Overcoming injuries, battling “drinking issues” and months at a time on the road would change, possibly derail, most bands. But Sons of Bill put its collective heart on its sleeve and used these challenges to craft its newest album, Oh God Ma’am. Released in June, the record shows an increased maturity in the band’s sound, mostly leaving country behind in favor of a darker, more varied alternative.
When Sons of Bill played the Jefferson Theater for Christmas 2017, it was one of only a few times in the last two years that the Americana gurus had held a public concert. But there they were in early April—James, Abe and Sam, the three Wilson brothers who make up the Sons of Bill core—setting up in South Bend, Indiana, to play an intimate acoustic show highlighting the group’s forthcoming record, Oh God Ma’am.
What were they doing in a small post-industrial town an hour and half outside Chicago?
It turns out Sons of Bill has a rabid following in a pocket of the University of Notre Dame’s mostly Catholic faculty. The brothers were booked by Patrick Deneen, a political science professor and director of the university’s Center for Ethics and Culture.
“We find [the band’s] music to be both of the highest intellectual order as well as the most viscerally affecting,” Deneen says. “It’s a band that comes from a place and a tradition, and far from running from those roots, extols and revels in them.”
Deneen and his colleagues are an uncanny example of the type of national following—organic, serendipitous, spontaneous—Sons of Bill has been trying to cultivate beyond its regional stronghold for the past half decade.
Three and a half years ago, when the band was in the midst of its Love and Logic tour, the brothers’ goals were far-reaching. The group members had run the most extensive national tour of their careers and were set to go international. They didn’t know what response would be out there, but they wanted to tap into it.
“When you’re a grassroots band, you never know if…anyone knows anything about you,” bass player Seth Green said at the time.
Turns out the fans were there. Megastardom was not. The tour was successful by most measures, but as Sons of Bill looks to promote Oh God Ma’am, it’s more or less where it’s always been in terms of popularity.
“We went so hard and pushed everybody,” guitarist and vocalist James Wilson says. “It all went great, but it’s expensive to be in a band. There’s no easy commercial avenue to success. So afterwards, [some of the] guys had to raise their hands and step away.”
The Wilsons know that the difference between being well-liked and being household names can come down to luck. But Sons of Bill also hit some snags. A serious injury to James’ hand slowed things—he cut five tendons, and some doctors said his music career was over.
Along with the injury, James says he and his bandmates have faced down some drinking issues since completing their Love and Logic touring.
“You start off drinking to party, and then you continue to drink for the anxiety,” he says. “Things sort of spiraled.”
Finally, the follow-up album is here, a 10-song LP to be released June 29. Love and Logic producer (and former Wilco drummer) Ken Coomer is gone; Oh God Ma’am is self-produced, with assistance from a few indie engineering stars: Phil Ek (Shins, Fleet Foxes) worked with the band in Seattle, Sean Sullivan (Sturgill Simpson) provided producing chops in Nashville, and Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) did the mixing.
“Love and Logic dismantled everything in a great way. This album is more focused and intentional,” James says. “I think it is uniquely us. I don’t think it sounds like anybody.”
James admits the result is a more inside-the-box record. It’s sparser, more straightforward and lacks the sonic acrobatics Coomer pushed.
Green is no longer with the band, having moved on to spend more time with his family. Joe Dickey joins the Wilsons to play bass and Todd Wellons remains at the drum kit.
Another thing that’s still around for this record is SOB’s knack for combining touching confessionals with world-weary human condition observations.
“Just a fragile apparition of the person that I once met,” James sings on “Easier.” “Seemed like the world could see the skeleton beneath the skin / Another puritan who never lost the taste for sin.”
They’re Abe’s words and ostensibly about a lover, but one can’t help but recognize the Wilson brothers themselves in the characterization. And James says the album is indeed highly personal and introverted. “It scratches the spiritual scabs of the contemporary moment a little,” he says.
Sons of Bill launches a somewhat conservative Oh God Ma’am tour on June 22, that includes an August 2 date at the Jefferson, but has more international than domestic shows scheduled for now.
James says his ambitions are somewhat conservative this time, as well. “You just continue to survive and make music,” he says. “On the Love and Logic tour, we were playing sold-out shows in London. For a little kid, that would have been the dream happening.”
Dreams, it turns out, can change.
At times in life when we don’t have an answer, a parent’s oft-repeated aphorism sometimes comes to mind—whether we like it or not. For Sons of Bill guitarist and vocalist James Wilson, it’s a saying from his father, William Wilson, a retired UVA theology professor: “Never miss out on an opportunity to let the world humble you a little bit.”
This past summer, the world did humble the younger Wilson. Hard. He fell on a champagne glass, severing five tendons and the median nerve in his right hand—a major nerve providing movement and feeling from the hand to the shoulder. He calls the experience a “nightmare” and a “huge setback personally, artistically, professionally.”
“Not only could I not play guitar, but I couldn’t drive, sleep or even properly dress myself,” Wilson says. “Nerve pain can be brutal and I sunk into a pretty serious depression.” He started calling on another motto to get him through the accident’s aftermath.
“Adult life can be a son of a bitch,” he says.
In spite of the nerve damage, Wilson is recovering. Though playing acoustic guitar is still a challenge, he plays his electric guitar every day, and he didn’t let his injury end Sons of Bill’s nearly decade-long streak of playing a holiday show at the Jefferson.
“We’ve played a Christmas show every year the Jefferson has been open,” Wilson says. “It’s a homecoming in so many ways—literally and spiritually. This is home. You only get one.”
Wilson and his Sons of Bill bandmates, Seth Green, Todd Wellons and brothers Sam and Abe have just finished recording a new album this month—three years, three international tours and two cross-country tours after the band released its last album, Love and Logic.
“We toured hard, maybe too hard, for the few years after Love and Logic came out,” Wilson says of the band’s break between records. “It’s different being in a rock band as an adult, so we all took some time to do some grown-up housecleaning while we slowly worked on another record.”
Grateful for the band’s hiatus, Wilson is “deep into” a book he’s wanted to write on William Faulkner “for years,” and Abe is finishing architecture school. Sam has been producing records and touring with his side project band, Me and My Brother, which includes musicians Carl Anderson and Schuyler Fisk.
“We were all so tired,” says Wilson, referencing addictions that crept into the band and were affecting the new album’s recording process. It felt like they had lost the joy of making music. “We needed to rest, we needed to take care of our personal lives, we needed to manage our drinking,” he says. “Once you’re in [a band], it’s so easy to forget why you started making music in the first place. I’m glad we took the time to finish it—we made a record I’m really proud of.”
Wilson thinks the new album is Sons of Bill’s best, though he won’t share much about what’s on it. He says the album features dark, beautiful tunes contrasted against lighthearted moments, and that it’s simpler and more adventurous than previous albums, something the band really loves.
“One of my friends in Nashville described [the new album] as ‘goth-country for the over-educated.’ Not sure that’s totally accurate, and it doesn’t exactly scream dollar signs, but it’s a start,” he says.
With loved ones returning to Charlottesville, it’s a special time of year for Wilson and his family. When he can sneak away, he finds joy in the solemnity of midnight Mass. “‘O Holy Night’ is pretty dear to me,” says Wilson. “‘The weary world rejoices.’ What a perfect sentiment for this time—for any time.”
Coming home for the holidays can be hectic, but Sam, Abe and James Wilson et al make a party of it every year with the annual Sons of Bill & Friends show. Expect raucous covers, heartfelt traditionals, original faves and lots of laughs between the seriously good musical collaborations in what’s become a who’s who gathering of C’ville musicians.
Friday, December 23. $20-35, 9pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 245-4980.