Ever since I first heard the incredible talent of Wille and The Bandits, I have been completely captivated by their music. I am particularly interested in their unique songwriting style and their remarkable ability to hold the audience’s attention throughout their performances.
As they prepare for their massive headline tour and a short run of opening dates for Beth Hart, I had the opportunity to sit down with frontman and bands namesake, Wille Edwards. In this candid interview, we discuss their approach to live performances, their major musical influences, their fans, and Wille’s deep appreciation for music.
Mick: You've got a pretty lengthy tour upcoming, so what's involved in your preparation for touring?
Wille: Funny you should say that actually, because it's exactly what I've been doing running around. Just working out what guitars I'm going to take out, working the setlist. We always record our rehearsals, listen back to them and try and sculpt the set in a better way. You know, just always trying to make every tour better in every way. And so, you know, the weeks leading up to it, it's just full-on trying to making sure everything sounds great. Make the band sound good and the show as flawless as possible.
Mick: Do you have a strict set list that you stick to, or are you more an off-the-cuff, free jam band sort of vibe?
Wille: The problem we've had, well it’s not a problem, I suppose, is that we have changed members a few times now. So, that always sort of is difficult because you can only concentrate on a certain amount of material. However, when we're settled, I mean, the idea with the band is to have options all the time, you know? We aim to have 30 to 40 songs that we can play and then we rotate which ones fit for the energy of the room. Sometimes you get a more attentive crowd, so we can play more of the ballads and sort of pull people in. Other times it's a bit more rowdy so it’s better to just keep it funky and pumping, you know?
Mick: Yeah, it's actually funny you said that. I've just been listening to “Keep It On The Down Low”. That song’s just buried in my head.
Wille: That's a great one live, that. I mean, it goes on, it was about 10 to 12 minutes live. It's a huge jam out in that track live.
Mick: So you're very much taking that vibe from Blues Traveler or Grateful Dead? Playing it by ear, see how the crowd reacts and then keep going.
Wille: Exactly! Yeah, those are the sort of bands I love. Bands where it's sort of quite expressive on the night. I do feel when you're on and when you feel there's an energy that the room and the crowd create. It's about sort of tapping into that. That's what live music is really. I think when you're an experienced performer, I think it's good to be able to deviate if you feel you need to.
Mick: You've also got some opening slots for Beth Hart coming up as well. Do you find it less stressful or more stressful being a support act?
Wille: I think less stressful really, yeah. Also, they're a lovely bunch to tour with. I mean, it all depends on what the headline acts are like. Some headliners can make your life difficult if they want to. Luckily Beth and her team are just delightful to be around. Beth herself is really nice and very comfortable to be around so we’re happy to support her. Beth genuinely likes our music as well.
Mick: Yeah. I think the last time I caught you guys were back at Hard Rock Hell a few years back. When it comes to festivals, obviously festivals are way more strict on their time slots. Does the demand become tighter as in the set size to accommodate the festival for example?
Wille: Yeah, unfortunately, it is a bit of a shame with festivals in that way. You just have to sort of consolidate what you do. I think when you go to Hard Rock Hell, we played like 45 minutes or 40 minutes and one of our songs is 20 minutes long! So it's like, you know, I've done that before. I've had a 35-minute set and I've just played one song, just an instrumental jam that went on for 35 minutes.
It can be frustrating. Yet, I think as I've got older, I've realized that this is the way it is and you've got to try and sort of present the band in a different way. You've got less time to capture people into what you're doing and try and cross all the bridges you can, really, in that short amount of time.
Mick: I think I'd be remiss, if we were talking about playing live, that I ask this. I think in the modern day, I'd say curse of the live show is the mobile phone in the crowd. What are your feelings towards people holding up their phones throughout the night?
Wille: Yeah, I'm not a fan, to be honest with you. No, I'm not someone who does it myself. I feel like when I watch music, I want to be moved by it in a certain way. I just feel when you put something, a barrier in between you and the band, like a phone, you're not engaged in that. You're thinking about what everyone else thinks about what you're doing.
Yet, I understand people are like that.There is an element of people, you know, they love what they see and they want other people to see it. I get that, but for me, I prefer to be in the moment. You know, I like as little distractions as possible. I mean, I love a beer, don't get me wrong but when I'm at gigs, you'd be hard-pressed to get me to go to the bar! I don’t even go for a piss, I hold it in the whole gig.
Mick: Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
Wille: Yeah, exactly, mate! I want to be immersed in it.
Mick: I mean, if I do it, it's literally if I'm writing the blog, I take like three photos per band. There's enough to go on the blog, then the rest, I just do whatever.
Wille: I think in moderation, if it's your favourite song and you want to capture that memory, then that's totally fair enough. I think the frustration comes when some people film the whole gig. I've seen that loads, like people have been filming us the whole gig and you're like, you know, it's crazy. They've loved it though. So, I don't know, maybe everyone is different in the way they appreciate music and that. And if you come at it from one angle, but someone sees it at a completely different angle. That's just humanity in society, isn't it? Like, everyone sees things in different ways and it's trying to understand the other person's point of view.
Mick: So, your songs are so evocative and so emotional, songs like “Angel” for example. Do you have a particular favourite one that you always want to include in a set, no matter where you're playing?
Wille: I think you just said it with that song, actually, “Angel”. It’s a long instrumental and sometimes we haven't got long enough to play it, but for me, it's very cathartic in the way it's written. It's a song I wrote in memory of my mother, so I feel like I need to play that song everywhere. It's like my therapy almost every time I play that. I've been off the road for two months now and I sort of, I don't know, it feels like I need to play it!
I need to let that all out again. It builds up this emotion and it's one way of letting it all out. So I feel maybe it's slightly selfish in that way. But then people get a lot out of that song and a lot of people are very moved by it. So, yeah, that's the song, I suppose. We left it out, I think I left it out on one tour, just because, I don't know, I felt like I needed to give it a break. Then we played like four or five shows without playing it. Everyone screamed for it and I wanted to play it as well, so it went straight back into the setlist.
Mick: That's got to mean the world when it's something so personal and it's resonated with so many people as well.
Wille: Yeah, definitely. It is very, very personal to me. It's quite an interesting thing because people relate to different things in the way, in the music. Again, going back to what we were saying earlier, people see a story in a song. Maybe it's not always what you wrote it about, but people take their own meaning from it.
It's crazy,that there are people with my lyrics are tattooed on them and stuff and it's just like, wow, it blows my mind. But sometimes they've got lyrics tattooed on them and it's not what I wrote the song about, but it's how they perceive it. When I write, I like to have a lot of ambiguity in what I'm doing. There is a message in there, but it's not so direct that you can take it to mean anything. So, yeah, people can make their own story from the story I'm telling.
You know, I like to leave that open to the listener. Because I'm not someone who writes about myself, either. I've never been someone who writes that way. Well, the odd song is about myself, to be fair, but very, very rarely. I generally write about other people or characters I've met or newspaper articles I've read, because there are so many people with such interesting lives out there that you can bring into your music and I like to channel that.
Then, obviously, some people pick up on that. For example our song “Four Million Days” was written about an article I read in a newspaper about someone who said they were looking for their adopted family and it felt like four million days when they finally found them. Obviously, we don't live for that long, but I just thought that was such a profound statement. Like, the space of time was such a huge amount and that's the pain they feel. Then people take that song how they want.
Mick: I guess you have to kind of find that balance of your personal meaning to how somebody else takes it. That's still got to be a surreal thing when people take it in a completely different direction but I guess that is life.
Wille: That is life, exactly, man. You know, I won't say what's happened to some of them because I feel it's harsh for the people that have had tattoos and stuff. I think once you open up a song or once you open up yourself and release the words, it's always down to people's interpretation of it. It's just lovely that people are moved by it in any way by what I write. They feel they connect with that song and connect with our music. That's a great thing, you know. It's only a positive thing.
Mick: Speaking of connection to music and people experiencing that, do you remember any specific artist or band that you saw that you had that connection to the band?
Wille: I think in a live context, there have been a few that have blown my mind. I recently went to watch Sting live, and I thought that was unbelievable. The band, his words, everything was faultless. That blew my mind. Just his age as well still, playing on a show like that.
I remember when I went to see the John Butler Trio. That was a great show. It really, really hit me hard. Beth Hart as well, the first time I saw Beth play was years ago. I remember her having a huge effect on me, listening to her sing. She really puts it all out there and bears her soul in every show.
John Martin as well! I saw John Martin play it was just fantastic. I mean, yeah, I move quite a lot with music, I think. I mean, I'm quite fussy, but if it gets me, it really gets me.
Mick: That’s fair. I think I got a similar answer when I spoke to Dave Wyndorf from Monster Magnet years ago. He said something that stuck with me. He didn't separate music by genre. It's good music or bad music and not to care what the genre is.
Wille: It's totally true, man. I'm exactly like that. I feel that's the sort of thing with us as a band. People find it very hard to put us in a box, and the media really want to put us in a box, but you can listen to one song and another song and they're completely different genres. For me, that's important because I'm trying to create art, I'm trying to create a story and some style of music works with what I'm trying to say and other styles work with other things I'm trying to say. I feel like something with rock, blues, whatever… It's just music, and that's the end of the day. Putting labels on it is almost pointless. It is what it is, like what Dave said, It is either good or bad. Monster Magnet are a great band as well.
You're either moved by it or you're not. It doesn't mean it's necessarily bad music. It's just how you're wired and you're listening habits from your youth. It’s what flicks your switch, I suppose.
Mick: Yeah, for sure. I've sent a bunch of your songs to a few of my friends, and one of them came back to me and said that they had to double-check that it was the same band playing.
Wille: Yeah, well, it is like that. I like to think it’s like watching a gig. You will see a lot of genres being played, but it sort of makes sense, because you're on a journey in a live show. When you're listening to our albums, we try and do that as well.
However, the way people listen to music now, it’s one track on Spotify, another track on Spotify. I just feel it's become worse, you know? People are focusing on just this one song and you've got to try and recreate that sound that people love. Whereas, if you listen to Led Zeppelin, they went through loads of different genres, but they're renowned as a rock band. If you listen to their albums, they make sense, the way they go through all these phases in their music. If you listen to it and just snip it, like one track from this album, one track from that album, sometimes it doesn't fit together. That's where I think the listening trends are changing in that way, you know?
Mick: So, obviously you’re a Led Zeppelin fan. Do you have any other bands that feel they’ve had a direct impact on how you how you write music?
Wille: Yeah, Pink Floyd as well is huge for me. I love Pink Floyd. A lot of the lap steel guitar I play and slide guitar, you know, with the tape echo and stuff on it. It very much comes from Dave Gilmour. So that had a huge effect on me, that ethereal side of the band
Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits as well, they’re amazing. Derek Trucks as well, Derek Trucks Band had a huge effect on me.
Vocally, I would say, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, I’m a huge fan of them and Chris Stapleton as well. They're all totally different types of music but they all come into the mixing bowl. You just stir up what you're going to make what we do.
Mick: Yeah, I guess there's no, like, one right answer to it. You just kind of take what you can. If you take Chris Stapleton, as you mentioned, he's been around the block. He's done rock, he's done country, he's done blues and it all sounds great because he knows his soul, and I suppose as a musician, it is about knowing your soul and keeping it consistent.
Wille: Totally, man, I think it's so true what you said there. That's a lot of it, Stapleton is great. Everything he does is just fantastic and it feels very genuine and authentic whenever he plays and I think that's why he's so popular because people can see that.
Mick: Speaking of writing. I saw the other week that you're working on new material. Can you give us any indication of what we can expect from this new material?
Wille: Yeah, it's probably the strongest material to date, I think.
I think I say that about every record. However, this is another step up. I took a long time making this album because I felt like I wanted to get it right. Not that I don't feel I got other things right on the previous records, it's just that I wanted to leave no stone unturned. I wanted to delve into everything, into huge detail of what's going on and what I'm trying to say. It's taken a long time, actually, we’ve spent a couple of years making this record. So I feel it's a full scope of William the Bandits. From some of the riffiest, heaviest stuff we've done, to some of the most beautiful and gentle music we've played as well. It's the full rank there, if anyone would listen to this record, I think they completely get where we're coming from. I think, with this one. It's quite concise, but it really shows our sound off. We make a very unique sound, and what we do, not many bands that sound like us, this album is very much us. So I think a lot of people will dig it.
Mick: So, whereabouts in the production are you? Is it pre-production, are we kind of starting laying down the tracks, if you could give me a clear indication?
Wille: Yeah, at the moment, we are just getting together all the instrumental stuff. All the songs are written. In the next couple of months, when I get back from this tour, we're probably going in and doing the vocals. We probably won't be too far away. We’re triying to go for this roomy sound. When you get back to the likes of Chris Stapleton and those sort of bands. You know, going for that and that vibe going.
Mick: I always like ending all my interviews on this question, it's my favourite one to ask. What is the hardest thing, professionally or personally, you've had to overcome and how did you overcome it?
Wille: Oh, wow.
That would probably be the death of my mother, I think.
I was 23 years old, when my mum passed away. I suppose it made me think, what I really wanted to do with my life. I was sort of bumming around a bit, playing music, but not really. I think I wasloving the lifestyle rather than other elements of it.
When my mum passed away, it made me think, I've only got one life and I love music. I've got to give this a hell of a go, because when I get older, I don't want to go back and think that I never gave it a good shot. I'm still doing it, you know? Years and years later. So, I think that was the hardest thing to go through, emotionally. Then I channeled that into my music, into songs like “Angel”. I try to use that pain as a way of driving me forward as well.
I think sometimes, in the darkest moments in life, you have this clarity and this strength that can come from it. So, I think I owe my whole musical career to my mother. Her influence on me, and also her sad passing. I think that's the answer.
Mick: Well, I'm sure your mum is very proud of you, wherever she is.
Wille: Thanks, man
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