Photo by Cory Zimmerman of Z2
Willy Porter
Willy Porter
When singer-songwriter Willy Porter describes the journey of creating his new album The Ravine, there’s an abundant and pure sense of gratefulness. He’ll perform with his band October 6 and 7 at Shank Hall.
On one hand, the album was one of the most challenging for Porter to write and record. Over the past few years, he’s endured a litany of challenges and tragedies—a prolonged and difficult period of songwriting, the sudden passings of his nephew and his producer and longtime friend Mike Hoffmann, and the decision to take on a lion’s share of production work to finish the album—that brought uncertainty if the album would be released.
On the flipside, it’s one of his most creative and sonically ambitious albums to date. He found himself with an abundance of time due to the pandemic “to work on music in a more focused way as a songwriter.”
“It’s probably the most adventurous kind of tunes I've written because it's really a journey in a lot of ways musically for me. I haven't written anything quite like it,” says Porter.
For example, the title track showcases his desire to use a plethora of different musical time signatures to create momentum. He also experimented with a wide range of genres, including the “swamp blues” of “Don’t Underestimate The Devil” and the “traditional American folk motif” of “Your Honor.”
“I write songs all over the place musically,” he says. “I don't really stick to one genre. I just follow the muse. They are diverse, but they're unified in the period of time that they were created.” Lyrically, the album tackles a variety of topics personal to Porter. For example, he talks about childhood mental illness on "Your Honor," and gun violence on "Change Your Mind.” He also showcases a more humorous side on "Larry Bought a Tractor.”
Trials and Tribulations
'The Ravine' by Willy Porter
Willy Porter has a theory that a good idea won’t leave you alone. In the past, he’d often sit down with a purpose to write songs. However, the writing of songs on The Ravine was much more meticulous.
“They all share that distinction that they weren't exercises. I wasn't trying to sit down and throw a quota or write a song to crank something out. They were tunes that hit me,” he says.
For example, “The Ravine” took him almost two years to finish. There was something special about the song that made him come back to it.
“These songs all involve some level of sleeplessness, meaning they won't let go of you,” says Porter. “They wouldn't let go of me when I was working on them. I try to honor that if something sticks with you, it's probably worth looking at more closely.”
Porter later turned to Hoffman, who had produced his 1994 breakout album Dog Eared Dream, to produce and record the album at his studio The Crow’s Nest.
“Mike was immensely talented at catching musicians while they were having fun. And capturing the energy of invention, meaning somebody might know how to play a song and they might have all the mechanics down, but they don’t necessarily have the secret emotional sauce that makes a song musical, that emotional currency,” he says.
“Mike had a certain way about him that got musicians to forget themselves and play music for the sake of the music. And that is something that I will always strive to do. I think that's his great impact on me, most certainly. But I'm not alone, and I know that he had the same effect on pretty much everybody he worked with. He was just selfless, funny, quiet, but in his presence, you did better work.”
One of his favorite moments working with Hoffmann was for his song “A Dog on a Leash.” He says Hoffmann gave the fairly straightforward song a burst of energy. “The way that we set up in the room and the feel and flow of that session that day really brought something out of that song that’s uniquely Mike, and it came out beautifully,” says Porter.
Sadly, they weren’t able to finish working on the album. In October 2021, Hoffmann passed away suddenly due to a pulmonary embolism. It was a devastatingly “profound” loss for Porter, who had also just lost his nephew. He decided to take time away from recording the album to grieve and process. He says that family, friends, and colleagues helped him. They kept encouraging him and telling him to keep going. After four and a half months away from music, he felt ready to return.
“I got very depressed for a while and we all need to rally for each other,” says Porter. “This record wouldn't exist if I didn't have the community that I have, both of my band and my family and the people that have supported my work … We hold each other up and we push each other.”
Once back in the studio, he decided to produce the remaining three quarters of the album with the help of producer and engineer Kevin Arndt and longtime bandmate Dave Adler. He calls the experience a “hard mountain” to climb as he didn’t have Hoffmann’s genius and “Zen force of positivity in the studio.”
“That was a difficult moment in this record that really forced me to refocus my energy and pull it together to complete this project,” he says. “It might have my name on the record, but all these people contributed to this house of cards. It’s definitely a community project.”
Porter is excited to perform live and showcase a uniquely different show that really covers “all the bases in terms of what this band can do and what we like to do.”
“We’re not just going to get on stage and stare at our shoes,” he says. “But I'm not going to come in on a zip line in a loincloth either. So, it'll be somewhere in between those two extremes.”
