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For Derek George, the tipping point came as he and the other members of Williams Riley opened for Edwin McCain in Biloxi. If George, after more than a decade as a highly successful songwriter, guitarist, and harmony singer, needed convincing that this new project was worth pursuing, he got it that night.|“It was our first weekend out,” he says. “I knew we had a talented bunch of guys, but the reaction we got from that crowd told us we also had the right material and the right approach. We knew then and there we were onto something good, and we couldn’t get into the studio fast enough to start getting it down.”|The recording sessions that followed captured the combination of ingredients that moved that crowd and so many others since—Steve Williams’s graveled, soulful, bone-deep-believable lead vocals; world-class harmonies and dual guitar work; and the highly nuanced yet accessible writing Williams, George, and guitarist/vocalist Charlie Hutto bring to the table. Backed by the rock-solid rhythm section of bassist Dave Guidry and drummer Travis Thibodaux, and fleshed out with Joe Rogers’s sometimes traditional, sometimes rock-edged pedal steel, Williams Riley blends seemingly disparate elements into a fresh and organic sound.|“What we’re doing lyrically and stylistically is really what we are,” says Williams, whose one-of-a-kind voice is matched by a compellingly blue-collar stage presence. “If you put us separately, Charlie’s going to have a lot of Texas and Southern rock influence, Derek may have more pop-rock, and maybe blues from Mississippi. I would combine Southern rock with a more R&B style, but put it all together in Louisiana, where I’m from, and you’ve got a gumbo of music, this mixture of great ingredients, and we just put it all together.”|The band brings together influences ranging from the Eagles to the Allman Brothers, from bluegrass to R&B, and produces intelligently written, tightly played country with real edge. It’s music that engages as it entertains, and it straddles worlds many artists have had difficulty bringing together, thanks to the presence of two producers—George, whose work as co-writer, harmony singer and guitarist with country star Bryan White was responsible for a number of hits, and Noel Golden, known for work with matchbox twenty, Metallica, Sister Hazel and Willie Nelson/Lee Ann Womack, to name a few.|“I’m very uncomfortable inside a box,” says Williams. “No matter what we do, I just have to bend the rules a little. So, as we were putting this together, I thought, ‘What if I have this guy who can paint the white lines and keep us inside the box just a little, but I have this other guy who can let us bang the edges the whole time and sound different? That’s what we did, and I love the way it worked out.” That combination makes for a debut album that showcases a band building a reputation on grit and believability, on tight harmonies and high energy, on the ability to move from heart-tugging to rowdy and do both convincingly. They impressed fans and critics alike with “I’m Still Me,” a heartfelt look at age and identity that hit 1 on CMT Pure and topped GAC’s Top 20.|“‘I’m Still Me’ is one of the best songs we will ever play or ever record,” says Williams, “but then we needed something to raise us up the way ‘Chicken Fried’ did for Zac Brown. ‘Country Livin’’ is that kind of song.”|“Country Livin’” is the song that put Williams Riley on the map. A deceptively simple tune celebrating rural life and love, it grew during the writing session into an anthem with real depth.|“Instead of just talking about trucks and tractors and horses and barns,” says Williams, “I said, ‘What if we say, ‘You may think it’s the truck and the tractor that makes you love me, but it’s the way I hold your hand, it’s the way I hold the door, it’s the way I treat you like a woman.’ I think that’s where the song just took off, and Derek just flew away with it. ‘It’s not the tractor that gives a country boy his x-factor,’ and after that we were just on fire. It sounds like it’s this fun country song, and the references we’re using sound like country cliches, but we’re really making a statement.”|Another key to the album’s strength is “The Toast.”|“We were playing it live,” says Williams, “and I saw this lady standing with her eyes closed and her hands over her heart, and I thought, ‘She’s back in high school or in college. She’s in a bar reminiscing about the good times she had or something. That’s what I want to write about. I would just like to think that our songs make people think, that they challenge people.”|“The first time we played ‘Toast’ live,” adds Hutto, “people were singing the chorus by the second time we got to it. When you can accomplish something like that, you know you’ve really done it.”|Moments like that flow throughout the project, and the inclusive nature of the group’s musical gumbo can be seen in the musicians who took part. Aside from session A-listers including Dan Dugmore, Kenny Greenberg, Aubrey Haynie, and John Hobbs, friends and supporters dropping by included White, McCain and Guns N’ Roses/Guitar Hero icon Slash, whose participation on the song “Road & Me” was cinematically memorable for Williams.|“He came flying into the parking lot in his Aston Martin,” he says. “He had the windows down and the song was blaring—that was a really cool moment. He got out and the minute I saw him I forgot about the fact that he was three hours late. He sat down with his guitar, put his feet up on the console and said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘I want you to knock Nashville on their asses, so just tear it up.’ He lit a cigarette, they started the music, and he blew smoke out of his nose like a dragon. It was an unbelievable moment and the guy just started tearing it up. I think he made four or five passes and they said, ‘OK, that’s a wrap.’”|Everybody participating, he adds, was “passionate about what we’re doing. Not long ago, I was just a guy writing songs in Louisiana. Now a bunch of my heroes are playing with me and my band on my songs because they love what I’m doing, that tells me that we must be doing something right.”|The wider world feels the same way. The group was named ACC Superstar 2009 by ABC Radio Networks’ American Country Countdown with Kix Brooks, as “I’m Still Me” beat out the submissions of over 1,100 artists. Williams Riley was also named Best New Country Artist 2009 by AOL.|The journey for Williams was a long one from Larose, Louisiana, where “you either grow up to be a fisherman or you’re going to work in the oil fields. I tried the fishing thing and it didn’t work for me at all.” In the summer before his last year of high school he worked in the oil fields, and he went back after a quick stab at college, supporting his family while playing in bands on the side. He was still doing both when a friend got a copy of some of his songs to McCain, who was performing at the House of Blues. McCain listened on his bus and called Williams, suggesting he visit him in McCain’s home town of Greenville, South Carolina, where he had just build a studio. Williams met Golden there, and the two recorded an indy album which sold well at concerts—Williams sold 400 during one gig in Chicago. Williams teamed up for a brief time with English singer/songwriter Pete Riley, keeping the name after an amicable split and looking for a new direction.|First on board was Hutto.|“From the first time I talked to Steve,” he says, “I knew he was no B.S. kind of guy. He was a ‘go get it done’ dude who had a vision for where this thing should go, and he wasn’t scared to knock down doors to make it happen. I had never really met someone like that. Before I even heard a note of the music, I said, ‘Yeah, man, let’s go for it.’”|Hutto was “a child of the early ’90s” whose Dad literally tossed his just-purchased copy of a Nirvana songbook out their car window and took him back to the store to buy him the songbooks of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Stevie Ray Vaughn. “That really changed my musical direction,” he says. As a senior in high school, he started a landscaping business with a friend who played Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and Diamond Rio in the truck, turning him into a country fan. He started a band with a college friend, spent three years in Miranda Lambert’s band, then sent some songs to legendary Texas steel guitar player and producer Lloyd Maines, who produced a record for him and convinced him it was possible to make a living writing songs. Although he’d been accepted at dental school, he went instead to the Berklee School of Music, finishing a double major in just two years. He subsequently played for Pat Green, Jeff Allen, Ashley Ray and Danielle Peck.|George had heard “the sound of electric guitar when I was seven or eight years old, and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.” He had his first guitar at 13 and by 15 he was playing clubs on weekends. By the time he was a senior in high school, he was in a band called Pearl River that earned a deal on Capitol and released two albums. Through the band’s management company, Derek met Bryan White, and when Pearl River had run its course, he became White’s guitarist and co-writer on songs including the 1 smash “So Much For Pretending.” He then concentrated on songwriting in Nashville, penning songs for Rascal Flatts, Josh Gracin, Wynonna and Diamond Rio, among others.|Rogers, Guidry and Thibodaux, all of whom had crossed paths with one or more of the others before, rounded out the sound.|“This seemed like a band that belonged together,” says Williams, “because so many of them knew and liked each other and had performed with each other for years. The funny thing was I brought them all together by coincidence, but it sure made it seem like it was meant to be.”|It is an unlikely but natural group with a singer who himself doesn’t fit molds. “When I first came to Nashville,” he says, “I was told how much I didn’t sound country, and they’re right. But I guess in hindsight it’s turning out to be a nice distinction.”|If there is one more secret to the group’s success, it is, says George, that “we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously. Music is communal and ought to be fun. We definitely come from that place. We’re positive, upbeat guys.”|The rest goes back to following the group’s collectively unique vision.|“We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves into any one thing,” George adds. “We want to be able to go all over the map. It’s hard enough to write good music. We’d rather not have those kinds of restrictions. When we finish a song, it either works for us or it doesn’t.”|At this point, everything’s working, for the band and for fans alike, and Williams Riley is bringing a fresh new voice to the world of country music. |
