Interviews: Interview with KANSAS/NATIVE WINDOW Guitarist Richard Williams
Posted on Saturday, December 05 @ 19:16:36 EST
Topic: Interviews
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Richard Williams:
Home Again
by Tommy “Hashman” Hash
Kansas - Williams, left, on stage w/Steve Walsh
photo: Laurie Larson
There is no avoiding the influence that Kansas has had on the face of popular music as we know it. From their days of playing their inventive progressive rock, utilizing the violin, charging through FM radio back in the day with hits such as "Dust in the Wind," "Point of No Return," and "Carry on My Wayward Sun," through the embracement of the MTV era with "Fight Fire with Fire" & "Play the Game Tonight," even delving in great AOR tunes with "Perfect Lover" and the ballad "All I Wanted," to coming full circle on their 2000 studio release Somewhere to Elsewhere, which brought them back to their origins.
Today they still remain a big classic rock staple, and have been featured on two VH1 pop culture shows, as "Dust in the Wind" made it to number seven on the 40 Most Softsational Soft-Rock Songs special and "Carry on my Wayward Son" was featured as number 96 on the VH1 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs countdown where even Jane's Addiction's Dave Navarro talked up the musicianship that this band brought to the table. Now celebrating thirty-five years in music, the band has released the There's Know Place Like Home DVD/CD (Star City for the US/Inside Out for Europe) - an elaborate performance which features the band and then some. Featuring the Lineup of Steve Walsh, Billy Greer, David Ragsdale, Phil Ehart, & Richard Williams with past members Steve Morse & Kerry Livgren, the band is in full form performing with The Washburn University Symphony Orchestra - fitting as this band purveyed the early forms of symphonic rock.
The New DVD, shot in HD, which is also available in the Blu-Ray format, offers another intricate view of the band, officering the same vibe as their Device-Voice-Drum DVD, but with an expanded array of musical elements present - from the choice of well-known hits to more album oriented gems such as "Icarus II," Song For America" (where you have to love the orchestral intro), and even the hard rocker "Fight Fire with Fire" - this release has been a long time coming, "We did an album with the London Symphony Orchestra (Always Never the Same) about ten years ago and we have been doing symphony dates every year ever since," begins Williams, "we knew that eventually we would document it on film, it just made sense; and the time finally came with the 35th Anniversary of Kansas, so it made sense to put something together at that time - we wanted to do one and we always felt comfortable with it, but we were having a hard time figuring out 'where' to do it; some place that would make sense. A lot of ideas came up, but nothing really seemed to be exciting until we thought about just going back home and doing it. Once we decided that, everything made sense, the title naturally reflects that."
Another album that Williams is involved with is Native Window - this band which features Williams on guitar, Billy Greer on vocals and bass, Phil Ehart on drums and David Ragsdale on violin - their new self-titled record (Star City/Inside Out) is something more rooted in melodic rock/AOR, balancing out the tunesmith abilities with the musical prowess of the Kansas - but it is an entity unto it's own, in relation to Shooting Star, Danny Vaughn, & On the Rise - whether it be rockers such as "Money" & "Blood in the Water" or more lade back tracks such as the acoustic "Still (We Stay Strong) & the sub-ballad "Miss Me," it's stands alone, not being a straight up Kansas clone - this came about as the urgency to keep the creative juices going with the four guys involved and to actually get into the studio and make a new record, "One reason is because we have had complaints from fans that when we would open up for a local band, we would just play old material, people wanted to hear new originals," explains Williams, "so we started to take it more seriously, and we thought, what if we actually recorded some new original material and release a CD, and so we got in the studio, sat in a circle, and started throwing out ideas; but with Kansas working all the time we had to do this periodically - it literally took us a year-and-a-half to piece this all together and we finally did, and now we (as Native Window) open up for Kansas on a few dates. Steve (Walsh) and the rest of the guys didn't really seem interested in writing a new Kansas album, but we wanted to do something. We approached this with the intention to make music - we know radio won't play it, we know that it is fan driven as far as sales go, and we know we might lose some money, but regardless of the prospects, the four of us wanted to do something, so we got a great deal on studio time and again our hearts were into it. We also approached this as 'we are not going to be Kansas, it's something totally different,' but we still tackled it and completed the record - so another reason for doing this was out of frustration of not being able to do another record and not being creative in the studio. (As for the songs) It was all pretty organic, we all just asked each other, 'hey, anybody got an idea? - oh hey I got this riff.' The inspiration was just the thrill of doing it"
Native Window
With the release of 2000's Somewhere to Elsewhere, the band found themselves back on what was considered their full return to progressive rock form - they also declared their state of independence by releasing it on the Magna Carta label. That declaration also holds true with both the Kansas DVD & Native Window album being released in Europe on Inside Out Music, the well-known big name for prog-rock. In the US, they have secured a deal with the Star City Recording Company, which has a distribution deal with Sony's RED division - this powerful distribution has helped the There's No Place Like Home DVD reach #5 on the Billboard charts (for top DVD sales), not to mention that the Blu-Ray has had to go into multiple pressings because of the demand; Williams touches a little bit on some of the independent business dealings the band has been involved with, "When it came time to make and release Somewhere to Elsewhere, Kerry (Livgren) had the idea of all of us reuniting for that record, so we just shopped it around until we found accompany we were comfortable with who would know what to do with it. Both There's No Place Like Home and Native Window was with Star City Records, which is owned by our long-time collaborator Jeff Glixman's, he owns a studio by the same name in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania."
In the era of the 'Rock Star' back in the seventies, when the post-Monterey Pop era saw the record business boom, CBS/Kirshner (now Sony/Epic) was home to Kansas, still the band played music on their own terms - which is no doubt a secret to their success, a formula that they have always followed, "We just do what we do from album to album, we never really cared much for following trend," says Williams, "Back in the old days, I remember when our record company would try to direct us in some direction, they would say 'here's what you guys ought to be trying to do,' which is obvious because they knew what was happening in the market and they wanted to sell records, but we never really went along with that."
Both Kansas and Native Window are the main focus of William's musical endeavors - as the band has just ended a string of dates for this year - they have hopes to do more symphonic dates off the heels of the DVD release for the future, "Both of those take pretty much all of my time, as Kansas our year of touring is over with," concludes Williams, "we really hope to do a lot more symphonic dates in the future. We do five to maybe ten a year at the most and we'd like to do twenty or more a year. That's just a by-product of making this, it provides a vehicle for us to show symphony buyers the different fields of what we do. A band playing with a symphony is not exactly reinventing the wheel, but with people who normally go out and see symphony events, it works. In cities say Philadelphia, we play with The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra and we are just added to their schedule, our conducter will go in with them and conduct with them, go over the charts with them, and the band will do a rehearsal that afternoon with them and then it's showtime."
Copyright & Publishing: 2009 Tommy Hash for Ytsejam.com
Please Visit:
Kansas Website
Rich Williams Website
Native Window Website
Native Window at MySpace
Star City Recording Company
Inside Out Music
Inside Out Music at MySpace
Various other Kansas links
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