Nashville-born William Tyler is currently one of the most skilled and imaginative proponents of American fingerstyle guitar, a distinction he’s achieved in part by refusing to color inside the idiom’s lines. A longtime member of weirdo-country juggernaut Lambchop (as well a session player with the likes of Candi Staton, Bobby Bare, and Charlie Louvin), Tyler has absorbed ideas from many strains of American music; on this year’s Impossible Truth (Merge), his talent as an assimilator and conceptualist occasionally seems to surpass his considerable skill as an instrumentalist. Under his masterful leadership, the other players enhance his rolling, hypnotic guitar (both acoustic and electric) with swelling brass, woozy pedal steel, and walking upright bass, creating meticulously cinematic music with a powerful sense of self-contained narrative.
His idea was to get together six or seven people, where everybody comes from a different background and we’re all used to basically being side people in other people’s bands. But in this context we would do a song solo and then do a writer-in-the-round kind of thing, which is a very Asheville concept. Everybody would back each other up on a couple songs. We did it last weekend in Durham, through Duke—Duke and Alverno were sort of cocommissioning it. It went really well, and it was really fun to get to do that kind of piece, because everybody had a turn to be the front person. And everybody also got a turn to be a sympathetic backing musician.
I mean, I did go through a little period about five years ago where I started writing lyrics again, which I hadn’t done since the early 90s. I had a little band [Fflashlights] with Chris Brokaw and Elliot Dicks for a couple of years, where we tried to do those songs. But it burned out really fast. It was mostly because of the distance. Chris was living way out on the east coast, and we couldn’t get together to play very often. But I was just curious if that ever was some part of what you do. It occasionally is part of what I do, but very rarely. Usually it’s not even a thought.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
There is a lot to be said for having lyrical songwriting, obviously. I think a lot of people, when they start playing music, are under the assumption that they won’t be able to engage with an audience or a listener without that. To be honest, there probably is a lot of evidence that people aren’t necessarily engaged by something that doesn’t have somebody talking at you. What’s popular would kind of bear that out. But I also kind of feel like [instrumental music] might be coming back around—maybe that’s just, you know, wishful thinking, but I feel like more and more people are maybe coming back around to it. There’s just a general oversaturation factor with what’s out there now. Maybe trying to do what you do without lyrics makes you carve out a little bit more unique real estate.
It’s essentially the same band that played with you last spring. I just mean that Brokeback was very different before, until about two years ago. It’s gonna be fun to be over there with this band. I’ve been touring a lot. I was just on tour with the Sea and Cake up until about a week ago. I’ve been pretty busy. These in-the-round things that you’re doing, they’re just kind of one-offs? You’re not on tour right now?
There’s still a frontier mentality out there. There were a couple of places I played where it was just like a docking station—I drove nine hours, and I’ve gotta play somewhere tonight and do the same thing tomorrow.
Sat 11/23, 9:30 PMConstellation$1021+.
