Armed with a banjo or acoustic guitar, sometimes singing his soulful songs a capella to rapt audiences, William Elliott Whitmore’s most recent record, Radium Death, deals in the universal themes of loss and redemption. On the tune “Civilizations,” we are brought into a world of cyclical history, of empires falling away and new ones coming into being. “Healing To Do” is a hopeful barnburner that opens the record with a snappy, manic drumbeat, featuring Whitmore playing a warmly distorted guitar. Whitmore has had a good deal of personal losses, and has a scream that would make Roger Daltrey proud. Whitmore lives in Iowa on the family farm, where he used to play and write in a shed. But his voice and the power of his music were too strong to stay captive, as he began his musical career opening for hardcore bands across America. He’s been through hell and back, and Radium Death finds him thriving.
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Yeah, yeah. I actually am working. I’m always trying to work on new songs… It’s a way to keep my mind active. You have to keep the musical muscle active. Radium Death came out in 2015, and I was writing that in 2014, so I’m always working. ’m in the midst of building a new recording studio with my cousin. We’re building it in an old barn, and it’ll be really cool. We’re to the point where we can now record. It’s a nice thing. You do some physical labor, hang drywall and then work on some recordings.
Is the studio on the family farm?
His place is an hour north of me. It’s called Flat Black Studios, and that’s his place. We’re working on new material, exploring new sounds… It’s been good to have my own studio space where I can demo songs and work, try new sounds, see what works and what doesn’t, see what lines could be change. Lyrics are very special to me. I try to sharpen them down to where they need to be. It’s almost like a Banzai tree—you keep trimming it back until it’s where you want it to be—you trim the fat off lyrics, sharpen them, get a point across as poetically as possible but hope that everyone can get something out of them.
“Civilizations” moves along at a good pace, but is about things falling apart. How do you choose to live—working on the farm, playing music—in a good way when everything around you is crumbling?
That’s a good question. That particular song I started writing when we found out an oil pipeline from South Dakota to Illinois was going to go right through my grandma’s farm. For a year or so, we tried to fight this underground oil pipeline. Those things always leak, and it’s just a bad idea. There are 300-year-old oak trees on my grandma’s farm, and they’re just going to destroy this part with a pipeline. I got to thinking about how civilizations crumble. Rome was the most powerful empire on earth, and yet they did fall. Same with the British Empire. Same with America. We think we’re going to rule the world, well, the joke’s on us. While these empires fall, people like you and me are just trying to figure out how to put food on the table. While there’s politicians trying to rape and pillage, we’ve got to go to work the next day. We will always plug along and persevere as an undercurrent. he pipeline is going through, in fact it’s being done right now, but you’ve got to live to fight another day. You’ve got to live the best life you can and do your work and do it honestly. That’s how you beat the large, evil forces that want to spit on nature. This is how we win. We create beautiful things, and that’s how we win.
Given you played Washington, D.C. last night, I was going to ask if you had any words for our political candidates. But, I think that’s kind of covered…
Without getting too specific, I don’t use the stage too much as a bully pulpit. I tell people to live the best they can in this crazy world, no matter who wins in November. D.C. is a snake pit. You don’t know where the tail ends and the head begin.
Do you miss life on the farm in Iowa when you’re touring?
I don’t do really long tours anymore, but I do like touring. I really like being on the farm. I go out for 10 days or two weeks, and I bring my wife with me. We make a good team on the road. I love touring, meeting people and seeing new things. It’s good to miss home, but you’ve got to go away to come back. I love coming to St. Louis. I feel a kinship with it. It’s a river town, and us river-folks have to stick together.
There’s a spiritual, religious sound to a lot of your songs. Like, “Ain’t Gone Yet. Could you talk about where some of those religious influences come from…?
I like talking about this kind of thing. I could yap your ear off about this kind of thing all day. I’m not religious. Religion is kind of a way to cheapen things. I think there’s some kind of essence in us, but … energy is never created or destroyed. You bury a body in the ground and it feeds the trees and makes the grass grow. To me, a miracle is how a tree can grow. It’s not religious in any way.
Your grandmother taught you so many names of birds, so you’ve always had a connection with nature…
Oh yeah. And even us atheists need spiritual, uplifting songs. I call it gospel music for atheists. I don’t demean religion. If it makes you a better person, good. The reward—this life right now—is the miracle.
William Elliott Whitmore performs at Off Broadway (3509 Lemp) on Saturday, September 3 at 9 p.m.; Austin Lucas opens. For more information, go to offbroadwastl.com.
