A Conversation with Holly Williams (continued)

PM: One of my favorite guitar players, and favorite guys, really, tours a lot with you, Doug Lancio.

HW: Yes! I love Doug. Love Doug.

PM: He's an old buddy of mine, and just an incredible guitar player.

HW: Isn't he? Yeah, we've been in the studio, actually, cutting some stuff and doing a few demos at his house. And oh, he's just amazing--perfect--just the kind of people I'm looking for. He's just so pure. And he's got that guitar playing that's so amazing, but you never know he's there, because he lets the songwriter or the artist really stand out. And it's hard to find musicians who kind of allow you to do that. I mean, my kind of music, I really want the lyrics to be heard. I really want people to hear what I'm saying. And it's so hard to find people who can play great, but they're quiet and they're kind of--it's just this really cool vibe that he adds to it, but it's not overshadowing or anything.

PM: Yeah, because what he's really expert at is creating an atmosphere.

HW: Uh-huh.

PM: He just creates an atmosphere for the song to live in. He gets into the song, and he creates the atmosphere that's suitable for the song, and then the singer-songwriter has all the space they need to sing their song.

HW: Yeah.

PM: It's just incredible. And he's some kind of a female singer-songwriter specialist.

HW: Yeah. [laughs]  He is, he really is.

PM: You know, Martina and Patty Griffin, to Holly Williams, and there are others, too, I can't think of right at the moment.

HW: Well, he worked with Nanci Griffith a lot. And he just did Robinella's new album, Robinella and the CC String Band.

PM: He produced that, right?

HW: Yeah, he just did her new album.

PM: Man, he jumped out there as a producer really quick.

HW: Yep.

PM: He's just that kind of guy. Who else plays with you on tour?

HW: Well, it's really varied over the last few years, because Doug and I did a lot of acoustic shows. I've still never done a tour with a whole band. When my album came out, I really wanted to keep it a little more raw. A guy named Craig Wright played drums.

PM: Oh, sure, he's great.

HW: He played with Steve Earle a while back. And a guy named James DiGorolamo has been playing piano for a while. But I haven't played with a band in a while. I really want to do a show in summer. I haven't played in Nashville in a year and a half. I really want to do a show with a band, because I just haven't played one forever. But I've been looking for a really good standup guy. I've been writing a lot on piano and I love standup bass. I mean, I've always loved it.

PM: You oughta call Charlie Chadwick.

HW: Yeah, I don't know him yet. So there's been a lot of acoustic when--I was in Europe a good bit last year, and Doug came with me. And we just did two-people shows. And we were doing smaller rooms over there. I like that, you don't worry about anything drowning you out, it was just really raw, and I really love that.

PM: Wow. So I don't know much about your producer. I've heard his name a lot, Monroe Jones. Tell us about him and how you hooked up with him.

HW: I met him before I signed with Universal South. He had a small division of the label called Ebb Flow. And my manager had worked with him in the past. He's done everything from contemporary Christian albums to some with Stevie Nicks, back in the day, and Duane Eddy--he'd worked with a real variety of people. We had coffee one day, and just talked about our influences and the kind of records we listen to. And we just hit it off. So we went in the studio--well, I guess it's been a while ago, two years ago in the spring--and started working together. And he was great because I was so used to working with myself and an engineer, without a producer, with me choosing the musicians and the rooms and just really working a lot on the producer side of it. He was really great because he didn't try to overstep that or bring all his guys.

I mean, for me, when I'm in the studio, it's really important for me to feel comfortable with the people I'm playing with. And I've never really done the Nashville session player thing. Now, I've used a few guys I already know. But for me to use strangers in the studio was always a really kind of bizarre thing to me. I felt like I had to kind of connect with them and--to know what I wanted to do. So with him it was great, because we just experimented a lot with all kinds of different musicians. And it was a lot about the performance and just getting the song down first, and then working around it.

PM: Yeah, you made a great sounding record.

HW: Well, thank you.

PM: How did it do--did it find a home at radio? Is it finding a format out there? Are people getting on it in the radio world?

HW: We didn't really find a home at radio. It was kind of confusing, because we did a video for CMT, but nothing was on country radio. And as far as radio-wise at the label, there wasn't any kind of radio promotion or anything for anything outside of the country market.

PM: Right.

HW: So that was kind of confusing. And now we had a long talk in January, and we decided to split for the next record. And everyone is on good terms. As far as that goes, they know this market very well, and I don't know what my music is, just the songs that I write. But I think more along the lines of artists like Mindy Smith or Kate York or Patty Griffin, more the singer-songwriter thing. So we never really tried to release singles or say "this is going to be released this week." I never did a radio tour here. Now, in Europe I did radio tours and the whole bit. But here it was really me just playing out and doing random different shows, and Jimmy Kimmel, and some different TV areas and things. But we didn't go for certain radio home on this record.

PM: Right. And did you say you're switching labels for the next record?

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