An Interview with William Wild
On an overcast afternoon, I had the privilege of sitting down in a crowded coffee shop with one of Knoxville’s most exciting up-and-coming bands, William Wild. After a lengthy chat over each person’s caffeinated beverage of choice about how to best classify their sound, guitarist John Knight finally blurted out, “We’re just a band from Tennessee, man.” It sounded somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but there was so much epiphany in that statement, that I don’t think it was merely the espresso talking. “Our stuff is kind of starting to sound a little more country, but it’s definitely not country music. It’s a southern kind of rock, but it’s not really southern rock. It has folky elements, but you can’t call it folk.” This is the kind of Zen-like exercise that makes music writers throw up their hands and say, “Okay fine. It’s indie. We’ll just call it indie.”
Creating The First Album
William Wild independently released their debut, self-titled record back in April, and it is currently available on iTunes and Spotify. After asking about the process of creating their first full-length album, frontman Garrett Sale explained, “It took about two years. We had to know what us doing a good record actually sounded like before we could know how to make one.” After Garrett said that it occurred to me that what he had just said sounded like they made the album once and then completely started over. I wasn’t far off.
Garrett continued, “We kept doing some of the songs over and over. I finished the first version of ‘Veil,’ sent it to John, and he was like, ‘oh yeah, that’s pretty cool.‘ But then after redoing it a few weeks later” — John interrupted, “He told me to throw that version away and never listen to it again, then he played me the new one, and I just started screaming.”
By the time William Wild was set to release, it was met with so much anticipation that the band ended up debuting it to a sold out Square Room for their CD release show, a rare feat for a debut. Carrying that momentum, they were able to land a gig at The Bijou Theatre opening for The Dirty Guv’nahs in October.
Playing The Bijou Theatre
Once the Guvs show had been brought up, I told the guys that I wanted to talk to them about playing the Bijou, and in unison, all three of them praised the experience. “The crowd was amazing,” exclaimed drummer Aaron Hill. Front man Sale elaborated, “It was really cool that people were attentive and into it.” Then they all agreed that the eruption from a crowd of 700 was incredibly gratifying.
Figuring It Out
For all that William Wild has been able to accomplish to date, it is easy to forget that they are still fairly new to being career musicians. “We’re still learning how to be a band,” Sale explained. “We’re trying to work out, not only our writing process, but also how to live out the full-time band lifestyle.” These days, every independent band is basically its own enterprise, and the challenges that are present in any entrepreneurial venture exist.
William Wild is currently working on their follow-up to their debut record, an estimated five or six-song EP that the band hopes to release sometime early in the summer of 2015. As they work on their new music, the band continues to fine-tune their writing process, which at the moment is Sale and Knight writing the songs together, and then bringing them to Aaron to add drums on top of them.
John joked that they have to come to Aaron with stuff already written for him to add drums because his A.D.D. makes it difficult to be involved at the early stages of the writing process.
The band is still growing and learning constantly. Sale commented that as they continue to progress as a band, they are finding more and more that rather than trying to sound like one band or another, they are becoming more accepting of their natural musical inclinations. “We’re writing songs for mainly either a four or a five-piece band, and we don’t feel bound to having songs with a bunch of strings like we’ve been doing,” Sale explained. Their first record did have some impressively ambitious and beautiful arrangements, which included keys and a string section.
Moving forward however, they are simply trying to be as open as possible to whatever sounds interesting to them, whatever is fun to play, and most importantly, whatever works. That openness coupled with their DIY style makes this band a true original and very difficult to classify. The guys in William Wild are becoming increasingly accepting of the fact that, after all, they are just a band from Tennessee, man, and their music reflects that.
This is a special piece from Kent Oglesby, creator of Knoxville Music Warehouse. More of his work can be found at https://knoxvillemusicwarehouse.com/
