Despite Rock Leanings, Sons of Bill is Proud to be a “Virginia Country” Band

Sons of Bill, out of Charlottesville, Virginia, is a country-rock band with a kick. Their hard work ethic and honest lyrics have earned them legions of fans up and down the East Coast. This year, they’ve toured with Reckless Kelly and released a new album, One Town Away.

The 9513’s Pierce Greenberg talked with lead vocalist James Wilson about the band’s beginnings, touring, and the making of their latest album.

PIERCE GREENBERG: How was Sons of Bill started?

JAMES WILSON: We were always a really musical family, but up until three years ago, I had really lost touch with my brothers a lot. I was out west. I went to college on a cattle ranch out in Nevada so I was totally disconnected. Sam had moved to New York and was playing in a couple of rock bands up there. And Abe was in architecture school.

I just started writing and compiling songs. Then, I visited Sam in New York on spring break and I hadn’t seen him in two years. He was getting disillusioned with the rock scene up there and I had all these songs. He just started to fall in love with the songs I was writing. He said he was moving back home, so it just kind of happened really.

Abe was in town for the summer, and he just started playing with us and singing. We got asked to do a gig, got a rhythm section together and it just kinda took off. We got a great response from our first show and from there we just all kind of fell in place.

It was really just a homecoming for me and my brothers, and just getting back to the music we grew up with and really exploring that. We had all been in different rock bands and I was in a bluegrass band for a while. It was a really cool thing to get to play with them again.

PG: Yeah, I was going to ask you about your dad, Bill Wilson. Was he a musical person? Did he influence you at all?

JW: Yeah, my dad’s really musical. He’s a professor as a job. He teaches philosophical theology and he’s an expert in Southern history and the agrarian movement.

Musically, he had a bluegrass band in college. There weren’t a lot of records in the house growing up. He didn’t have a really big music collection and there wasn’t music playing all the time. But my dad played all the time. So, we really fell in love with songs. At the time, my dad was playing a lot of Merle Haggard and Mississippi John Hurt, but we didn’t know who they were—they were just my dad’s songs.

PG: Let’s talk about Charlottesville, VA a little bit. I feel like where you’re from is an important piece in forming the identity of a band. For people who don’t know much about Virginia or Charlottesville, what’s the scene like up there and how did that influence you guys?

JW: The music scene in Charlottesville is a really great and thriving music scene. There’s always the shadow of Dave Matthews looming large over the town, but it’s one of those intellectual Southern towns where musicians can meet up and there’s some great clubs. There’s great country music and so much bluegrass and traditional music.

But, I think more than anything, Virginia is just one of those states that’s in an identity crisis. It doesn’t really know if it’s Southern or Northern. I think you could say that about Sons of Bill. We’re rock band, but we’re a country band also—there’s so many different influences going into it.

PG: It seems like in today’s industry, especially on the country side, you have Nashville and the Austin/Texas scene, but with Charlottesville, you guys are kind of on the outside. You guys don’t get as much press or recognition on a national level. Do you feel like you’re fighting to resist labels?

JW: I do know exactly what you’re saying. As soon as people hear us, you want to push us into a label. We do get compared a lot to the Texas guys. We get compared a lot to Drive-By. But we’re really proud to be a Virginia band. It’s not rare for us to pull out the banjo and play traditional songs.

We’re really trying to do our own thing and create the scene. We hook up with other bands on the East Coast in the Carolinas and Virginia—bands like the Wrinkle Neck Mules. We tour together all the time, really trying to create the scene for ourselves over here. You’ve got to change it up just to resist the labels—you know, throw in a Ramones cover every now and again.

The more and more we play, the more we are just content to embrace all of our influences. The moment you start writing for whatever genre or label you think you should be in, the more you are going to limit what makes any band great—and that’s writing great songs. Great songs are just great songs, no matter what genre it is.

I think that genres are really helpful for record labels, but I don’t think fans have much use for them. More and more, I find that people love great songs and they love going out and seeing the live show because the bands believe in them. I think those things are far more important than the need to push somebody into a category.

The Texas scene is great because those bands do stick together. They’ve created their own scene in the face of this kind of closed-off Nashville world and they look after each other. They take each other out on the road and they’re friends, they have festivals together. I think it would be great if we could start doing more of that in the East—and we’re trying.

PG: Alright, let’s talk about the album, One Town Away. You worked with Jim Scott—a pretty heavy-hitting producer—on this album. How did that whole relationship come about?

JW: Well, we’ve kind of had our eye on Jim Scott for a long time because he’s done so many of our favorite records. You know, Tom Petty’s Wild Flowers…it’s just one of those amazing sounding albums. Whiskeytown’s Stranger’s Almanac is another one he produced. All of his albums really had this very natural, very timeless, very live analog sound. They’re not perfect, they’re not edited to hell. They’re very live, they’re very raw.

PG: So, what was it like when you got out there working with him?

JW: More than anything, he was just pushing us to play together, to feel the songs, and to try to get a take as a full band that we can keep. A lot of producers will track one instrument at a time, then you just stack it and edit. But he really pushed us to get a full live take—and a lot of those tracks are live. It definitely creates a more classic sound than a lot of the records that are coming out now.

PG: For people who haven’t heard you guys yet, what can they expect on this new record?

JW: Honesty. Whether you like it or not, it’s just as honest and straightforward and heartfelt as it can be. Lovers of classic country will really like a lot of it and lovers of rock will also like it.

PG: I noticed that all three of the Wilson brothers are singing on this record. Talk about that dynamic and how that came about.

JW: It’s just one of those great parts about being in a band. You know, all four of us write and all three brothers can really sing—we’ve all sung lead in different bands. This album’s a real collaborative effort. I can’t write like my brothers. They bring their own flavor and their own set of influences to it. We just try to write the best songs that we can and we sit down at the end and go through ’em and try to make a record that works as a coherent whole.

PG: When it comes to the live show, what do you try to give the fans?

JW: The reason I go to see live shows is to see people really believe in what they’re doing—just to experience it in the moment. That’s one thing that people can expect. It’s just honest and it’s straightforward.We’re really passionate about what we’re doing and that comes through in the live show.

PG: You guys went out on tour with Reckless Kelly, how was that experience?

JW: It was great. I’ve been a fan of Reckless Kelly for a long time. They’re great guys. Willie’s a great songwriter and they’re all great players. It was about a month and a half and we just had a great time. We really got to know those guys and just kinda learn more about what they’re doing and share some songs and influences. Willie and I both share a deep-seeded love for Exit Zero, the Steve Earle album, that was our beginning of songwriting. We connected on that level. It was a great tour.

PG: What are some of the goals for what’s in store? Are you going to hit the road a little harder?

JW: In the fall, we’re really hitting the road hard. We’re actually going to hook up with Reckless Kelly again in Texas. We’re playing the Austin City Limits Festival this year, which we’re all really excited bout. That’s our goal as far as touring—just keep hitting the road hard and selling records on the road.

PG: I hear you don’t have a cell phone, what’s up with that?

JW: [Laughing] I don’t have a cell phone, man. I’m a pretty old school dude. To be perfectly honest, I’d like to say I have some ideological stance against it, but I’m really just the most spacey guy in the world. I’d lose it or step on it or something—so I’m just kind of holding out.

PG: So I guess it’s safe to say you don’t have a Twitter?

JW: You know, we just got a Twitter. I haven’t tweeted yet, but we have been set up with a Twitter (@sonsofbill). Sam, my brother, does the tweeting.