TOUR IN ’24 — Thoughts on Going the Distance

I’ve played in stadiums and arenas, in small clubs and basements and everything in-between. Right now, though, being ‘on tour’ for me means stuffing my 2020 Toyota Prius to its gills and striking out.

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all seizing every opportunity available to you to settle your nervous systems as we continue to ride the waves of uncertainty and upheaval together.

I’ve just returned from a beautiful tour supporting old pals Pedro the Lion, as they play songs from their great new record, Santa Cruz. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was blown away by the love and enthusiasm from those who came. Every single crowd was incredible—respectful and attentive beyond what I could have hoped for. And I was so grateful to meet so many of you at the merch table—your encouragement and support is deeply felt, and has left me feeling alive, hopeful and reinvested in this whole project.

Additionally, a few friends and fans have encouraged me to consider starting a Patreon—so I’m going to give it a try! My plan is to share written updates roughly monthly, which you can sign up to receive for free, with additional content for subscribers. I’ll be digging into my deep vault of unreleased music and demos, as well as sharing any music I make henceforth that doesn’t seem fit to live elsewhere. Expect content to be delivered (roughly) monthly, and to be varied and unpredictable—it might be a live video, or an essay, or a poem, or a song, or a chat with a fellow artist friend. I’m envisioning this page as a place where I can connect with my existing audience more directly, and realize some of my ideas that don’t fit into all of the neat little pre-existing boxes. And if you’d like to contact me directly, you can do so there as well. I’m hopeful that this will become a place where I can build community and sustain my work without creating further dependence on those *other* apps.

Visit my Patreon page for more details HERE.

Please, don’t feel any pressure to subscribe if it presents any sort of financial hardship for you. But for those of you who are able to do so—your support is deeply appreciated, and I’ll do my best to make it worth your while.

My first post is available for you to read below, and I’ll continue to send occasional written updates to this mailing list as well. And my first transmission for paid subscribers is two never-before-released little gems, called Icy and Glaze—that I recorded in Baltimore over a decade ago. I had completely forgotten them, but a fan I met in Austin (shoutout/thank you to Dave Pokk!) reminded me of their existence and kindly shared them with me. Additional thanks to Chris and Mickey Freeland, my brilliant friends who helped me to create them in one hazy afternoon in Baltimore, so many years ago.

With love and gratitude,

JW

PS For those of you in North Carolina, a reminder that I’m playing an outdoor lakeside concert in Winston Salem, NC on Friday, August 24th. It’s at SECCA (formerly NCMA Winston Salem) and you can buy tickets HERE.

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TOUR IN ’24—Thoughts on Going the Distance (feat. Pedro the Lion)

photo by Mike Gustafson

A huge percentage of my time here on earth has been spent ‘on tour.’ This can mean a lot of different things, as I’m sure many of you are aware. It can mean tour buses and parking lots;  airplanes and rental cars and hotel rooms. Pick your approach, I’ve likely tried it. I’ve played in stadiums and arenas, in small clubs and basements and everything in-between. Right now, though, being ‘on tour’ for me means stuffing my 2020 Toyota Prius to its gills and striking out with my partner, Alan, to play for 35 people in a stranger’s living room.

To some folks, this might sound depressing—the last stop on the express train to ‘your career is over.’ Maybe at different time in my life I would have felt the same way. As it turns out, I’ve never been happier, or felt more hopeful—and I’m beginning to realize that much of the conventional wisdom I’ve been fed about how to build a career in music is actually dead-fucking-wrong (for me, at least!)

If I’m being honest, I’ve always felt a little bit uncomfortable with the one-size-fits all path for a career in music. Even as I’ve pushed to make work and keep my career afloat, I’ve been aware of this underlying fear of too much—too much attention, too much pressure, too much expectation, too much money. I’ve learned, through observation and experience, that too much of any of these things can really start to harden your heart to the things that matter.

Over the years I learned the lesson of too much by getting too close to the flame, and although I was sometimes confused by my reaction (“isn’t this what I was supposed to have wanted?”) my body knew the truth. I made certain decisions intuitively, not fully understanding the whole of what was happening but knowing the truth of my feelings was undeniable. And, slowly, over the years, by ignoring advice and convention, I have built a career that—fucking finally—feels like it suits me perfectly. And it feels every bit as good and right as that other path just…didn’t.

I first heard about these Living Room tours, as they’re called, though observing David Bazan, who helped to create the organization that I’m working with, Undertow. I first toured with Dave in 2009—my band Wye Oak had just released our second record, The Knot, and Dave was touring on his first solo record, called Curse Your Branches. In the course of that tour I became a huge fan—of his songs, his voice, and above all, his bravery and honesty with his audience.

Curse Your Branches was, among other things, a record about losing faith in Christianity, and in choosing to make it he showed a part of himself to his audience that he knew might result in alienation and rejection. It was an act of absolute vulnerability and truth, and it really stuck with me. I’ve always considered him a kindred spirit, someone who has chosen to walk a truly authentic path, career consequences be damned.

As the years went by, I was vaguely aware of his living room tours, but I never managed to catch one, and it wasn’t until many years later that it occurred to me that they might be a good fit for me. After Head of Roses I was hungry to tour; I tried to make so many different iterations work. But the numbers just didn’t add up: expenses have never been higher, and folks aren’t coming out in the same numbers they used to. So: what to do? As always, the answer—reconsider. reinvent. adapt.

I expected that these tours, with their bare-bones approach and low overhead, would be a viable option for me. I had heard enough from other artists to have a general rough idea of what I was in for. But I certainly didn’t anticipate how much I would come to love it—and I do love it, more than any other style of tour I’ve embarked upon. In so many ways I feel like I have finally found the thing I have been looking for—a way to share my music with others while feeling, from start to finish, utterly and completely like myself.

Musically, I expected that our performances would feel at least a bit compromised compared to what I was used to—loud speakers, lights, haze, and all of the trappings of stagecraft and pro-audio. But it turns out that stripping the songs back to their absolute essential core forces me to pull from a deeper, more authentic place. Instead of worrying about what I look like or how my monitor mix is sounding, I am able to sink wholly and completely into the energy behind the songs, the reason I made them in the first place. Playing with Alan—a gifted improviser—means that the songs are alive, evolving, never the exact same thing twice.

Performing in this way allows me to be really, truly wholly present with the music itself. When this happens, my brain finally goes quiet. I feel myself disappear. Time slows down. It’s ecstatic.

Most of the time during these shows I’d end up singing with my eyes closed and it wasn’t uncommon, when a song ended, to open my eyes and feel almost surprised that I was being watched. I would see strangers with tears in their eyes and feel myself actively, presently moved. I’ve cried during these shows. I’ve felt things, real feelings, while performing—something I always wished wasn’t so goddamn difficult while playing in the past. The stillness and intimacy of these performances doesn’t scare my nervous system into compartmentalizing, shutting itself down, enacting an exaggerated facsimile of my emotions. I’m actually feeling them, in real time.

But what happens after the show is as special as the show itself: I talk to people. And those people share the kindest, most beautiful and heartfelt stories with me. I get to hear about how my music, that which I pull from the most private and solitary place, has been a real part of their everyday lives. How can I put into words the honor, the gob-smacking privilege of this? I’ve spent so much time hoping that the work that I do doesn’t exist purely in selfishness; that it could

provide some amount of joy and comfort to others, too. And now I get to stand and listen while, over and over again, I’m informed that my dream has come true, my time on earth has meant something, my message has been received. All this time I had been fooled by the great lie that we all live inside of—that you're not really succeeding unless you have everything, unless you win it all. I can tell you: about this, they’re all wrong. At the end of every night I’m tearful, exhausted, grateful beyond belief. An honest day’s work. Beautiful, uncomplicated. Thank fucking god.

Coincidentally enough, it was right as I was finishing up the second month of living room shows that I got an offer to tour with Pedro the Lion. It felt fated; a chance to reconnect with my old friend who had helped to pave the way for my own circuitous path—and a chance to see whether our new set, vastly stripped down and minimized, would be able to hold up in those old familiar rock clubs. I was skeptical. I worried I would regress back into that hardened version of myself. And, despite notable differences, I was still present—and so were the audiences, deeply respectful, humbling, generous. It felt like an important reminder—you can find magic anywhere, if you’re looking for it.

So much of the music industry is designed to create the illusion of separation—but in the process we deprive ourselves. Art is important, but when you treat artists like they’re special—better than, held apart—you deprive them of their humanity, and rob everyone of a chance to connect, on a deeper level, to something beyond performance. Don’t get me wrong—there’s certainly a place for entertainment, for escapism, for the larger-than-life spectacle of it all. But the thing I want to do is different. And now I know.