Hellbent for Hallelujah

Forget about Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, and all those others who’ve pretended lately to play real country music. Alex Williams plays, writes, and sings circles around those artists, and his honest storytelling and his raw emotional music deliver real country music in the vein of Haggard and Jones, Hank Williams (and Hank Williams Jr.), Buck Owens, and Waylon Jennings. He’s one of the best new country artists of the year, and his new album, Better Than Myself, introduces us the ways Williams has with a song.

The folk ballad title track, with its tongue-in-cheek humor (“If you’re listening right now/I’d say this song is doing pretty well”), opens the album with some pure, cascading guitar picking, supported by Mickey Raphael’s shimmering harmonica; you can imagine Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan getting together, with Miranda Lambert adding vocals, to sing this song. The song that really launches Williams is “Hellbent Hallelujah”: it’s a barroom brawl of a song that dances raucously across the windswept desolation of contemporary country music in search of a grain of truth and a modicum of hope. It combines the driving guitars of a Buck Owens tune, but Dan Dugmore’s steel guitar turns this into maybe the most honest country song out today. His soaring steel also punctuates the tune with a Burrito Brothers’ vibe that closes out the tune as it fades into “More Than Survival.” Williams tells a simple country tale of being down so long he’s hellbent on finding the time to look up: “This ol’ rode hard three chord troubadour/Is tired of eatin’dust/Hell, I’m hellbent for one more hallelujah/There’s just so many ways that life can screw ya.” Williams plays a chord from the classic country of Jones and Junior in “Little Too Stoned,” a straight-ahead honky-tonker that could have flowed out of Haggard’s pen. Williams’ raw vocals burn like whiskey in “Old Tattoo,” and he bares his pain even as he admits he’s good at hiding it: “I can hide the pain away/Even if it burns the bitter truth/Like an old tattoo.” The album closes with “Last Cross,” a shuffle that promises redemption even in the midst of suffering.

Alex Williams surely gives us hope for the future of country music; if all country albums channeled the music’s tradition with such honesty and with such innovation as Williams’ Better Than Myself, we’ll all be singing hallelujah and be hellbent to get it on country radio.

Williams and I chatted by phone recently about the new album — we had a good laugh about the song “Freak Flag” and swore we wouldn’t tell anybody about it — and his music.

Tell me the story of the album.

I was with an old band, Williams and Company — a group of jazz musicians playing country music — for five years. I was ready to move on. The drummer said to me, “Hey, man; your songs are better than you are.” I figured that signaled a new direction, and it sounded like a new song, too. I’ve always been a huge 1970s music fan. I’m a very passionate fan of Texas music, especially the Austin scene in the 1970s, that whole cosmic cowboy thing. I wanted to channel that music on this album with a modern twist.

How did you select the songs for the album? Did you leave some on the studio floor?

I had about 60 songs that we had demoed, so we did leave a few on the floor. I started writing about 6 months before we went in to the studio, and I had five or six songs that fit together.

You wrote “Old Tattoo” and “Few Short Miles (Bobby’s Song),” but the rest are co-writes. What’s that process like for you?

I was a little uncomfortable with it at first. Now it’s hard to write on my own. I like having the idea, or a few lines, or a verse, on my own, and then having some guiding direction.

What artists have most influenced you?

Willie and Waylon. Billy Joe Shaver is a huge influence on me as an artist. Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker. I’m a huge fan of Southern rock, especially Lynyrd Skynyrd.

You’re on the road a lot; what’s the best part of touring? The worst part?

I can’t tell you the worst part because I haven’t found it yet (laughs). The travel part is the best, man. It’s great to see places that you wouldn’t be able to see just sitting in Nashville.

What’s the toughest part about being an artist today?

Truly coming into your own. There are very few artists, myself included, that have found the right path. It can be a long and hard search, and it takes a minute to find the path.

But you think you’ve found yours?

Yeah, man, I think so. I hope so.

Tell me a little bit about “Hellbent Hallelujah.” You don’t often see those two words together.

It’s about finding that new direction. It’s about that confusing time between getting things rolling after I had left my old band. Waiting for something good to happen.

What about “Old Tattoo”?

I wrote that about my grandfather. I really wish I’d know him better than I did; he was kind of hard to get to know. After he died, I could see my mom and grandmother storing away their pain.

“Last Cross”?

You know, I was going for a Hank Jr. shuffle (laughs).

What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned so far?

In my experience, honesty and integrity are the two biggest things as an artist. The biggest challenge is something out of your control: the opinions of other people. It’s hard to keep clarity when you have so many people telling you what they think you should be doing. If you’re true to what you’re doing, you’ll be all right.

Other than touring behind this new album, what’s next for you?

I’m still writing a bunch of songs every day. The next album will be an expansion of what we’re doing now, growing our sound organically.