White Williams on his ‘disobedient’ music
by We featured White Williams on Lost At E Minor recently, so we thought it was time to pin him down for a chat. Metaphorically speaking of course. As a kid you were scorned by your piano teacher for toying around with your own sounds and refusing to be ‘taught’. Have you always been wary of treading other people’s paths? ‘I think I have a natural tendency to be disobedient from having listening problems. But I think that informs a lot of what I do. If someone tells me to do something, I’ll respond to it unconsciously. It’s usually only partially right or wrong. I like to make things sound wrong. At certain times I find myself going into my songs to find things that I tried to play perfectly and finding a way to ruin them. When my sounds are contained in the computer, I have the opportunity to partially erase and write over what I have done. I like when sounds are not always so deliberate. It’s certainly hard to translate the experience of the studio process into a performance. That is a new challenge’. How much of a boost to your career was it being named one of Rolling Stone magazine’s Breaking Artists? ‘I can’t really gauge a thing like that. I think when people associate you with something like Rolling Stone, then they make assumptions. I know for people in my family and people I grew up with it made it easier to take what I was doing more seriously. It’s silly that people need an experience like that to gather opinions. Most of my friends have supported me from the beginning’. Your MySpace page puts you as a Happy Hardcore/Club artist. I get a bit of Beck and New Order, and a splash of lo-fi electronica, from your music. Why the discrepancy? ‘They’re only words. You and I could create a genre of music. It’s almost as arbitrary as a band name. Here are some of my faves: Dem Palms, Jesus Slaves, Filthy Dynamo, Hell Jail, USA Bluffs, EsCaLaDiES’. There’s a real tongue-in-cheek style emphasis across the album’s artwork, and in the credits. What exactly are you mocking? ‘Blogs, Fashionistas, Heteros, God, Graffiti, MySpace, Plaque, Rachael Ray’.
Tagged: electronica, mashed-up music, White Williams
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