Name: Brad Allen Williams

Nationality: American
Occupation: Guitarist, producer, songwriter, composer
Current release: Brad Allen Williams's “technologia” is out via Colorfield. It is the first single off his upcoming full-length album œconomy, slated for release February 10th 2023.

If you enjoyed this interview with Brad Allen Williams and would like to find out more about his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.  



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I’d imagine most of us have an inborn need to express; to process the world around us by synthesizing lived experience into some sort of creative response. But as we age, this faces the threat of erosion by various institutional and social forces.

Institutionally, raw creative expression is sort of inherently incompatible with many of the things we value in modern life—the ability to be predictably, dependably productive, for one.

On the social side there can also be pressures to age out of creating. I grew up in the kind of southern-US working class milieu where boys and men were actively discouraged from being vulnerable or artistic. To show any sort of appreciation for beauty was quite often punished with literal violence, so it’s understandable why only a few would persist.

Maybe due to a lifetime of protecting that inborn creative impulse, I’ve never really had to search for inspiration. Creating feels less like something I do and more like someone I am.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

Anywhere on that spectrum is valid, and I value the whole continuum. I’ve got a pretty active imagination, so I’d generally plot myself closer to the “visualization” end. But there’s always some of both, no matter your intentions—and I relish both, really.

On this new album œconomy, I was working more in the opportunistic realm than usual, and this was partly due to the label’s mission. I was asked to come in with nothing prepared—a strategy that would honestly never occur to me!

Some creative people tend to be “hunter-gatherers” while others are “farmers.” I’ve always been more of a farmer—I make things on purpose, and I’ve worked pretty hard to develop the skills I need to cultivate my output. I don’t rely on luck. I never have “writer’s block.” I know how to invent things, so I invent.

But there’s something to be said for getting out of your own head a bit. I never would’ve written something like “tecnologia” or “an artifice.” My agricultural mind would’ve crafted everything with intent, and would’ve been unlikely to lead me to these weird forms and meditative spaces.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Not even slightly! I’m pretty resilient when it comes to making things. In fact, I kind of relish a good limitation.

All of the string arrangements on œconomy were written on airplanes. I notated the scores using a tiny one-octave MIDI keyboard on a seat-back tray table.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Absolutely none, and I had to learn the hard way that such contrivances are extremely counterproductive for me. They’re not merely useless—they actively frustrate creative output.

Making stuff can be as normal as breathing, and I don’t need to “get in the right mindset” to breathe successfully. I’ve learned that it’s unhelpful for me to sensationalize the creative process in any way—it risks becoming this precious, fraught, anxious thing.

Creative miracles are surprisingly normal and frequent—even ordinary. I’ve learned the best way to encourage them is to treat them as such.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note? Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

When left to my own devices, I always work on all, or most, elements at once. And I do this right from the beginning—it’s just the way my process has matured. While that was difficult when I was less-experienced, it’s pretty reliably-easy now.

When working with others, it’s more typical that collaborators will want to start with one element—an instrumental track, a lyric, a melody, some chords—and then fit something around that. That’s always way less natural-feeling to me than the flexibility of synthesizing the whole thing at once, and that’s when it can start to feel challenging.

The œconomy album was tricky for me in that respect—since nothing was written in advance, a lot of elements were improvised without clear prior intent for how they’d ultimately be developed. Since there are always practical constraints on time and budget—even if just implicitly—I was aware that certain early facets would probably end up kind of locked-in. I wasn’t able to indulge that usual conversation between elements that’s become so central to my process.

A track like “scape” began as a little piano theme that I improvised while I was waiting for my co-producer Pete Min to finish up a meeting—I think he may have actually begun recording me without my knowledge. I liked it, but didn’t have much of a plan for where it was going.  Later on, it grew into that quasi-fugue—I had to fit the string quartet around the improvised piano, which limited what i could write.

The end result was something different than what I’d have come up with via a more comfortable process, and there’s something to be said for that.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

Maybe not as soon as I begin, but when it’s really working I feel completely like a passenger. It’s really the most interesting, exhilarating part of doing this work. Once something begins to develop, this other part of the mind takes over and I kind of just have to let it do its thing.

Most of the work I do under my own name is instrumental, but I’m a frequent collaborator with singer-writers, and it’s always fascinating to watch this happen with lyrics. Maybe it’s because I’ve got more of an instrumental mind, but phonetics are very important to me—how does it sing; how does it sound? Do we want something percussive or something smooth? And often following these little phonetic impulses can lead you and your collaborator to words and ideas that neither of you could’ve ever contrived, and they just take on their own life.

Similar things can happen in instrumental contexts, but there may be fewer pressures and stimuli. Sometimes when struggling to find a rhyme you end up some place you never could’ve imagined.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I’m much more at risk of hyper-fixating on a singular course; of clamping down on an idea or direction that seems thoroughly, irrationally inevitable. This can become really bewildering when a collaborator wants to steer it to another place! But I’m getting better at completely shifting course in those moments.

One thing that helps is living with the realization that there are infinite great ideas. Today’s work doesn’t need to encompass every priority—there’s always tomorrow.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

Occasional transcendence, perhaps—but rather than an injection of the spiritual, it feels for me more like the ejection of the corporeal.

To approach it a bit less obliquely—the ego has proven for me to be the single biggest barrier to creativity. When I’m at my best, any speculation about how others may receive the work kind of melts into the background.

Once service of the art becomes the sole motive, some pretty special things can happen.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

This is a very salient question—something many people struggle with—and I don’t think it’s necessarily a unique feature of the digital age.

We’ve all heard the anecdote in which a young John Coltrane expressed not knowing how to finish a solo, and Miles Davis quipped “try taking the horn out of your mouth.” And this is actually good advice! Being willing to declare even imperfect output to be “complete”—to take the metaphorical horn out of your mouth—is a vitally-important skill. I think this improves with experience for a few reasons.

First, I think consistency helps. When output is slow or sporadic, there’s always pressure to incorporate every idea, every refinement. But if you’re completing projects regularly, this pressure diminishes. There’s always the next project—let’s just embrace the beauty that’s here.

I also strongly believe that running toward something good is far more fruitful than running away from something bad. A lot of this excessive refinement is really just compulsive flaw-elimination. Once we develop the security to live with—or even feature—our flaws, we’re far more likely to complete things.

Finally, it’s helpful to embrace limitations and boundaries. It seems almost harsh, but hitting a deadline or running out of money is a very effective motivator.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

Letting creative work “age” is so underrated, because most of us are not as in-control of our cognitive biases as we think we are. When something feels like a struggle in the moment, it will certainly color our ability to evaluate it on its merits. And even when that initial impulse is correct—something is strained or flawed—trying to improve it can still be the wrong course!

On the title track for œconomy, I originally played the baritone guitar melody against a much more-aggressive arrangement. The attack was brash—it was fairly dug-in, and rather edgy on the front part of the beat. As we arranged, curated and reimagined the composition, it ended up becoming a much slower burn, and this angry baritone guitar performance didn’t quite fit.

So I decided to play it again. I got what I felt was a better sound, played it better, and I adopted a dynamic approach that was better-contextualized within the fully-realized production. The net result was somehow worse! I don’t know why, it just didn’t feel as compelling. So after spending several hours on it, we deleted it and went back to the original.

Making that call felt really good—like a validation of everything I’ve learned about making records. A less-experienced version of me would’ve been at risk of noting the “improvement” and moving on.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Well, those are areas in which I may be a bit more deeply-immersed than some of my contemporaries. I consider myself a better producer than instrumentalist; that’s where I feel my greatest strengths lie.

I’ve always taken a very holistic approach to making records—to the point of building, modifying or designing much of my gear and even some of the studios in which I work. If it matters to the final product, it’s fair to assume I’ve got a hand in it, or want a hand in it—whether this is mixing the record or writing the string arrangements.

I keep some of this a little close to the vest, because there’s sometimes an unfair perception that you must specialize in order to truly be great. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. These skills all crosslink to form a kind of super-polymer of musicianship.

I became a much better ensemble and rhythm section player once I begun mixing records, just for one example. My ability to contextualize my own sound within the group became better; my ability to create interesting and supportive accompaniment improved. Even as a soloist, my ability to craft a sound and approach that balances well against the ensemble took major leaps forward in tandem with improving as a mixer.

If I’m hiring session players for an album, my first calls are always to players who have experience producing and mixing. If your band is full of people accustomed to making the big picture work, it’s going to sound like a record sooner. They won’t play things that compete with the lead vocal—they’ll have developed an allergy to that.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Oh yes, I call it “postpartum depression.” I’ve never figured out how to avoid it other than to just immediately begin the next thing—but that doesn’t always feel particularly healthy or balanced.

I have only one marginal strategy. When I recognize this feeling—by now it’s pretty familiar—I try to just witness it with my rational mind. I allow it to be there, but instead of immediately getting caught up in it, just wave “hello” and feel secure in knowing that it will pass.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

For me it is different. While it’s true that other disciplines are just as creative, only music feels purpose-driven for me. There’s an altruistic side to this and an egocentric one.

Altruistically, I’ve poured so much of myself into music that I simply feel better-equipped to contribute in that discipline than in any other. If I can hope to leave this place better than I found it, my best shot may be through this medium.

Egocentrically, music is what the very youngest version of me aspired to be recognized for and hopefully even remembered for. That person is still in here, and I don’t want to let them down.