. “‘Cause we ran out of disc space.” Luckily the album comes packaged with a bonus DVD—an encore of sorts.
For over 100 shows a year, Williams has proven himself to be a master of improvisational performance art. In his one-man show, he pads barefoot from guitar to bass to percussion stations, using looping effects—and enough instruments to stock a strip-mall music store—to layer sound atop sound until the stage swirls with a full-blown composition. As impressive as this is, too often the quality of Williams’ songs has been overshadowed by the process of how he produces them. On Live, however, the four-piece instrumentation allows the songcraft to shine above the technical gadgetry—revealing catchy hooks and smart lyrics. Still, Keller thinks of himself as a music fan first, a musician second, and a songwriter only third. “If somebody thinks my songs are important enough to take seriously, that’s great,” the Fredericksburg, Virginia native says with Southern humility. “But I don’t take myself seriously at all.”
Throughout his career he’s made liberal use of technology, but Williams knows that musicianship is ultimately a human undertaking. And when you listen to Live, you’re hearing sounds that no MIDI unit or stomp box can make alone. You’re hearing the intersection of technology with sinew and bone and muscle memory—things you can’t buy at Guitar Center. “Live is not about me and what I can do with a few instruments and a couple devices,” Keller says. “Live is about making music with other people.”
Despite his long-held desire to front a band, Williams remains a solo performer first and foremost. “I still look forward to the one-man shows,” he says, noting that he’s already started recording the next solo record. He’s also planning a children’s album, a remix record, and a follow-up to Grass, the critically-lauded bluegrass project he recorded with The Keels.
Does this mean that Live is the last we’ll hear from Williams, Moseley, Droll, and Sipe? That’s anybody’s guess, but as Keller tells us in the liner notes, “I can only hope that there are a thousand more shows for years to come with this lineup. But in case that doesn’t happen, at least I have an audio and visual reference of the very special connection of four dudes on a stage.”
www.kellerwilliams.net
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