Alex Williams
It’s been five years since Alex Williams was introduced as the country genre’s new outlaw with his debut album, Better Than Myself. While he embraced the outlaw lifestyle on the road in the years that followed, Williams has since slowed down and found himself along the way.
The forced time off due to COVID-19 gave Williams a chance to focus on himself, his 18-month-old son and to figure out what needed to be said on his next project. The results are heard within sophomore album Waging Peace’s 12 autobiographical tracks. The traditional country leaning project details the highs and lows of life as a traveling musician, including self-destruction, the pitfalls of addiction, and climbing out from rock bottom to take hold of one’s life.
“I make my way on down below to the belly of the beast/ To find my only enemy/ He looks a lot like me,” Williams sings on the title track.
“It’s an ongoing battle mentally to make peace with myself and to find solace with external things in the world,” Williams tells me of the song’s inspiration.
Songs like “Rock Bottom” paint the picture of a man full of misfortune. The character eventually climbs out from the depths of despair with the help of the person he loves most.
“I went through this addiction, so it was really a challenge to not make [Waging Peace] so much about self-pity,” he says. “What can you draw from – not only that specific situation – but where the world was, and I guess still is a little bit now. I tried to get more of an enhanced message out there as opposed to just wallowing in regret.”
Despite the darkness in his life at the time, Williams wanted the message throughout the project to be finding optimism. This can be heard on songs like the title track, album closer “The Vice” and the introspective “The Struggle.” On the latter, Williams sings, “Ain’t it all about the struggle that makes it worth it when it’s done.”
“I’m not acting like I know anything more than anyone else,” he says, “but I think giving yourself the opportunity to realize that there’s a light on the other side no matter how heavy something is, that things are going to be OK nonetheless.”
Williams is the first to admit it’s not easy to be honest with oneself. When it comes to writing songs, though, he says the more honest he is, the more his music translates with listeners.
“It may seem cliché to say, but staying true on the artist side of things and honest with whatever you’re doing,” Williams says is the best business advice he’s learned. “There’s always going to be somebody that connects, so I think it’s being a little more fearless stepping out on the limb.”
Williams was signed to Big Machine Label Group for his debut album and says many of the independent acts he was touring with at the time urged him to take the independent route. Now signed to independent label Lighting Rod Records, Williams has a hand in every aspect of his career.
“It’s been a blessing to feel involved,” he says. “Nobody’s going to do anything for you more than what you’re going to do for yourself. I leaned on a lot of people in the past and cut myself into some corners that I wish I wasn’t in. It’s been a lot more rewarding mentally to be more hands on and work with people that are in the independent world.”
Along the way, he kicked his addiction, trusted his gut and released his most personal body of work to date with Waging Peace.
“The hard times are in all the precious times,” he says. “I feel like that’s where you really find yourself and find your path.”
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anniereuter/2022/10/21/alex-williams-goes-to-hell-and-back-on-waging-peace/