R.R. Williams is the solo project of Mike Williams, named after his father Reginald Roy Williams as a tribute to his memory. The songs on his debut LP Unremarkable Lives (August 9) guide listeners straight into the belly of the beast: American life from the honest-to-God user end. Sometimes the most moving portraits are painted with the simplest of colors. Williams is a straight shooter, and with a poet’s economy of language he dares to ask our most honest questions of the universe. Braiding together Heartland rock, poignant acoustic balladry, and country-tinged folk, he lays bare the urgent matters that haunt the dark and quiet moments: Purpose, Fate, Destiny, Redemption.
In our interview, Williams talks his influences (lots of Counting Crows) and what he sets out to do with his songs.
Name a perfect song.
I love pop songs. I will go on record here and now and say that”Accidentally In Love” by Counting Crows is a picture perfect pop song. The opening riff is immediately catchy. The melody and lyrics are clever, move like poetry and have enough variation while exploring the theme of the song to keep the listener engaged. For a song that found its audience primarily from a Shrek movie it is in my opinion one of the most competently executed pop songs in modern history.
What inspired you to name the album Unremarkable Lives?
Most of the time I write about little movies I have in my head, kind of snapshots of life but from a first-person POV. Thoughts and feelings and descriptions of the headspace and surroundings and that’s where the themes come from of my songwriting. I have always been working class. I grew up that way and I live that way still and want to speak to that experience for the listener, a little window into the life of someone you passed on the street or sat next to in traffic or on the bus. There’s a whole human experience in every person you see, good, bad, tragic, inspiring. Maybe they’re one or all of those at the same time. And you’ll never know their names or story.
What are your musical influences?
The first two tapes I ever bought with my own money when I was a kid ( that weren’t christian music) were August and Everything After and Dookie. I feel like that still remains basically what I listen to to this day. I love heartland rock, I love sad songs, I love pop punk and I love a well-crafted rock song. Direct influences to what I’m doing now are probably Springsteen (of course), Van Morrison, Downtown Struts, Rancid, John Moreland, Counting Crows, Billy Bragg, Frank Turner. I’m sure a lot more but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head while I’m writing this.
Do you usually write lyrics or music first?
I think I always end up writing an entire song’s lyrics before I put it to music, if I can think of a good first two lines it’s kinda off to the races with writing a song. (Whether it’s good or not is another story.) I try to think of lyrics or melody as I write the words then sit down and find the chords and feel that works the best with what I came up with. Usually it all lives in my head and I try to treat new songs like I’m trying to remember how they go, like what would come next if this song already existed.
Do you play covers?
If I want to cover something I try to think of things I’ve never heard anyone else do in the genre I’m playing. Also I tend to lean into 90’s early 2000’s adult alternative music for stuff that is fun to play. I do a version of “White Flag” by Dido. I sometimes play “One Of Us” by Joan Osborne, maybe “Rain King” by Counting Crows or “Joey” by Concrete Blonde.
Unremarkable Lives will be available on August 9th via Black Mesa Records.