The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview singer-songwriter Willie Perrit (part 1)

Studio owners Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) and Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) interview singer-songwriter Willie Perrit (part 1)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Anyway, guys, let's do this guy. We got a new guy over here. It's new guy. Willie and the poor boys. Okay. Oh, we have the poor boys. This is CCR. Are you familiar with that song?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

No, but uh I don't know who CCR is. Yeah. Out on the street. All right, so Willie. Uh if you don't mind, introduce yourself. And welcome to another another studio M31 Files. We have today in the studio this gentleman, Willie.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Willie Parrott. And where were you from, Willie? Virginia, originally. I'm sorry. That's great. Swamp Country, Chesapeake Bay area. Cool? Cool. That's where the family lived forever. Okay, I agree. We were both sides of my family were on the wrong side of the Civil War. You were? Both sides of your family. Both sides. We were uh in uh part of the Confederate uh cause. Is that where you left? And uh no, no, it just got too damn crowded. It was all the Yankees moving in. Um but the uh uh the the one thing that you know you get from that uh is that the losing side got all the good songs. Okay. And that's that's the kind of music I grew up around. Right. So Skinnard and Tom Petty and Yeah, Skinnard. Uh God, we we got into Southern Rock. I was part of that whole thing back back in the 70s that you there were two camps in in in music. It was disco and it was southern rock. Yeah. And there was no never the between shall meet. Never the Twain Shall Meet. And I but I loved uh you know, bands like Leonard Skinner and the Outlaws, Blackfoot, especially.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Blackfoot was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Yeah, and then bands that you know were like country rock, very southern, like uh amazing rhythm aces. Um uh the Almond Brothers. Almond Brothers, I think. So it it was just it sea level, are you hip to them?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

No, uh remember sea level? Really cool band. Uh had uh the keyboard player that played with uh the Almond Brothers a bunch, and man, uh Jimmy Knowles, guitar player. Anyway, YouTube some sea level, really good stuff. Anyway, okay. Southern rock type of thing, but a little on the jazzy side.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

But Willie, before we go to Fall, can you tell me how you styled Music Festival? Like how did you get into that? Uh were you young?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah, I was young. It was uh uh 50 years ago. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Um so I mean was there a catalyst that made you or something interesting? You saw somebody with a guitar?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

There was a I had an English I I went to this uh god-awful prep school. Was all boys episcopal. Oh yeah. And uh and I just to put it bluntly, I did not blossom in that environment. I always felt like I was I I was getting bullied and beat up so much, it was like, where's the next thing gonna come from? But there was this English teacher, this guy named uh uh Liston Rudd, Mr. Rudd, and uh in middle school, and he said he was gonna give guitar lessons if anybody wanted to uh sign up. And uh I decided you know, I I wanted to do it. I talked to my mom about it, and do you know how old you were then? Uh about 13. Okay. You know, so she gets me a Yamaha classical guitar, which my brother still has that guitar. It's a it aged well. Um and she told me in later years, she said, I got you that guitar uh to try to save your life. She said, because I was really worried about that dark space you were in, uh, which I was in pretty much all the all the way till the time I got out of high school.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

But being able to sit down and play guitar and just and just escape into the music and then you know, listen to the the records uh that I loved on my uh Montavani uh combination stereo system, had the eight-track, you know, everything. Yeah. Um that that was uh that's kind of what pulled me through the you know those kind of hard uh high school years. I didn't get in any bands or anything like that. So not like you know, not like Russell Blackwell, who uh it sounded like he was playing music while he was still in diapers. Um I think he he did. I think that was when he uh got involved with his first uh death metal band. Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

At that age, usually that's when you had black diapers with spikes.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Yeah. Yeah. And it felt so good to to strum a guitar and have that sound come out. Have that you know that was where the magic was was right there. You know, as a kid, you just was your brother already uh playing himself? No, he's nine years uh younger.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Oh, I never realized.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Yeah, uh it's because he looks older. He looks older than that.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Yeah, and you know, you get to an age where you can three tells I mean I I know that I've seen him that often, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

No, he started uh he started playing when he was he was younger than me. I think he was like nine or ten years old. Maybe you were the influencer. Yeah, you must have been playing by him and uh he yeah, he you know, he heard uh me play music uh with friends, Bill Mapp, who we just lost. Uh he you know, he and I spent a lot of time together, and my brother Christian, you have a brother named Christian, yeah. Uh would listen to this, and then he asked me to show him a couple of chords on the guitar, and he just took off with it. I mean, it was within a couple of weeks I heard this really nice sounding blues music coming from out on the porch. And I thought it was the radio. And it was my brother, my little brother out there. So I hit him a lot, you know, to impede his progress. Right, right. But uh it didn't take, uh, because he's uh uh he he's he's my favorite guitar player. Really? Uh yeah. And what is the money? That's where does he live now? Oh he's he's back in back home in Virginia, Harrison Berg. Is he playing with groups and stuff like that? Yeah, he uh he's he's playing with uh really good uh local band, um uh you know, kind of a rangy folk rock outfit, and then he's got a a trio of some uh high octane pickers that he he plays with. Awesome. Yeah and every time you go back, you usually play with him. Yeah, because we we chose we never broke the band up. We had this uh this band uh that uh in fact our band started uh the Americana music uh movement.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

You you're claiming now. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was us.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

It was a band it was Soy Hero on YouTube uh and uh playing with him and uh uh Mandolin Picker, Doug Austin. Okay. Um and the band started in '92, and it even though the gigs come once every you know, like seven years, right? Uh we had a really good show in Harrisonburg back in December, and uh we picked up uh a bass player from uh Christian's uh band, uh Dave Abbott, who just jumped in with us. And it's so funny. We s we struggled through the years with different bass players. And you know, who were who were good, but uh sometimes would get so drunk that they were just laying on top of the doghouse.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

And uh waiting for the bass to pay.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

But yeah, Dave jumped in with us and for this one show, and he studied the music, he learned the words to the songs. Wow. And so here the four of us get on stage and we've got uh four-part vocals going on and a whole bunch of people who'd never heard us before who just went nuts. It was so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

And this was last year?

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Uh yeah, in December. Wow. Yeah. I mean, they were they were all drunk, but uh oh the the audience. Yeah. It kind of goes with that show as well. Well, yeah. Yeah, it helps. Yeah, I had a musician friend who said uh who was who was really offended because he said he was talking about a bar owner. He said, Man, that guy told me, look, your job is to help us sell drinks, and I thought, well, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

You know, fortunately I played in in bands that make people drink. Uh and uh so we're always I mean, yeah, it's always so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Um I I I want to get back a little bit to um so you you started in Virginia, but uh can you tell me how did you end up in Mangas? Well like what's the is there a lot in between those two places or well uh uh I lived over in Utah.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Okay. Uh after after Virginia, then lived in West Virginia for a while. Okay. Uh and moved out to Utah uh outside of Moab, built a house with um my um my ex and uh uh so uh a divorce happened. Okay. Uh I lived in in Moab for a year. Were you actively uh playing music then? Not not really. I d uh well I suffered an accident in 2017. You know, I broke my stupid neck and uh as I was recovering and you know the bones in my neck grew together uh because of another underlying condition. And uh so when I started getting back into music, um I found that I had to relearn how to sing.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Uh gosh, I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

It all has to do with neck position and uh that sort of thing. And playing guitar took a while um because when I'd stretch my arms out like this, I'd my hands would start to go numb. Oh uh so and I wasn't playing much over there for a variety of reasons. Uh then um so I went through that whole year period with uh divorce, got through that, and decided I did not want to live in Moab, that is not Edward Abbey's town anymore, and uh got together with uh Kim, my my wife, uh, and um we started looking around. And uh Dolores came up on the map because it had a house we could afford.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Oh, so you kind of but uh yeah, there was no goal to necessarily be here or anywhere else.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

It was just no, but I had a friend, uh Eric Jones over in uh in Moab say uh, man, you're gonna love it over there. There's a music scene going that is just so good. But uh so that was 2020, so I've been here five years.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Um I was not prepared for how good the music scene was, and the fact that we all these friends kind of fell in together. Uh and uh we felt very welcome uh you know from the start, coming out of COVID and everybody else, you know, music just starting up, and I remember uh being in uh Dolores walking around with Kim one day, and I hear blues music and walk down the street to uh to the vacant lot that's across or the what was a vacant lot across from uh uh DRB. And there's uh Alex Westfall and you and and Corey Duran on the drums.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Talk about foreshadowing. And I'm going, and that was such a fun scene. I really missed that because we're you know, we're we're all did you ever come to one of those? It was in this vacant line.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Right there in the park where they all not the big park.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

No. Oh no, it's right beside the brewery. And then there's Kelly's restaurant that used to be the antique market. Yeah. That that lot right beside me. Gotcha, yeah, yeah. And there was like old furniture out there. I remember that now, yeah. And uh we you know, uh uh ended up joining up with you guys uh eventually, but uh you'd go out there and you'd set up a band under the tree and uh and and people would would uh don't tell anybody, but people would bring their own booze and stuff to that. And the cops would drive by real slow, you know, like y'all, we'd see you. And it it was so much fun uh because everybody felt like they were, you know, it's like you'd you know, gone back to uh to high school and uh and and the you know an outdoor party somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

What day uh the week did you guys do that?

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Do you know?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Gosh, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

It wasn't a regular uh Sunday morning thing. I think it was. It was just every now and then. Yeah, yeah. Pull a band together out there. How would people know though? The noise.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

You know, it was a small crowd, yeah, generally speaking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

And then a food truck showed up.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

And what was interesting to me is that the DRB was right across. Yeah. So it's kind of weird to do that in a way.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

It's like we're auditioning the play for you guys.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Well, I just thought it could get based that hey, you know, we're we're a ball. You can't just have people bring their drinks across the street there and hang out, you know. I don't know. But no, it it worked really well. Pretty cool. That's actually how I met Linda, actually.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Maybe even that day she showed up just a jam. I met Linda at an open mic over at uh uh Esotera when they had the Sidery. A band play there. That's how I should actually a selling, yeah. Well it was, you know, of course, going back to just getting out of cut. It was the first open mic event. And um I was sitting there playing a song, and uh and and here's I I didn't know who she was, here's Linda Over going, hey, hey she's got the point at the flute and I said, Yeah, go on, you know. And I was amazed at the fact you know the way she she got right to the heart of the song uh like she'd played it before, you know. And uh I I love playing music with people uh who can uh who can improv.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Yeah, it's a pretty special thing for sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

That's that's what the the whole you know, back in Virginia there our band Soy Hero, it's an improvisational band. We don't have set lists, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

It's sound to talk the fun you get through that rather than being rigid with what you do musically, you know. Yeah. Uh and and yeah, totally. So anyway, so you ended up in Mencas because I mean in Dolores, sorry. Mulva. Umorado. That's right, yeah. And um so tell me a little bit how you felt, like, aside from from that that one day, like how you kind of how do you see the the um your connection, how you connected with all with all this area.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

A lot of it, it was funny. Um first Mankus Open Mike, by the way, I remember meeting you. You were playing bass on stage with somebody. It's when Hagen was running the uh open mic. And uh I I I was listening to you play bass because I played bass in a psychedelic band and uh another improvisational band with my brother.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Um anyway, I said, damn, that guy can play bass really well. And I said, Gody, it's he he looks like the most old school rocker in the world. Like you stepped out of the band faces or something. Yeah, there's Eve and Ronnie Wood, of course. And uh and I remember talking to you and uh started to you know get our conversation going. But um uh what was the question?

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Your your connection with with the area, like how that to you developed, if you will. How you met people on?

SPEAKER_03 17:33

It just yeah, just going to a a lot of open mics. Oh, yeah, but so uh the current state of affairs is uh our band Goathead. Right. And Kim was uh was I I think she was seeing into the future. The first time we heard the Motones uh play, Kim goes, You gotta be a part of that family. And the first time I played music with Bobby uh down at DRB in a jam session, Kim's going, You man, you guys like to speak the same language. You gotta keep up with Bobby. Same thing when Mimi showed showed up one night. We started I was playing a little bluegrass and she's looking over at me over a fiddle and she throws a lick at me and uh and and it was sort of prophetic that you know we all came together in this band. It's sort of a a dream band, but you know, I was involved with Zarfa with you, which taught me uh a lot of discipline. It really did. Especially when you had me on that leash with the whip. Yeah, I was I was I wouldn't be like that to you. You know, in the blues connection with you and with uh you know, with Alex and Corey and and uh Kirk and uh you know I've been uh I think I've been real fortunate since moving out here to uh you know play with some people who I consider really good band leaders like you, like uh like Alex. Uh and then to with Goathead to sort of So how did the Goat Head thing actually happen?

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Because the Motones, that's what that's a band.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Uh some of the members I'll know Paul Goathead, as well as you know, Bobby, who is actually uh in Last Nickel. Yeah, technically you could say that that's one of his main bands. So now he's playing with the also and that. And you you got uh uh a little group of those people, Mimi, and she's awesome by the way. She's a lot of uh she's about that, she's got tattoos all you know right there. Yeah, uh fiddle player with tattoos, that's pretty much she uh so tell me how do you guys uh put that band together, basically.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Well it was a uh it it it's it started with with a uh a conversation with Mo, um who uh uh uh he he holds uh to me uh local legend status. Um You are a local legend.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Oh you mean him to you?

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Mo to him. Yeah. Yeah, Mo to me, you know. He's uh uh uh he's uh he's a he's an interesting cat. Um and his uh his musical uh background is is uh you know between the country and the punk rock sort of elements, you know, somebody that I really respect. Uh so uh he says, hey, we you know we ought to get together and play some music, try to put something together. And uh you you know, he said you and me and Tomo, who plays plays bass in Goathead and uh the motones. And um she man, she holds down a solid rhythm. Oh yeah. She keeps the band in line.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah. She's the only rhythm. Uh technically in in terms of like there's no drums.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

So yeah, well, I mean we throw in some things like you know, Bobby puts a lot of uh you know, throws a lot of rhythmic chops into the mandolin playing, and I tend to do that with the guitar. I I play percussively on the guitar. But um yeah, so so we uh we we got together and uh played some music, just the three of us, and shortly thereafter, uh Mimi I to I spoke with Mimi about um getting involved with the band and she she she said yeah I I'd be interested in that and not too long after that Bobby it was within the first um well Bobby was not with us the night we played uh the first gig we played up at Rico uh but um it was it was within three to four Four weeks after that first meeting with Mo. That the whole band was we took a gig at Rika. Yeah and had a really fun night. And uh and then you know Bobby's pulled into the band. Uh we um we have three songwriters in the band. We have Mo and uh Mimi and myself.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

So it's nice to be able to Yeah, you kind of circle around uh that's right.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Yeah, it's uh and it's a it's a band uh that that really doesn't have a leader except the the Holy Goat.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Um I'd like to ask you the future of go ahead. Do you guys have any anything uh on the radar? Are you gonna recall an album? You're gonna have a special show coming up. Um I this won't probably come out for a couple of weeks, just so you know. So okay. Yeah, it takes me a little bit of time to so this is in the future. This is in the future, yeah. Yeah. It could be next week, but I'm not I don't want to guarantee so um uh goals.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Um uh well we've already acquired a uh uh well-used Apache helicopter and some uh surface-to-air missiles um and a few boxes of grenades. You're gonna fix things. We're gonna fix some things. You'd never see it coming from that direction. Uh you know, we're we're just kind of flying by the seat of our pants. Um uh I tried to get us uh a slot playing at uh the Tico Time uh festival and realized, you know, uh we don't have you know a digital press kit and all this pro promotional stuff that they want to see because they don't know who we are. And um uh that's that's probably something we need to work on. Um but I don't know. Keep playing music.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Uh any shows maybe uh we have nothing coming up at this point.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Okay, not possible. So we're available. We'll we'll come play in your kitchen. That's that's actually our favorite thing now. We we we did you did it? We did a show uh uh show not a show, a private party um uh with uh at Overt Catherine and Charlie's place. It was a 50th anniversary thing.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

And you know, we were gonna set out set up outside and have you know little PA system set up and all that. And the weather was starting to look like crap. And I got a hold of her and and I said, Hey, what would you think of just having Goathead come in the house and just play acoustically with no amplification except a bass amp. They were up for it. Man, we had fun. Yeah. I I thought, if this is all we ever did would be, you know, not oh, yeah, we want to play festivals and big venues. No, we want to play in your kitchen. No, that's the perfect game. You just pay us whatever and we'll come play in the kitchen. We'll stand around, you know, and uh uh it it was uh it was so much fun, and I just love that, you know, just that organic sort of music.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

And the people are right there and they can uh say, you know, uh what kind of music you want to listen to. But talk about an easy load in. Oh yeah. Grab your axe and you're in there and you're right next to the booze if they have some in the kitchen right there.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Instead of all these cords, the cords are what drive me crazy about playing that gig, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

All of that hookup crap and nothing works when you finally there's always one that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

I had a buzz this morning in one of the mics, and I'm like, what the hell? I know and uh sure enough, uh I I plugged a call that I guess something happened to it. You know, every open mic or I shouldn't say that, but uh, you know, every Sunday I do something and I invariably every few I found one call, I'm like, okay, well this works out. Yeah. And I don't take the time to fix them anymore, I just get them all.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

I you know, I have a pile of them that I think, okay, I'll try to fix them. Which never goes well.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Right? No.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

It's like why why not? You can go on Amazon and get a really nice mic cord for nothing.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

So I get them in packages or full for like, I don't know, uh 30, 40 bucks, you know, and then I'm done. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

And that's why they crap out on you all the time. Probably.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Well, but people walk on them too, you know, on stage.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

That's always well that's that's right, that's a thing with you. Oh, yeah, that's a thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

No, that's a thing with me too.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Don't remember that was that time you hit me in Zarfa because I stepped on the cord. It just yeah.