James and Sam Wilson agree to wait as I prep my tape recorder for what they call “The Van Story.” The brothers—two of the three Wilsons who comprise the Sons of Bill, along with bassist Seth Green and drummer Brian Caputo—know the importance of live interaction when you want to get something done right, cohesively.
Together for less than two years, the Sons of Bill recorded their first record, A Far Cry from Freedom, after only two gigs; the Bills recently holed up in Haunted Hollow, the Dave Matthews Band’s local recording studio, to record a handful of songs for a demo in live, full-band sessions.
 "We’re an American band! We’re coming to your town!" The Sons of Bill kick off their Pacific tour in July and will send letters home through here at c-ville.com. |
“I mean, we’re doing some overdubs,” says Sam. “But when we track, we’re tracking pretty much everything.”
“Now that we kinda know what we are as a band, we have a better understanding of what Sons of Bill is,” adds James. And, more than a marketable family affair, the Sons of Bill are a live band, and know it. Which brings us to The Van Story:
Ninety minutes into a trip to Helen, Georgia, disaster strikes the Bills’ touring vehicle. “We can’t get over 30 miles an hour,” says James.
“We just keep slowing down and slowing down,” says Sam. “So we take an exit around Lexington”—Virginia, it bears mentioning, as there is a Lexington in every state on the way, including Georgia. Their vehicle is pronounced D.O.A.
With only seven hours to travel more than 400 miles, the Bills were ready to call it quits. Fortunately, bassist Seth Green made a call to his brother first and, says Sam, “within 20 minutes, he found a van.”
And so, in a 1981 Dodge with over 200,000 miles on the odometer, the Sons of Bill arrived at Helen’s door, wooed the fair city and split town, a better band for it.
“It’s weird,” says Sam. “There’s a lot of adversity right now, but the stars are aligned…in a way. Little things come through that make [performing] worth it.”
In the song “Fourth of July,” Shooter Jennings sings of “driving across country/ In a dusty old R.V./ Just the road and its majesty”—a story of travel rendered tuneful that the Wilsons plan to perform during their next live trek. But on this trip, there are no romanticized R.V. trips, no godforsaken vans. Hell, there’s no driving.
“I’m looking forward to playing Shooter’s ‘Fourth of July’ in Okinawa,” says James with a laugh.
Sam looks concerned. “Aren’t we in Guam on the fourth?”
“No, it’s Okinawa.”
The Wilsons have a few short weeks to get their schedule straight because, on July 1, the Sons of Bill head to the Pacific as musical emissaries for Armed Forces Entertainment, an agency run by the Pentagon. In 30 days, the Bills will perform 21 shows at U.S. military venues in four countries. They will spend five days flying between performance sites, leaving them with four days off.
The Wilsons have never toured beyond the Atlantic coast. In fact, the three brothers continue to hold down jobs in Charlottesville: Abe Wilson interns at an architecture firm, Sam averages 20 guitar students a week and James cuts hay and fixes fences on a Scottsville farm, a job he’s held for years.
“We’ve had a lot of success in our hometown, which creates this idea that we’re bigger than we really are,” says Sam.
“But we’re still eating from the dollar menu!” says James. “In an ’81 Dodge!”
And, to be honest, the promise of these dynamics—a young band caught between local fame and international tours, who thrive on live performances but who also have Van Stories—is too tempting to pass up.
Following their send-off gig on June 29 at Starr Hill, the Sons of Bill set off for the Pacific, but promise to sing to you from the road. The brothers Bill plan to post to the C-VILLE website weekly updates documenting their trips, which may be accessed exclusively, along with audio and video content. The only URL you need to know: www.c-ville.com.
“This trip is coming at a good time—things are slowing down for us,” says Sam. “It’s a good chance to really get our set tight. If we don’t all kill one another.”
