Keller Williams to Stop at Main Street Live on June 6

Keller Williams. Photo by Taylor Crothers.

Keller Williams is a singer/songwriter from Virginia with a career that spans 20 years, more than a dozen solo recordings and additional collaborations. A one-man band most of the time, Williams is possibly best known for his unique covers of a range of artists from Beck to, most recently, the Grateful Dead. Earlier this year, Williams released Keys, a compilation of Dead covers played on piano to benefit the legendary band’s own Rex Foundation. When he’s not looping multiple instruments to give his solo show a full-band effect, Williams collaborates with other bands, including The Travelin’ McCourys and a six-piece funk band formed in his hometown and known as More Than a Little, after Williams’ song of the same name. (Late this year, Williams will release a live album of More Than a Little performances from late 2012 through New Year’s Day.)

Williams, who will be bringing just himself to the ’Boro on Thurs., June 6 for a set at Main Street Live, recently spoke with the Murfreesboro Pulse from the road.

When and how did More Than a Little form?
Four of the five members used to do a Tuesday night show at a local bar in my hometown, and I sat in with them one night, and there was something there. It was something very different from what I’m used to and anyone I’d ever played with, and some time went by, and we put together a soul/R&B/funk band. We started rehearsing once a week and lined up six shows between Christmas and New Year’s. I always try to do a little run between Christmas and New Year’s every year. I try to do something different every year, and that was the idea behind it—to do this band for that run, and I loved it so much I kept it going.

What inspires you to have so many different collaborations? To explore different genres? Why do that with several bands rather than one?
I think the whole concept behind my entire career is to entertain myself. It’s all about me. It’s all about me having fun. It’s very self-indulgent, but at the same time, I’m very lucky to be able to pull that off. By me entertaining myself, I think it comes across to the audience. What I call my day job is my solo show. Of the 110 shows I do a year, probably about 75 or 80 are solo. Playing by myself so much makes me appreciate playing with other people. Being able to play with more than one collaboration is super-refreshing and makes the moments even more special, because you don’t play with one group so many times. It’s a luxury.

What does playing solo do for you, specifically, that collaborating doesn’t, and vice versa?
I think each aspect helps me appreciate the other more. The more I play with a band, the more I appreciate playing solo. There’s a certain freedom that comes with playing solo. My brain has a backlog of songs that I can dip into, whereas playing with different collaborations, there’s a certain handful of rehearsed songs we can draw from. Right now, today, I prefer to play with an ensemble. Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll prefer playing solo.

How do you choose the songs you cover?
They, unfortunately, choose me. They get locked in my brain, they get stuck in my head, and I have to play them to get them out of my brain. The more I play them, the less they’re stuck in my brain. They find me somehow.

When you cover a song, what’s your intent? Remodel it? Interpret it?
I’m not planning on sculpting it. I play it how I hear it. There are some songs that are so interesting, and I end up forgetting how they’re usually played. I absorb them and take them into my own. There are some situations where you take classic rock songs and make them bluegrass, and other bands do this too, which I think brings the person [who’s] not so much into bluegrass into the bluegrass world and helps them appreciate the genre more by playing a familiar song in a bluegrass background. It can bring people into a genre [who] wouldn’t ordinarily go there.

What was the process like for putting Keys together? How is it different from making a record of your own songs?
It was 7 years of sitting down and recording piano tracks and never being happy with it, never really allowing myself to go there and release it. Who wants to hear a piano record of Grateful Dead songs played by me? That was the mentality. It kind of started 7 or 8 years ago with getting a real piano of my own. Every time I sat down at the piano, what would come out were like Jerry Garcia ballads, but it was instrumental to picking out melodies on the piano. That led into vocals. Compared to making a record of my own songs, it’s interesting, because you can take one approach and be really true to the song and play it exactly like it was written, or do what I did and have a disclaimer saying these are loose interpretations so the traditional Grateful Dead fans don’t get too offended, and so my fans understand. With that disclaimer, it’s easier not stressing on exactly what was played. All proceeds go to The Rex Foundation, a blanket nonprofit started by the Grateful Dead in the ’80s. It’s going to a good cause and helped me get that out of my head.

You’re known to improvise onstage. Is that a learned or innate skill?
I think it’s both. You have to have kind of an open mind and be able to go somewhere and nowhere at the same time with your mind. You need to understand what’s happening. Improvisation really has a lot to do with listening. I think with some folks, that is something you need to learn. It’s like conversation. If you’re not listening, how can you add to the conversation?

What is your songwriting process like in general? Do you have to write under particular conditions?
Songwriting doesn’t come like it used to. Most of my songs are written in off time between tours. I’d be out 3 or 4 weeks, then be home for 2 weeks. A few days are unwinding, then the boredom kicks in. When that kicks in, that’s when the creativity starts to flow. Now I have two kids and am gone a lot, and there’s never a whole lot of downtime, so the songwriting process is changing. Now it’s kind of hitting me sporadically. All of a sudden, I’ll get an idea, and I have to see that through wherever I am, no matter what time of day it is. For me, it usually starts with the hook, the chorus, and spurs from there. It’s definitely an interesting situation right now with the songwriting.

Have you been inspired by different things over the years and over multiple recordings?
I’m definitely inspired by many things in the music business, for sure. The songwriting is tricky, because there are so many good songs written that it’s so hard to contemplate something that hasn’t been done already. I think it mainly comes from me putting myself in the place of an audience member. Being in the audience, listening to that song, what would it make me feel like to hear this song? I try to go from that perspective. A lot of my songs become tongue-in-cheek and a little less serious.

Why is your spring/summer tour a mix of solo shows and collaborations?
There’s many elements involved. Some elements involve promoters that want me as a solo act, some want the projects. There are some elements where there is enough money to bring everybody together and others, there’s not. It’s many different things that are at play. I feel very grateful to have that option, to go different places and have different choices. I don’t think it will ever be the same band for a long time.

Purchase tickets here for Williams’ June 6 performance in Murfreesboro