In their native Texas, the reputation of the Will CarterBand is rapidly on the rise. The band fronted by the band’s namesake who is from Katy, on the outskirts of Houston were last year nominated for "Country Band or Duo" at the Texas Country Music Awards, where Carter himself has previously been awarded “Songwriter of the Year” a mere four times and has also been nominated for “Male Artist of the Year”. These accolades are in recognition of having earned over a dozen singles on the Texas music charts and their web continues to widen across the States as songs have started to crossover to Nashville’s Music Row Chart. The band recently released their latest single “Sway” which was written by Carter alongside Nash Overstreet and Ryan Follese (produced by Derek Hames) and is available HERE. We recently got the chance to chat with Will over Zoom and get to know more about his backstory and why he is really starting to make waves in Texas. “I grew up on a self-sustaining farm which is pretty old school I guess, most people of my generation did not grow up the way I did. We had thirteen acres that backed up to twelve thousand acres of undeveloped land that was basically leased by farmers to grow cotton and corn, depending by the season; so, I had this huge backyard that I was allowed to go and play in the woods and stuff. On the self-sustaining farm, we had a three acre garden with goats, chickens and cows, and I grew up training horses plus I was home-schooled until eighth grade; so, I grew up very rural as the eldest of four. When I was born, my dad was six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds, a big guy, and he thought for sure that his first-born was going to be an athlete, maybe a football player or something. So, he put me in dance, gymnastics, boxing and stuff at three years old to learn agility and balance. Despite that, I took more after my mom who is beautiful, but she is five foot three and ninety pounds because I’m five foot eleven, weighing about a buck sixty five; so, I’m not a football player by any means. From those dance and gymnastic classes at three, I got chosen to perform for our town’s festival to sing the national anthem and it just kind of stuck after my mom taught me my first song and performed in front of the town. I learned to play guitar after that and at about ten, my dad started driving me around to compete in talent contests and play at fairs or festivals, so pretty much anywhere that I could get in and perform.
“When I was eleven, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and around the time that I turned thirteen, he got to the point where he couldn’t work. The only way, I could really help at that age was I recorded an album and sold cd’s for a donation to raised money that way. I remember in the last two or three months of his life, he listened to that cd on repeat, and it would literally burn a hole in the cd so my mom would wake me up to say hey I need another copy. My dad was so proud of that, he was a big guy and could do anything but had zero musical talent, so the fact that I did something he found fascinating made him a big supporter of me with the music thing. Ever since then, I have felt that I owe it to myself to chase my dreams and pursue my passion of being a performer and an artist but also, I owe it to him a little bit because of the support that he gave me when I was growing up. I am still doing it to this day and it has grown and grown and grown from little small bars and things like that around town to playing large festivals all over the United States and winning multiple awards down here.”
Talking about that first record that you recorded, was that all covers on there? “It was all covers at that time and that was the reason why without that I couldn’t sell them, so we asked for a donation. It was after I graduated from Texas A&M that I, actually when I graduated high school, that I started writing songs.”
Ah wait, so you’re an Aggie then. “I am, I’m an Aggie, class of ’09. Whoop! I went to Katy High School and it’s kind of funny, Katy High School is big in football, and I played football, but I wasn’t big enough to be anything substantial. I remember everyone was all gung-ho about the pep rallies and school spirit, but I thought it was a little cheesy so when I got accepted to A&M, everyone said the same thing about how the school spirit was crazy and everybody bleeds maroon. I thought I would ignore it when I got there, but I can tell you that they brainwash you pretty hard at that university and they got me. I do bleed maroon and I bought into it real deep and I’m a big Aggies fan now.”
You’re based down in Texas and there is a different scene to Nashville centred industry, which we have heard various people talk about the difference between the two in that there is “country music from Texas” which is the Miranda Lambert, Maren Morris, The Chicks, Kacey Musgraves and the George Strait’s of the world who come from Texas but have the more universal reach, where “Texas Country” is a very different scene. You have had some of your tracks do great things with Texas radio but also seen songs hit the mainstream Nashville playlists which doesn’t always happen. Why do you think there isn’t as close a link between Texas country and what the rest of the world hears more frequently? “I would tell you that, at least today, mainstream country or what comes out of Nashville and through all of the major record labels is more country meeting pop or sometimes meeting hip-hop, where in Texas the rule is you don’t put any snaps or claps in your music, so it is more country meets rock if anything. It leans towards more traditional country or eighties and nineties sounds like you heard in the early Garth Brooks or George Strait days. Honestly, I think that is the biggest difference between the two, I have had tracks and still have tracks that can go either way. I have some more traditional stuff that is definitely Texas country appropriate, and I have a couple of tracks that are more mainstream country appropriate. I get some flak for it in some markets, but I don’t care. I just kind of do my own thing, so if you like it, great and if you don’t, then don’t listen to it.”
Is there almost some element of the market in Texas not liking artists that crossover and not so much a betrayal but possibly viewing it as moving to the dark side? “You know, on one hand yes but on one hand no. I remember Pat Green, who was a big Texas artist, got his record deal and released “Wave On Wave” where there were quite a lot of haters at first but then they got over it in the end. Recently, Cody Johnson, who is like George Strait version 2, right? He is very traditional country, there is nothing pop about Cody Johnson, and he got his major deal around the same time as Parker McCollom and Randall King who all did the same thing. For the most part, they are still doing what they originally did. I think Nashville and the major record labels are learning that they can’t come and grab a Texas country artist and change them into something else which I think they are learning to be ok with. Then, Texas is learning to be ok with let’s not limit the success of artists, just because we have some little complex where they want to keep people here. Why should we limit people like Cody to just playing in Texas or just playing regionally instead of nationally or internationally if that is what they want to do and are capable of doing it? Who are we to tell people that they can only grow to this size? I think that is silly. I think the industry is getting used to it and starting to play nice a little bit more than they did at first, which I think is a great thing. My situation when I first started was like most young artists where I wanted to chase a major label, hop on a tour bus and sell out stadiums around the world, but since then I got married, wanted to have kids and I enjoy playing regionally and even nationally but I don’t want to sign my life away and live on a tour bus for four months at a time, not seeing my family. I like being able to make that decision on my own and if I decide I want to do a three month tour then I’ll do it but if I don’t, I won’t and that’s what I like about the whole independent thing.” Your latest release “Sway” came out just over a month ago and we have had a couple of other new releases at the back end of last year and into 2023 so when can we possibly expect a new album or an EP to be on the way from Will Carter? “At the end of 2022, we released “Wrong Side of Town” and that was the first single off this album, early 2023 we released “Had It All Wrong” and did the music video, then the story behind that song kind of explains what I was going through. I was listening to producers, A&R guys, vocal teachers and everybody else that had an opinion to tell me how I should kind of run this project, until I thought you know what I’m going to do it my way. I’m going to bring my guys in the studio, we’re going to press record, be the Will Carter Band and this is what we do, like it or not. I have actually had a lot more recognition after having made that decision; so, the full-length album will be labelled “Had It All Wrong” and that music video was made to visually capture that concept, which then was picked up by CMT. Since then, we have put out “Sway” which is the third release off the album and the album finished getting mastered about a month and a half ago, but as we just put out “Sway” we don’t want to distract from the attention of that right now. In the next month maybe, you will see another single and then probably six weeks after that we will have another one with the album soon after that. By fall or definitely the end of the year, the whole album will get released.”
“We want to trickle out a couple of tracks at first to get people’s attention before the album because the moment you drop all of the songs, people think that’s great, now what have you got? It is not a science but from my experience it takes about a year or at least six months to write an album and that is just to write it because you are not just going to sit down and write twelve songs tomorrow. The hooks come when they come, the ideas come when they come, the inspiration comes when it comes and I, like most artists, have what I call my digital hook book on my phone which when a hook hits me, I write it down. I collect those and I schedule time to develop this idea into a song and you can’t really rush this process, six months is pretty tough, a year is a good duration to write another album. Then, you need a good three or four months at least to record, master and mix it so when you release something that took a year and a half of work, five minutes later, people say, ‘where is the next one?’”
We’re really liking what we have heard from the Will Carter Band and look forward to the forthcoming album being released. It’s great to be able to discover and share more artists to the audience over here, then you never know, maybe you could come and see us too? “I have never been to Europe in my life, I have travelled a lot in the Caribbean and Mexico but have always wanted to go over there, I have been eyeing the red dirt pub crawls and stuff that they do in Ireland and Amsterdam, so I just really want to get over there. I wasn’t sure how big the Texas country market was in that region but it’s definitely a goal. My wife has never been over to London either so we need to get over to check the box, but I would absolutely love to do it in a tour setting and I am sure that it is in my future. I don’t know when but hopefully it is sooner rather than later.” The latest single “Sway” from the Will Carter Band is out now and available HERE then you can find out more about the band on their WEBSITE or keep up to them socially through INSTAGRAMTIKTOKTWITTERFACEBOOK & YOUTUBE