Willie Nile

LET IT ROCK

Willie Nile on his latest release, The Day The Earth Stood Still

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD Still is the title of a classic sci-fi film but it’s also the name of the 14th studio album from veteran New York rocker Willie Nile. On the new album, Nile is not only describing the mood of his beloved New York City in the eerie throes of the pandemic, he’s speaking about the general temperature of the world in nightmarish, code-red crisis mode, circa January 2021. But he’s a rock and roller at heart, so even though the message is crucial, the new songs offer a kinetic catharsis with equal does of humor and pathos in the lyrics. The 11-song set yearns for “Sanctuary” as it details the “Way of the Heart,” cries out for swift justice with “Blood On Your Hands” and salutes the late Congressman John Lewis with the stirring “The Justice Bell.” Rollicking tracks, including “Off My Medication” and “Where There’s A Willie, There’s A Way” cleverly balance the set, featuring the self-depreciating humor and astute observational skills of the Buffalo-born singer-songwriter. With able support from his band, Nile and company remain on top of their game, riding an impressive curve of creativity that began in 1980 and kicked into overdrive in 2006. Hoarse on the morning after a marathon CD release show in NYC, Nike spoke with INsite from his home in Greenwich Village. How was the show last night at City Winery? It was really epic. I was concerned, with COVID picking up, some audiences are getting more squeamish, careful about coming out and the hurricane here. I checked in with my agent and checked in with the venue, and they said they would go ahead with it. A lot of people came out, and the band and I, we played for over two hours. You can hear it in my voice, I’m sure. It was one of the best shows we’ve ever done, ever. Played the new album top to bottom and a song or two from New York At Night. Was it recorded or filmed for posterity? There’s a guy making a documentary about me and he was there filming, so we got the audio as well as the film. I think these are glory days for me in that I feel so comfortable with the band on stage and in the studio, with my writing. I can’t control anything about radio, the record business or whatever, but can control the songs I write, the records I make and the shows we do. Since 2006, that’s been my entire focus. I don’t force these records out. They just occur to me. You’re definitely on a roll and this is the perfect follow-up to New York At Night. It really feels like it is the right thing for the times. But these are dark times. The records, I think they’re full of light. They’re upbeat, they’re positive. There’s nittygritty and there’s “Blood On Your Hands” and some heavy stuff but ultimately the bottom line is they’re feel-good rock and roll records. Everybody’s going through this nightmare of a pandemic and political confusion, people are not getting along, so

I’ve wanted to put out some positive stuff. The new one is just a reaction to what everybody’s going through this year, not just here in New York but everywhere. New York has been quite the muse for your work throughout your career. After forty years, it seems you continue to find new perspectives of it and fresh ways to be inspired by it. It’s still teaching me things. I love the city. It fascinates me to no end and next year, it’ll be 50 years, coming and going. You see the good, the bad and I HOPE TO MAKE PEOPLE the ugly - and the beautiful and the not so beautiful. I love the cosmopolitan nature of

STOP AND THINK AND it. You and I could stand here on my corner, on MacDougal and Bleecker, and in just a few MAYBE ENJOY THEMSELVES minutes, we’d hear four or five different languages from people walking by. I dig that. it has an FOR A WHILE. energy that I feed off and it just continues to inspire me. What is the vibe there now? Last time we talked, you said it was eerie because everything was closed down and pretty much dead. Last year, it was totally haunting, totally eerie, just like The Walking Dead. Now it’s much, much more vibrant. People are out and about, the streets are littered with the restaurants that are build out into the street, where cars would park. They’ve built these open-air, covered for rain-type spaces and some of them are very elaborate. At night, you can hear the buzz of the city, the horns, the motorcycles, people talking, laughing, partying. It’s alive and well again. But people are cautious and still wear masks when you go into places, but it’s alive. It’s our job as neighbors to try to be conscious of each other, be conscientious and try to protect our families and our neighbors. I’m doing my best to keep my end up with not spreading this thing, you know? Let’s get back to the album a bit. You’ve said the late Congressman John Lewis inspired a track on the record. Yeah, “The Justice Bell.” I had the good fortune to meet Congressman Lewis about three years ago. He was in New York to attend a birthday party of Congressman Joe Crowley, who’s been a longtime friend of mine. It was a birthday party at a club, Southside Johnny was the band and Caroline Kennedy was there. A few people came up from the Senate and Congress. Congressman John Lewis walks in the room and I almost fell on the floor. He was an inspirational man. After meeting him, it felt like you’d visited with some sort of royalty, because he was a true icon. That’s well put. He was a national treasure. It was great to just shake his hand and to thank him for his efforts to try to make this a better country, to try to make it more fair for everyone. He was just a guy trying to do the right thing. When he spoke, I was like five feet from him and watching him and I couldn’t believe my eyes. So that inspired the song. A friend of mine in DC got it to his former Chief of Staff and he will get it to the family, which I’m very happy about. Yeah, you’re right, after you spoke with him, you felt lifted up, cleansed.

The good thing about that meeting is you turned that moment into a piece of art. Not only did you feel good after speaking with him, you made a permanent record of the event. I’m so proud of it. I sent it to Noel Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary. We did all a WhyHunger event back in November last year online, so I met him through that. On the day I wrote it, I sent it to him and he said it reminded him of “If I Had A Hammer.” Ironically, the day we recorded it, was January 6th of this year. We were in the studio recording it and people kept coming in and saying, ‘You’ve got to watch what’s going on TV. There’s a riot in the Capitol.’ And I went, ‘We’re too busy. Sorry, we’re recording this song.’ I had to get that song down because I wanted to share the message. Plus, as much as I love this country, we can’t control what anybody else does. We can only control what we each of us does, so we have to make it count.

You’re really adhering to the folk tradition of inspirational, proactive storytelling. Well yeah, that’s the ultimate goal. But for me, I think all music is folk music. This is a pretty rocking record in that it’s rough, but I do love the tradition of writing about what’s around you, what’s going on in the world, in one form or another. It can take the form of a funny song, like “Off My Medication,” which is totally making fun of the surreal-ness of it all in an upbeat, rocking manner. It’s just fun to sing because it’s like Chuck Berry meeting Napoleon XIV. But I really do agree with the whole folk thing. I dig the mindset of accountability on a personal level. Ultimately, you write stuff for different reasons. I never was interested in being an American Idol. It’s the music that I love. It’s the songs that I’m here to stand up for and the message they bring. And if they rock, then that’s even better! I hope to make people stop and think and maybe enjoy themselves for a while. I’m definitely not up on stage, going, ‘listen to me, me, me.’ No, in my case, it’s ‘listen to this song, this song, this song.’ That’s what it’s all about. When the song is there, then it’s my job to just let it rock.