Singer-songwriter Stephen Wilson Jr. grew up in southern Indiana, where he was strongly influenced by classic country artists, including George Jones and Johnny Cash. But he was also inspired by the Seattle sound. "I got massively influenced by grunge music," Wilson Jr. says.

In this interview with Zach McCormick on The Current, Wilson Jr. reflects on those early influences in his life and how they continue to show up in his work to this day — including a song by Pixies that informed Wilson Jr.'s songwriting on his new single, "Hardwired."

Watch and listen to the complete interview above to learn more about key moments in Wilson Jr.'s life as a person and as an artist — including the event that catalyzed his love of grunge, his rediscovery of guitar thanks to learning about alternative tunings, and about the accident that affected his approach to songwriting and almost deprived him of the ability to play guitar at all.

Interview Transcript

Zach McCormick: Welcome to Tonal Recall, The Current's show where we celebrate the music and culture of the 1990s. Joined in studio right now by Stephen Wilson Jr. Thank you so much for coming in, Stephen.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Thank you for having me, Zach.

Zach McCormick: We really appreciate you coming in and talking about some of your favorite '90s songs and some of the ways that '90s influence was influential on your own songwriting and music. So let's start by talking about "Hardwired," this brand-new tune for you.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah.

Zach McCormick: So there's a little bit of DNA in this track; I'm hearing some Pixies. Can you talk about how the Pixies were an influence on your work, and maybe how you found your way to including some of these lyrics, some of this melody in this particular song?

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Well, this song is like one of the most like country songs I've written, you know, lyrically. Because I grew up very country, like even though I have a lot of rock and roll influence, I'm like "All hat and no Seattle," as they joke around. But being from southern Indiana, I kind of gravitated more to that sound. But I've always been super influenced by country music, by the lyrics of country writing, everything from George Jones and Johnny Cash, even though George didn't write a lot of his songs, but you know, the songs that he sang, I really paid close attention to the lyrics, and I always tell the story about Tim McGraw made me cry on a school bus when I was like 12 years old with his "Don't Take the Girl" song.

Zach McCormick: Yeah, totally.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Or roughly that age, and it was like, I'll never forget how much those lyrics affected me, and and kind of the journey they took me on. So I kind of write with that first, but obviously I kind of paint it with a different brush than those artists did, especially back then. And this song is very country. It's very rural. I grew up on a rural route, like a county line road, amongst farms. I grew up in a body shop around all these people with grit, and I didn't really know that, you know, that wasn't going to be uncommon, you know, in the future. And so I'm really just trying to celebrate and kind of perhaps shine a flashlight on those characters of our society that kind of get under-celebrated. There's just so many lines from that song, you know, that kind of just go into the the nuances of that life, like sleeping on the couch with your Caterpillars on; like, I've fallen asleep with my steel toes on before, and you're so tired, you don't even have time to take your boots off. And like getting into the detail of a chain slipping off a hitch, and you know, you're knee-deep in the mud, it's raining, and you know, like, the world doesn't care about your pain, and like, the people that just get up and do it anyway are kind of the ones that are hardwired for it, and it's something that takes a lot of time and temperature and pressure to get to that point. The world made them that way, and I think that there's a lot of art in that.

Zach McCormick: Celebrating these kind of like salt-of-the-earth characters is something that I've heard in other songs of yours, too. "Gary" being another example of a guy, yeah, you're wearing the shirt right now. Like that's clearly always been something that's been a subject of country music, is that like wanting to celebrate everyday people who are maybe doing normal things in an extraordinary way or extraordinary things and trying to just sort of make it part of their normal life. The storytelling aspect of country music sounds like it's really significant for you. But musically as well, like, what artists, when you mentioned George Jones, would these be? You know, classic guys from the 1970s as far as country goes, or were you listening to contemporary stuff that was coming out in the '80s and '90s as well? I think of a Steve Earle is being a songwriter that might have been a guy that could connect with rock music and sort of storytelling in a similar way, like you did with country.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, absolutely. He was so great at kind of blending those genres.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And yeah, I mean, other artists had a huge effect on me. I grew up listening to Hank Williams Sr. too, and a lot of the contemporaries. I had like a 90-minute school bus ride to school and a 90-minute ride home. So I spent three hours a day listening to contemporary country music, whether I liked it or not. This corn farmer drove the bus, and he was the DJ of the the radio station. He wasn't the DJ, but ... And then obviously like Pixies had an influence there, and when we were writing the song, I wrote this with Miranda Lambert and a couple other friends, and I kind of got brought into that room that day, and you know, I kind of wasn't supposed to be there. It was really last minute. And this song, this chorus kind of showed up, and it kind of started blending in with all these like minor chords, and you know like a three minor and all that. I know those are like music theory terms that nobody really cares about. And like, while we were writing it, I just I had, like, for some reason, "Where Is My Mind" just kept showing up in my head.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And that song is just so influential for so many reasons, in just our culture. And I didn't say anything in the write, but it just kept showing up, and I didn't want to be that guy that just started playing another song while we were writing a song. I recorded it, and then that just kept showing up. And lyrically, I don't really love bridges. You don't write a bridge or burn a bridge unless you absolutely have to, is what they say. And I try not to write them unless the song really, really needs it. And I've written plenty of bridges, but I was like, this song, I feel like it didn't have anything else to say from our perspective, and then I started weaving in, you know, "way out in the water, see it swimming, where is my mind," and it just it just fit so well with the lyric that was already there. It honestly took the lyric to another place, and our story took that lyric to another place, because that's not really what that song's about. It's not about these hardworking people that are out there just you know—

Zach McCormick: Right, yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: ... you know working to the bone. I don't think so. At least that's not what I gleaned from the song when I first heard Pixies' version of it. But now it's like taking on this whole other meaning for these people that are kind of losing their minds every day, just working themselves, and that's you know — it took the song somewhere completely different, and you know, my influence being very grunge heavy and and rock and roll heavy. It just yeah, I just didn't fight it. You know, it's not normally something I'm trying to do, like an interpolation or anything like that. It just happened, and all I did was just get out of the way of it. And I just started recording it and trying it, and like, it just seemed so obvious. Like it wasn't like, "Do we do this? Do we don't do this?" I mean, the only thing that would have prevented it from happening was like maybe a business or publishing side of it.

Zach McCormick: Right.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: We got all that stuff worked out, and Frank Black was so kind to let us use that interpolation.

Zach McCormick: I heard he gave you his blessing. That's got to feel really good.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: It really is, and I hope he's proud of it. Because, like I said, I truly believe it takes that singular lyric to a whole other place. That I think a lot of hardworking people that are kind of looking for their minds will really appreciate.

Zach McCormick: Welcome to Tonal Recall, '90s at noon. Fridays on The Current. Zach McCormick joined by Stephen Wilson Jr. We're talking a little bit about some of the influences on your music. We were talking about the country influences, the hardworking salt-of-the-earth folks in "Hardwired." But then we also touched a little bit on how rock and alternative music have kind of shaped your sound as well. The Blankets EP is another spot where this really comes to bear. You have all these great rock artists that you're covering on here: Nirvana, Temple of the Dog, Smashing Pumpkins, and even electronic music with the Postal Service as well and that song. It's really cool to hear how you've found a way to interpolate these songs into your own sound, but I'm just sort of curious about how you found your way to each of these bands, what role they played as you were deciding what kind of songwriter and musician you wanted to be. What role did their influence play on you?

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I mean, I got massively affected by grunge music. I had a terrible first kiss out at a roller skating rink when I was a kid, and I basically headbutted this girl with my mouth, and bloodied my lip. And she just turned around and jumped in the car, and they drove off. Like, her mom was like driving the car. It was terrible. Like, my two friends saw it, and she broke up with me on a cordless phone two hours later, and I started listening to grunge music immediately. That was the only thing that made sense.

Zach McCormick: Yeah, one-hundred percent.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: So it was all kind of catalyzed by a terrible first kiss out at a roller skating rink.

Zach McCormick: You had something to be angsty about.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, well, like they were playing some Bon Jovi or some "Pour Some Sugar on Me," and I just needed something that was not that.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And there was nothing better of an antidote than Nirvana and Soundgarden, and those musicians showed up at a really pivotal time of my development, and I really just got lost in those records. I used to fall asleep to Soundgarden's "Superunknown," and the only thing I've ever stolen in my life is the the Weezer blue album. I stole it from Walmart, and I don't care.

Zach McCormick: Statute of limitations is probably up.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: They can take me to jail. I don't care. Proud of it. That's how much it like affected me. I heard this song, "My Name Is Jonas," on the radio one night, and that's how influential the radio was back then. You could hear a song, and you just like, "I have to find out how I can hear this again."

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And then I heard "The Sweater Song" on MTV, and and once I heard that song, it was like, "I have to go commit theft." And I did! And you know, I won't get into the the stories of how I did that, but you know, music made me commit crimes. Like, if it was good enough, and like at a right time. That music, you know, when I started writing songs, it just was the obvious kind of palette choice for me. It just showed up so early. And you know, I made this record, "Son of Dad," as my debut record, and when I was making that record, nothing was really happening. You know, I had a few thousand followers on Instagram. I was playing five shows a year, and locally in Nashville, I wasn't really, you know, I didn't really think that there was going to be anything after that. Like, it was a one-and-done for me. I didn't think anybody would ever listen to it, and it changed my whole life. So I kind of needed something to go back onto because, like, I wasn't planning on continuing recording anything after this. So I went back to the drawing board. I was like, "What music made me love music in the beginning?" And you know, I used to listen to "Something in the Way" over and over again. It was like a hymn to me. I grew up really religious in churches singing hymns, and I love that it would just repeat the first verse and the second verse, and it would feel like a second verse. And that's what hymns do: they just repeat the same lines over and over again, but somehow it feels different the second time.

Zach McCormick: It's like meditative almost.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, and I love that about that particular style of songwriting. And then this the song "Hunger Strike" by Temple the Dog does the same thing. I feel like Chris was very much writing his version of a hymn. You know, he repeated the same line. They just repeat the verse and the chorus over. And so those songs really just struck me, no pun intended. And then bands like Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service. You know, I joke that "I'm Death Cab for Country."

Zach McCormick: Yeah, yeah!

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I had been playing that "Clark Gable" cover for a long time, and we just went in to record it, and we started playing it too, and it just became like kind of a staple of our live show, and we couldn't help but record that one. It was so fun. And then "Tonight, Tonight" was a just a real ... that was like one of the most challenging songs I've ever co-produced. Like, writing the string arrangements for that was intense, and that song has, like, a wild history. Just recording it, and you know, I really felt like that song was untouchable, and a friend of mine kind of challenged me to record that song because I believed there you couldn't really touch it, but I went after it anyway, and that's what "Tonight, Tonight" is, and it's very much a hat tip to what they did, but also perhaps a sprinkling of what we do, and it was a really great palate cleanser, holistically, the whole project. Before I start getting back into recording original music songs that I've written, you know, go back to the drawing board and just get excited like a kid again about music, and don't think about the lines, and don't think about your legacy, your father's legacy, all the things that came with the "Son of Dad" record. I got to kind of cut loose of all that and just make music that really spoke to me and says a lot about me without saying anything about me.

Zach McCormick: When you're selecting covers like this, I've got to imagine, I mean, all these songs are classics in a way, and like you mentioned with "Tonight, Tonight," it sounds like stuff that was significant enough for you that you're probably wondering, "How can I improve this? How can my version add something to the world of music?" When you're working on arrangements and stuff like that, what are you thinking about as far as, how do I make this sound like a Stephen Wilson Jr. song rather than a direct copy? Or you know, obviously, you want to elevate or change the song in some aspect to fit what you do. When you're selecting tunes, was there ever moments — it sounds like it was for "Tonight, Tonight"; like, wow, this is one of my absolute favorites —what can I do with this that makes this my own or makes it worthwhile to release my own version of it?

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I don't feel like any of those songs needed another recording of ... You know, I feel like they were really good on their own, and that's like a really important thing, where I don't want to feel like I have to improve on it. It's already kind of done. Like, you're just maybe taking it somewhere that it couldn't have gone before; like, I have maybe a little bit more of a blue-collar edge, and you know, I have an audience that may have not been exposed to that kind of songwriting and that kind of style of music. So I really just kind of record the music for our fans and for the kind of music I've always tried to make, and not really trying to, you know, beat it or make it better because they were all so good in their own right. Like "Something in the Way," it was a song that we played a lot live, and I've been playing it acoustically live for quite some time, and it just was really meditative, and in the weirdest way, kind of healing for me to play that live. And cathartic. You know, we just started playing it with the band, too. I've done acoustic and band versions of it, but it's a big part of our set. You know, I do a kind of like a dance-ier version of it.

Zach McCormick: Yeah, totally.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I don't know where that came from. I wasn't trying to make it dancey. It just got dancey. Dark but dancey.

Zach McCormick: Yeah!

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And that's kind of my "Death Cab for Country"; "dark but dancey." I'm working on a lot of T-shirt ideas here, Zach.

Zach McCormick: I like these. I like these. "Dark but dancey." Put that on there.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Really, all those all those bands, even the darker bands, like Soundgarden, have a huge influence on my guitar-playing style, because I use a lot of drop tunings.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: A lot of like, open B and open C, and those bands, Soundgarden specifically, used a lot of those heavier tunings. Like, I got this tablature book when I was a kid from a friend, and he had no business with this book. It was way too advanced for him. But I was, you know, I had been listening to this Superunknown record, and I was picking out songs by ear, and I just could not figure out how they were playing these songs. And then I learned that "Oh, they tune their guitars to all these wild tunings." I didn't know you could tune a guitar to a different tuning. I didn't know that. And that just opened up my whole world. You know, I learned that whole record. I learned all those tunings, and it just, it made the guitar a totally different instrument. Made it multiple instruments of different registers. When I quit my job to go write songs for nobody, for no money, I used to be a scientist.

Zach McCormick: Yeah, yeah!

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And I had this great job, and I quit it to go chase this down. And I was a guitar player. I had never sang a song for anybody in my life when I quit that job.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: It was like 2013, and it took me maybe two years to sing a song for anybody after that, even.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I was just really shy about singing, but my guitar was my first voice, and I really leaned on it. But it became a an adversary when I quit that job and I started wanting to really lean into being a songwriter, because I didn't have any plans of being an artist. I wanted other people to sing the songs, and also didn't see myself as ever being a singer. That was a surprise that showed up later. But when I started writing songs, I was leading with the guitar, and I'd write these riffs, and I'd try to write lyrics to it, and I just did not like the songs, and I'd write over and over all these songs, and the guitar would be like the lead singer. And I dropped a boat trailer on my hand and severed two tendons in it, and I had to have this surgery, and I couldn't play guitar for like eight months, and I didn't know if I'd ever play guitar again. It was kind of a bummer of a year, and kind of a weird thing to happen right after you quit your job to go write songs. But it also turned the guitar off for like eight months.

Zach McCormick: Right.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: So you can't, your little friend—

Zach McCormick: You've got to focus on something else.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, your little friend can't help you anymore. And I just started writing lyrics first, and I would even play guitar, like, one-handed on my right hand, and I started tuning to all those open tunings I learned from Superunknown, because you can make chords with one hand with a lot of them, especially if you add enough distortion and sustain and reverb. And I started writing songs with just one hand, and I'd write down, you know, the lyrics, and then kind of record the tonal points of the song. And then once my hand healed up and I started playing guitar again, I just never got back to standard tuning. And so those bands like really kind of saved me in that really dark time. They showed up; you know, all that training from early on when I was a kid showed up, and that's the reason why I play in the drop tunings I play in today. And I just learned how to be a guitar player in all those tunings. I learned how to solo in all those tunings, and I started making up other tunings. Because really the thing it did, even when when my hand healed up and I could play, like it reset everything I knew about the guitar, it kind of made it a new instrument again. And so now I'm not thinking about the guitar. I'm just letting the the words show up. Ever since that accident, I haven't written songs for the most part any other way. In co-writes, sometimes people want to write music first, and that's fair, because everybody has their own process. But I write pretty much my lyrics first, and then the music comes later. And I guess I can thank Soundgarden for that.

Zach McCormick: There's writing and then there's singing, and there's, you said there's two different sort of aspects of your craft that you were working your way towards. What kind of maybe gave you the courage to be like, "No, I want to be the performer of my own songs." Like you said, maybe it was circumstances at first, but you stuck with it, too. You know, I'm sure there's — Nashville being what it is — you have a lot of exit ramps if you decided that you didn't want to work with yourself as the performing artist, but you managed, you continued to stick with that. Was there any sort of any aspect of this influence or any aspect of your story, you know, from your father or whoever that was like, "No, I do want to pursue being the performing artist of my own songs. It's going to be meaningful to me."

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Well, I mean, he was ... He would tell me like, "Why don't you just sing 'em? Like, why are you waiting for somebody else to sing 'em?" I was like, "Well, nobody's gonna care if I sing it, first of all." I'm like, "I want Tim McGraw to sing it; like, he has fans." Or Keith Urban, or Blake Shelton, or anybody that had an audience, and I just didn't have that, and I didn't see that. Like, my dad was kind of crazy. I inherited his crazy. You know, he could see things. He saw a lot more in me than I ever saw in myself.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And when he died, I made that whole record for him. It was like a sonic monument for him. You know, I couldn't have somebody else sing it.

Zach McCormick: Right.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: It had to be me.

Zach McCormick: It's personal.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: It's just super personal. And you know, he died suddenly, and he didn't have life insurance, and he didn't think he was gonna die. And this check for like $3,333.33 showed up, and that's kind of the only thing, you know, we got. And I got a necklace, and you know, my dad was really good at turning a nickel into a quarter.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: ... a quarter into a dollar, kind of thing. And I didn't know what to do. I was really lost in that moment. I was kind of, like, refusing to let him go, refusing to believe that he was gone. So like, putting all my energy into recording music was the only thing that made sense. And I used that check and I recorded a couple songs. I recorded the song called "The Devil" and "Year to Be Young 1994" and "Hometown." And I started putting them out. And the first song was called "The Devil," and and it woke me up at, like, 3:33 in the morning, and there was all these like kind of numbers. Yeah, I like to follow the signs and —

Zach McCormick: The significance of that "333." Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And so I recorded that song first and released it first. Like, nobody really cared in the grand scheme, but it made such a huge impact in my community in Nashville. I had so many people just come up to me that I had such respect and reverence for, that told me like, "Please don't stop doing that. Whatever that is, just keep doing that." And I and I just kept listening to them. And then I put out the song, "Year to Be Young 1994" after that, and it kind of blew up on TikTok, which is so crazy to me. You know, a lot of people started streaming the song, and it got a lot of plays. And because you know, I own the song, I was like, I didn't have a manager at this time, and you know, for the most part, or I just gotten a manager at that time, and you know, I was just really getting started. But I had no money and no capital. But because I own the recordings, we got money from all the streams, and then I just, instead of putting that little money away, we decided to just record more songs, and we recorded 18, 19, more songs, and just didn't stop. So the song and the record kind of paid for itself. So really, like, all that stuff showed up. It was like such wind in my sails, it was almost like undeniable.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: So like, I just had to just keep showing up, and it was really, really hard to record and write and perform all these songs. It was so personal. But it was, so much healing was happening with so many people, that it was obvious that I was supposed to be singing them. And you know, the moment became really obvious. I was at this songwriting festival in Deadwood. I was playing the song "Stand by Me" the way I play it now, and you know, the whole place kind of erupted into like am almost revival-esque experience. And it was two weeks after my dad died, and if it wasn't obvious then, I don't know how more obvious it needed to be. It was like a bookmark in the page. There was life before that day, and then life was totally different after that day. And I don't know why that moment was so significant, but it really was. It was like the wiring changed immediately in my brain, and I wasn't a songwriter anymore, and it was obvious.

Zach McCormick: You were a singer-songwriter now. And I mean, like, this is this, like, DIY spirit really kind of reminds me of some of the bands that we're talking about. The story of a group like Nirvana, the story of a group like Temple of the Dog. These groups that maybe this alternative rock influence here maybe wasn't just the sound, but was like the, "I have to get out and do this myself." You know, "This is, I have something in me that I deeply need to express with the world, and I'm going to find the audience for it, whether or not that involves an industry machine backing me. That doesn't matter. What I need to do right now is get this out there in the world." That kind of reminds me in a lot of ways of Nirvana releasing albums, you know, indie albums before they, you know, signed to the mainstream, that kind of thing. I think, in a way, there's that spirit behind your music as well, especially in that moment. Were you ever sort of like stepping outside of — obviously, you work within Nashville and within the system to a certain extent — but making your own way had to be the way in a lot of ways, for you, right?

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, and like nobody — I mean, my publisher was very supportive, but very few people, you know, were like, "Oh man, you know, you're gonna be a star, kid."

Zach McCormick: Yeah, totally.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Like that was, you know, I was kind of a little older than I should have been. And then the Nashville music market, you know, they're — that's literally what kind of what you are, it's a market. They're quick to put like a sell-by date on you. I've literally heard that term used. It's pretty gross. You know, on paper, I didn't make sense at all to be an artist, and I barely made sense as a songwriter because a lot of my songs were weird and they were hard to pitch. And everybody told me I needed to write more songs about trucks and beer and girls and love and ... Yeah, I just had a different angle and a different perspective that I was writing from. But my publisher so believed in me, and he told me from day one, he said, "You're like seven years ahead of the curve." He said, "It's going to take a while for people to catch up, but I believe in you, and I'm going to stick with you the whole time. I'm not just going to bail on you." And so he really helped develop me and stay with me. His name is Chris Oglesby at BMG. And he heard one of my weird songs and printed out a publishing deal right behind him and signed me on the spot when, like I said, not anybody really cared when I was a songwriter. And then when I got into the artist stuff, I was just really building a reputation as a songwriter finally, and it felt like I was almost starting over, because OK, this is a whole new venture, and a lot of songwriters do artist projects in Nashville, and they're just kind of novelty projects to a lot of people's perspective, and they're not really taken as seriously as they should be.

Zach McCormick: One's your day job, one's your creative passion.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, it's almost like, "Oh, this is this cute little project you're gonna do," and you know, it'll be what it'll be. And for whatever reason, they don't typically take it seriously, and that's kind of, I think, the lane that a lot of people thought I was going into. But when I put out that song "The Devil," I think a lot of people were surprised, because there's a lot of ways I could have put out my first song to kind of get into this artist realm.

Zach McCormick: Yeah.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: I could have put out a real bop, you know?

Zach McCormick: Right! Totally!

Stephen Wilson Jr.: And it was not a bop. And it was very, the song, still to this day, that says the most about me without saying anything about me. And it's the song I'm the most proud of that I've ever written, and it's my favorite song that I've ever recorded to this day, and it's the first song I ever put out. And you know, it set the precedent I think for where I was going. I was so kind of broken and numb to anything; I didn't care about criticism at the time. But you know, I received the opposite. And it was really welcomed in a town that you would think would not normally welcome something like that. And this was like right as COVID was happening, kind of when the world was getting weird. And that song showed up, I think, at a very interesting time, and really helped kind of clear a path for me as an artist and a storyteller.

Zach McCormick: Zach McCormick, joined by Stephen Wilson Jr. in the studio, we're talking about some of his '90s influences. It's Tonal Recall on The Current, but we're also talking about Stephen Wilson Jr.'s music that he has coming up as well. You've got some exciting projects in the works. Anything that you can share with us right now at this particular moment?

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Yeah, I mean, I have some fun collaborations coming up that have been fun. I can't really get into the details of those. And I'm also finishing up a new record.

Zach McCormick: Fantastic.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: A new full-length LP, and it's been quite, you know, the labor of love. Son of Dad was the same way. I spent four years, you know, recording that record, kind of in the trenches of grief. But I was also playing like seven shows a year, you know, at that time, and I had 2,000 followers on Instagram when I made that record; you know, it was not a whole lot going on, at least in the beginning of making that record. So now, like, we have a lot more going on, and you know, trying to make art and really get as equally invested into it, and play 150 shows a year is a little more challenging logistically. And having a family and trying to just keep everything on the rails and balanced, and it's been really fun, honestly. And I'm really excited to continue the conversation and see where this goes. We got "Hardwired" coming out soon, and quite a few other singles to follow up right behind it. And I don't want to tell you too much more. But there's a lot of my influences show up from my past, and it's a country record, it's a rock record, maybe even a folk record in some ways. But yeah, those '90s and Seattle influences show up big time in this, but we're also trying to take our sound somewhere else. You know, the sound has kind of evolved on its own, and our shows, I guess, fortunately, are very much like laboratories for me. You know, in the beginning, I had far fewer participants and fewer experiments. Like, I had seven experiments a year, and I'd be lucky if there was 15 to 20 participants. And now there's more participants.

Zach McCormick: Bigger sample size.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Way, way bigger sample size, a more statistical N. So we're getting good results with these songs. We've been playing them live, a lot of them, and so it's been fun to kind of work them out in these labs and see how they hold up. And it's been fun to watch the sound evolve and become what it is, and not become something else. It just, it is what it is. And really, my biggest job in all of it is to stay out of the way of it, because all I can do is mess it up.

Zach McCormick: Well, I can't wait to hear where these experiments take you. Once a scientist, always a scientist. Just a slightly different set of variables this time.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Recovering microbiologist.

Zach McCormick: Stephen Wilson Jr., thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing it with The Current.

Stephen Wilson Jr.: Appreciate it. Thank you all.

Credits

Guest – Stephen Wilson, Jr.
Host – Zach McCormick
Producers – Lindsay Kimball, Derrick Stevens
Video – Luke Taylor
Audio – Derrick Stevens
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producers – Luke Taylor, Reed Fischer

External Link

Stephen Wilson Jr. – official site