Interview: White Williams (by Bob Short)

After earning his wings as a protege for the acclaim bait that is Greg Gillis of Girl Talk, Joe Williams spent two years recording his debut album, Smoke. Released under the White Williams moniker in November, the album is an addictively brittle electro pop album. The bleeps and blips of the arrangements slowly part to reveal glammy mid-tempo pop songs with a keen ear for melody. Last week, Williams spoke to the Post- about how to construct your own laptop pop opus…and never call him White.

Joe Williams: Hey, so you're from Providence right?

Bob: Yeah, you played a show here a couple weeks ago at the Living Room, how'd that go?

Joe Williams: Really, really strange. Were you there? No you probably weren't at back on campus yet..

Bob: I live in the area, but I had to work and I couldn't make it.

Joe Williams: It was a really strange show…weird turnout, the weather was horrible, it was some kind of punk bar, there was nowhere to hang out, so there was nothing to do except drink. Now I'm in Texas and I have forgotten all about that miserable cold until you just mentioned it. Plus they played metal between all the sets.

Bob: That actually segues pretty well into my first question. Now, people who have heard your backstory as a kind of noise rock vet and a friend of the Girl Talk people, were probably surprised to hear this sort of futuristic pop album out of you.

Joe Williams: Well you gotta remember that the time period you are talking about is really a long period. Like that goes from the bands I played with in high school all the way to 2007. I'm 24 now, my tastes have changed, since high school I've listened to a lot of music went to a lot of different kind of shows.

Bob: So, White Williams music isn't what you have always thought a solo project would be for you?

Joe Williams: Not really, I mean it’s just a snap shot of where I was in 2007. If I made this album at any other time in my life I think it would have sounded very different.

Bob: A lot of reviewers are dropping names of these glam heroes- people like Bryan Ferry, Marc Bolan, Brian Eno-when they talk about you. How impressive is that for you, are you a fan of that sort of music?

Joe Williams: Not really, I mean I listen to their music what I really respect about them is how they use the studio as an instrument, because that's what I am trying to do.

Bob: It's interesting that you say that because you kind of went the lo-fi route with your album, recording it on a laptop in various apartments and hotel rooms.

Joe Williams: Well, yeah if you compare their studio to mine, I mean mine is hardly a studio. It's basically a pre amp, a microphone, and some software. But it is a decent virtual studio. I've been collecting more gear lately. The way I do stuff is basically just seeing what I can come up with toying around and then turning that into something, so I love having new tools.

Bob: Did you have these songs ready, or did they grow out of that type of fooling around in the studio?

Joe Williams: The songs definitely weren't the result of any songwriting in a normal sense. I was capturing what was happening around me and around the song grew out of that. It wasn't like an exercise in GABCD or anything.

Bob: So at an early stage did the material all sound like that surreal instrumental at the end, "Lice in the Rainbow"?

Joe Williams: Yeah that's a good observation, yeah at some point in the songs' evolutions they all sort of sounded like that.

Bob: Was it ever tempting to leave the stuff like that, or maybe do a beat and synths dominated album at some point, especially since you have stuff like the mid-section of crazy synthesizers in "New Violence"?

Joe Williams: Well, I'll always have that approach in the studio, just kind of looking around at what's happening, in that case I did a pattern in an appregiotor and I was like "oh this is cool," so that made the cut. Certain stuff will change as we sort of "solve" the song.

Bob: You've included some samples on the album, like the Fleetwood Mac sample on "Fleetwood Crack". How do you decide when to sample something and when you should just do it yourself?

Joe Williams: I don' think I would ever call it a "decision", I will play around with samples as if they are any other thing I could do. Some days I'll just sit down and think "yeah I'll do some samples today" and I'll break out what I need to do that. On that song you mentioned though, Lindsey Buckingham denied us when we tried to clear the sample for Europe. I mean they are all pretty wealthy now so I'm sure I was on the bottom of their list when you think of all the licensing stuff they do too. I'm sure he would have been a bit more apt to clear the sample if the title was a little more…respectful [laughs].

Bob: What are you going to do for the European release, are they going to mix the part out, it seemed like a pretty integral part of the arrangement.

Joe Williams: We're just gonna pull the track. It's going to be replaced with "Violator" which was on an EP.

Bob: You have been playing with a lot more conventional instrument set up than on the album when it was you doing almost everything. Does that change how you think of the material?

Joe Williams: Absolutely not, the live stuff doesn't really influence anything about the material.

Bob: Are you going to use your touring band on the next album?

Joe Williams: Maybe, I have been seriously thinking about it. Maybe a little bit of both approaches.

Bob: What else is on the agenda for you?

Joe Williams: Well touring a lot, going into some production work. I'm producing a guy named Craig Dempsey, its gonna be some good material.

Bob: How is production different for you than making your own album?

Joe Williams: Well I'm still trying to use my approach, just letting what's going on around you to affect the songs as they are constructed. But I also like seeing ho other people do things.

Bob: One thing that has been talked about a lot is the album cover, what inspired that?

Joe Williams: Well, I had a conversation with someone when I was making the album and there was a girl at a party who was crying while smoking weed. The concept of that was strange to me, someone who was crying and wanted to be high at the same time.

Bob: And how did you get Sophia Lamar to appear on the cover?

Joe Williams: She knows Andrew Strasser who did the art design. And she looks…y'know, interesting so we put her on.

Bob: Last question, why White Williams?

Joe Williams: Well there was already a singer named Joe Williams, so I didn't want it to be that. One thing that I hate is how hard it is to keep people from calling you the name of whatever your solo project is.

Bob: Yeah, that must be annoying. But why White as opposed to any other color or name?

Joe Williams: Well I guess I enjoyed the alliteration behind it. Nothing complicated [laughs]

Bob: Anything else you'd like to say?

Joe Williams: Can I do a Brown shout-out to Garret Adams?

Bob: Yeah, sure. Thanks for talking to the Brown Daily Herald.