Intense, Talented, Troubled… Meet the Raw Blues Singer Fearful of Becoming a Star

Section:OBS RW PaGe:30 Edition Date:130901 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/8/2013 18:46 cYanmaGentaYellowblack MUSIC INTERVIEW Intense, talented, troubled… meet the raw blues singer fearful of becoming a star Willis Earl Beal’s long Willis Earl Beal: THE REAL BEAL ‘Stability is nice journey to a record but it has a cost.’ His story so far… Portrait by Jamie deal takes in army James Medina service, Th e X Factor and homelessness. Now the balladeer with an ear for Dylan tells Tim Teeman he isn’t sure he wants what comes next elebrities regularly, irritatingly, profess to hate 1984 Born in Chicago, Illinois. fame even when they have plotted to attain it, but few 2006 Beal moved to Missouri to join the express their revulsion US army. He was discharged on health Cas fi ercely as Willis Earl grounds. Beal. The 29-year-old musician is not a willing would-be star. 2007 Moved to Albuquerque, New Once homeless, he is now on the same Mexico, and did odd jobs. During this record label, XL, as Adele, Radiohead time, he was intermittently homeless, and the xx. A plaintive balladeer in the and he started recording music with tradition of his inspirations Tom Waits, drummer John Mulhouse and guitarist Cat Power and Bob Dylan, Beal’s second Emily Nelson . album, Nobody Knows, features some of the 130 songs he conceived when he 2010 A keen illustrator (above), one of was rootless, or working in a succession Beal’s fl yers was discovered by Found of dispiriting jobs, in Chicago and magazine, who put Beal on the cover. Albuquerque , New Mexico. Beal’s vocal style is intimate and 2011 Having received four “yes” raw and on the new album, as the fi rst, votes at auditions, Beal reached the takes in rousing soul, in a song like bootcamp stage of Th e X Factor in the Coming Through , and upbeat R&B, US, before leaving the competition. through to the mournful bluegrass hue of a song like Disintegrating. The 2012 Beal signed a recording rudimentary way Beal makes music, contract with Hot Charity, an imprint with instrumentation like a basic of independent record label XL guitar, scratchy static, pots and pans, Recordings , and released his fi rst single, is evident on songs like Too Dry To Evening’s Kiss , as well as his debut Cry and Burning Bridges, the lyrics album, Acousmatic Sorcery. emphasising the many hardships of Beal’s life and his survival. Everything 2013 His second album, Nobody Knows, Unwinds was described by one US is released next Monday . critic as “a woozy southern gothic slice of moonlit melancholia built up over a mysterious, undulating ambient lullaby”. While considering the wilder selling yourself, I say. “I walked around CDs of his songs in cafes and parks, up when he was young. “My mother trying to glorify mental instability – that details of Beal’s biography and the as a nobody for my whole life, then with pictures drawn on them. The would cry and tell me her problems used to be a very romantic notion for elements of his musical mash-up style, somebody tells you you are somebody. chronology is hazy, but he says at times while we watched The Price Is Right. me, the mentally fractured artist. I’m Spin magazine called Beal “a strikingly But my experiences make me want to be he slept at the bus station or the car I cared about them. Dad tried to not insane. I just had a few hard times in singular performer, synthesising various a nobody again, though I am defi nitely park of a pizza restaurant. He was fi red be a nice guy. They did not neglect my life and a bit too much solitude, and muses into something deeply unique. more stable as a human being so these from Burger King for stealing burgers. me.” Beal’s grandmother raised him it pushed me to the edge.” Accordingly, it’s nearly impossible to issues are confl icted. Stability is nice but In Chicago he illustrated fl yers and left and his younger brother. He drifted Jessica now pays for Beal’s therapy turn away.” it has a cost.” He considers photographs them around town with his number for through school, a Buff y fan who cut his in New York, which is “very good, Today Beal’s ambivalence about his “evil”, as they falsely fi x a subject in people to call if they wanted him to sing fi ngernails to sharp points, painting though I wonder why my girlfriend has new, high-profi le life is displayed by time. Yet he also knows wearing a black for them. He was inspired by Sharkula, them black. He drew comic strips. His to pay money for me to talk to a logical the setting: the lounge of New York’s mask is “not marketable”. a Chicago rapper known for his free- mother sent him to a therapist when he person.” Scotch is Beal’s medication, he swanky Carlyle hotel. Beal is intense Crikey, relax, enjoy it, you want to say. associating verse. was 17. Another time she sent him to a jokes. He got into drinking after reading and handsome, dressed in a shirt Beal wants to “touch down on people” Three years ago a friend put some church preacher who spoke in tongues Charles Bukowski, “who wrote so patterned with colourful skulls. He with his “message” and be “successful of Beal’s songs on a website; a music as two men placed their hands on him highly of it”. When he fi rst met Jessica drinks whisky “because someone else monetarily” to give him more choices. writer heard them and wrote about the (“Everyone rejoiced around me, the in Albuquerque, “she realised I lived in is paying”, though he prefers cognac. As with photography, he hates singing singer. Beal entered the US X Factor, idiots”). At 22 Beal joined the army, complete squalor and I was completely “Too many” people live in New York, live as it makes him feel exposed, “trying getting through to boot camp , but got “thinking maybe I could become the insane. She works 12 hours a night, he says, swaggering in their pursuit to recreate the spontaneous moments “staggeringly drunk” because he was tough guy and get organised”. But he then has to come home to deal with a of “acquisition and social status”. He of inspiration” that led to the songs. “I “frightened of everyone. I couldn’t says he was court-martialled several sensitive artist. She’s more the man in moved here to be with his partner, want to hide in the studio.” Beal would remember any of my lines and was times, his pay was docked, he had the relationship than me.” Jessica, a nurse, but wants to leave. He listen to Cat Power, a collaborator on dressed like a bum. The judges were fi ghts (“I was called a disgrace to my Next Beal will record a deluxe isn’t sure if he wants children: “I don’t Nobody Knows, Dylan (particularly like, ‘What are you doing?’ That was the country”) and was discharged. edition of Nobody Knows with 11 extra even know how to put one foot in front Knocked Out Loaded, his 1986 album), end of my X Factor experience.” Odd jobs in Chicago followed, then, songs. When he makes enough money of the other, let alone raise a human Scott Walker and Waits as he cycled to The face on the cover of Nobody “drawn by the desert”, Beal went to he says he’d like to open a Christmas being.” Global overpopulation also dead-end jobs at night: “While their Knows is a replica of a tattoo Beal Albuquerque. He drank heavily and tree farm and an organisation advising means “it’s a negative thing”. voices played in my head I looked at got when homeless. “The teeth are became homeless at 23. “I hate my “misfi ts, like paedophiles and potential Beal sounds weary and wary: he has the road and thought about my life and clenched, the eyes are pluses not X’s, backstory,” he announces. He says murderers. The way to stop a terrible been sold by his record company as the experiences.” explaining the enlightenment you feel he wants to get on with his life, not crime is to talk to someone.” homeless guy who became a star, yet Beal sang on Albuquerque’s streets, before you die. I wanted something I regurgitate it. He says some songs Will Beal receive the right counsel hates being packaged and patronised. bought recording equipment and left could say I represented.” Did he feel on Nobody Knows are about feeling himself, you wonder. He performs best He claims to have “lost all the money” suicidal? “I feel suicidal all the time, but “crushed and disintegrated” by when he is vulnerable he says, “and I’m he made following the release of his LISTEN I’ve never tried it. I look at suicide as a sexuality, which is a “soul-sucking always vulnerable. Conveying emotion fi rst album, Acousmatic Sorcery , in distant, soft fantasy. Maybe I don’t want thing, a fucking prison. It’s everywhere. makes me resentful, which is why I 2012. “I didn’t buy a car, or have a coke to die. Maybe I think there’s something Women wearing shorts up their asses. drink whisky on stage, but that fucks habit. I drank a lot of alcohol and ate a Hear from tomorrow left.” He isn’t depressed, he insists, For addictive personalities like myself up my vocal cords.” We look at the lot of food.

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