Wild Ponies Shine Radiantly
There’s a luminous quality to Wild Ponies and their shine-a-light on the foibles and shortcomings of the ragged ways that people and communities fall in and out of hope—hope for love, hope for unity, hope for the strong fabric that holds together tradition, and hope for a future that embraces wholeness while recognizing the limitations brought on by various activities of a society that values convenience over conviviality. Just as the lyrics on their previous album, Things That Used to Shine, radiate with bright insights into the conflicts that often mar this human life and the loves we try to embrace to get us through the muddy darkness of life, the lyrics on Radiant illuminate the corners of our lives—home, love and loss, family—shining a light, sometimes uncomfortably, on illusions we often accept as truth and casting that searchlight on the truths often tarnished by darkness.
Guitarist Doug Williams and bassist Telisha Williams stand at the heart of Wild Ponies and are joined on Radiant by Megan Jane on drums and Fats Kaplin, who plays strings and steel. A host of their friends also lend their pens and voices as co-writers: Amy Speace on “Born with a Broken Heart,” Sally Barris on “The Night We Never Met,” Jeff Barbra on “Mom and Pop,” and Amelia White on “Big Blue Sun” and “Home is Where the Road Goes.” Tres Sasser and Brett Stewart join in on background vocals.
In contrast to Things That Used to Shine, Wild Ponies kicked out the jams on Radiant, delivering straight-ahead rocking tunes, underscored by Doug’s romping electric guitar. The band recorded a limited edition version—”Acoustic Demos”—that strips the songs down, though even this version packs the same emotional punch as the plugged-in treatment of the tunes.
“Born with a Broken Heart” kicks off the album in raucous, stomping style. The menacing power of Doug’s pop guitar chords and Telisha’s soaring vocals underscore the jagged brokenness—”Put it all together, I’ll take it back apart/I was born, with a broken heart”—of an incomplete relationship looking for some kind of completion. The gorgeous title track comes almost as a palate cleanser after the tangy raucousness of “Born with a Broken Heart”; co-written with teenager Mariah Moore, the song marvels at the raw beauty of the natural world around us and the ways that it gets inside us, shaking us up and staying there as a pure splendor that fosters peace of mind even during our most chaotic moments: “Moon, Stars, Summer sky/I want to know how to be so radiant/Stars in the sky, fish in the sea/I feel the wind lift my hair/Breathe a kiss against my ear/I draw it in slow and deep/It’s inside me, I become the breeze.”
“Tower and Wheel” is a paean to a Catawba tree that has stood against all the forces of humanity and nature. Over the decades, the tree has stood as a place of gathering—a place where children play, where people get married under her shelter, a place where songs are written—and as a protection against the ravages of a world gone awry. The tree still stands even though it has witnessed the collapse of barns and houses; it holds close to what it knows, and we’d be wise to do the same in our lives.
Doug’s chicken-picked guitar propels the anthem of destruction, “Mom and Pop,” a tune about the demise of the mom-and-pop store in the face of the increasing commercialization of culture. The jaunty delivery of the tune mirrors the rapid crumbling of the store—creaking and rotting boards—and the rapid crumbling of the owner who can’t sustain ownership of the store that his parents and grandparents have worked so hard to make. The title cuts a couple of ways, of course; the singer is bidding farewell to the work his own mom and pop have put in the store while at the same time bidding farewell to a way of life now overrun by a society more attuned to convenience than community. “Unplug the Machine” gallops along, exhorting an embrace of a culture that’s not overrun by racism or murder or corporate greed
while at the same time acknowledging just how impossible that is. Yet, if we can “unplug the machine,” we might be able to stem the witness to such societal ills and not fuel the flame of such red coal carpets burning through our society.
While the album opens by acknowledging brokenness, it closes with a stunning declaration of love and its healing power, “Love is Not a Sin.” With a bluesy syncopation, and aching harmonies, the tune rivals Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” as a plea for a better place and the hope of moving very plainly with love to that better place: “I know it makes the world go ’round/I know it makes the world go ’round/It’s the hand that helps you stand up, when you’re knocked down to the ground/It doesn’t matter who you love/It doesn’t matter who you love/When two lovers find each other, I’d say it’s sanctioned from above/It doesn’t matter who you love/I know love is not a sin/I know love is not a sin/From the time that I was put here, ’till he calls me home again/I know love is not a sin.”
I caught up with Doug and Telisha Williams by phone for a chat about the new album and their music.
Henry Carrigan: What’s the story behind this record?
Wild Ponies (Doug and Telisha Williams): Well, I think we started thinking about this album about two-and-a-half years ago, as soon as Things That Used to Shine came out. I think as soon as you release an album you’re thinking about the next one. We’re always writing songs and keeping them in these little batches. We got the title track of this album from a program called Words & Music that we’re involved in at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Teens from local schools write lyrics, and we work with the students. Normally these songs are about sunshine and butterflies (laughs), but Mariah Moore submitted this song that had such beautiful lyrics that kind of blew us away. We ended up bringing the song back home—”we stole it,” Doug laughs—and Mariah’s our co-writer on this one.
HC: How did you end up with these 11 songs on the album?
Wild Ponies: We recorded about 14 or 15 tracks for the record. We felt like these were the songs that fit together best. We’ve been playing some of these songs out, too; we’re big believers in playing songs out because it feels very different to play a song out, and we like the ways that songs change and shift and evolve.
HC: When did you start playing and writing?
Telisha: My first instrument was piano; I started when I was 5 or 6. Doug gave me a guitar when I was 15, but I kind of always wanted to make my way to the bass. I was always drawn to it visually and sonically, and once I started to play upright, I never put it down. Kinesthetically, I love the movement of the body and instrument together. I like writing on bass because it really opens a song up.
Doug: My grandfather taught me how to play banjo when I was about 5, but I started to play guitar in junior high and high school. We started playing together in a rock and roll band in high school.
HC: Who are your three greatest musical influences?
Doug: Willie Nelson: always has been a hero for his songwriting, singing, and guitar playing. John Lennon; Coltrane and Ornette Coleman: I got really into jazz in college; when you listen to it, it gives a certain freedom; it pushes the boundaries, and I love the improvisation.
Telisha: Patsy Cline: I love the tremendous force of her voice and the control she has of her voice; Hazel Dickens: I love the rawness of her songwriting and singing. She performed in typically conservative music, but she led a really progressive life and her music reflected her concerns for the life of the people around her. Lucinda Williams: I don’t think we’d be doing what we’re doing without her.
HC: Tell me a little about your approach to songwriting.
Doug: The first rule is to take it as it comes, but you do have to work at it. We’ll start out with an idea; Telisha is really good at coming up with an idea or a direction; she’ll throw it to me, and I’ll come up with lyrics or a chorus, and then I’ll throw it back to her and she comes up with a melody.
Telisha: Doug is amazing at coming up with words; he’s a great writer of short stories.
Doug: We wrote “Tower and the Wheel” out at my grandfather’s farm in Virginia. Nobody lives there anymore, and it’s way out in the country with no cell phone or internet service, so it’s like a little retreat. We wrote the song about this Catawba tree that’s been on the property forever; we used to tie horses there, and sit in the tree’s shade; Telisha and I cut our wedding cake under that tree. But Telisha and I couldn’t get the chorus to work. One afternoon we took out a deck of Tarot cards. We laid out the cards and wrote the B parts from the way the cards fell.
Telisha: “Lullaby” came out of a songwriting assignment up ay Harbor Springs, Michigan. I wrote it totally on the bass.
HC: What’s your favorite mistake?
Doug: My entire life, except for marrying Telisha (laughs).
Telisha: We keep improvising; improvisation is what we’re born out of, and we’ve developed our playing style that way.
HC: What are the elements of a great song?
Telisha: A song that listeners can engage with on several different levels: lyrically, musically, thematically. If you hear it and can bob along to it, even if you’re not a musical person, that’s a great song. If you keep dipping into the song to hear the underlying message, it’s a great song.
Doug: Yeah, a song that has universality and honesty is a great song.
HC: How have you evolved as artists?
Doug: We try to listen to better writers so we can learn from them. We started out as a rock ‘n’ roll band, then were a folky duo, and now we’re under the Americana shelter, and we’re doing all electric on this new album. It’s just a spiraling loop really.
Telisha: I also feel like we have evolved personally, especially since Things That Used to Shine. From the release of that album to this release, I can accept myself as who I am. I am feeling more and more confident.
Doug: We just want to make good art.
HC: Apart from touring behind this new album, what’s next for Wild Ponies?
Doug: We’re going to go back to my grandfather’s farm and do an album of songs in the old-time tradition. There are still a lot of guys who play in that tradition out there, and they’ll come over and play the songs with us. We’ll just sit around a couple of mics and play and sing.
Telisha: The farm: that’s where we come from musically.