Indie musician draws a crowd on both sides of the pond

By Amy Staples

The cylinders are full of rainwater.
The radiator is missing. The engine is no longer under the hood, rather, it sits on the sidewalk.

Willy Mason returns from touring in the United Kingdom and finds an old friend, his home away from home, his touring workhorse, in a sad state. Unfinished and unmoving, it sits where he left it months before, in a desert in California.

The van barely survived a lengthy trip from Oklahoma to California. He couldn’t shut the engine off the whole way because of a dead starter, only to have Death Valley become its final resting place.

Mason has traversed much of North America in the van that was specially renovated by him and a shipbuilder friend. For all anyone knows, the vessel could have brought him to Portland Monday to play a sold-out show at the Doug Fir with KT Tunstall, but instead he arrived via airplane and rental car.

The fate of the mechanic who he paid cash up front for the work that never happened is unknown, but Mason’s future is looking more vivid as the miles stack up.
Mason definitely has a lot on his mind, and shares his viewpoint on his album, “Where the Humans Eat,” released in 2004 on Team Love. Folk rock with a bluegrass tinge, the obvious musical comparisons are Johnny Cash and early Wilco, but there is something of the poet in Mason as well that brings to mind Tom Waits.

He plays guitar, cello, piano, lap steel and bass on the album, while his younger brother Sam performs on the drums and plays piano on the album as well. Having grown up in a musical home, Mason knows music creates unity, and tries to get in as much music as possible the few times a year he is home. “I don’t come home that often but when I do come home, playing music is a cool way to bring everyone together.”

On this tour with Tunstall, he is playing a 3/4 size guitar his father has repaired multiple times.

Mason is searching for permanence and authenticity in a world that at times seems as if it’s trying to make everything the same.

He grew up on Martha’s Vineyard and his hometown has been experiencing economic change. He thinks carefully before answering questions, and a voice deeper than one might expect manifests itself with a Massachusetts accent.

“Tourism has recently become the biggest industry as the waters have gotten fished out, lands have gotten built up.”

He points to this as an example of what he’s seen in his travels as a shift in the landscape. “It doesn’t feel like real change, it just feels like surface change.”
His plastic framed glasses and hair hanging in his eyes give him the air of a contemplative bookworm, which is what he happens to be turning into as of late. Being on the road touring means he isn’t getting to experience his surroundings as much as he would like, so he’s catching up on his reading.

Before touring became a regular part of Mason’s life, “I was getting to explore so much that I was taking a lot in. Now I’m having to rely on books instead of the world.”
He still keeps up with important events, and regrets he can’t go to New Orleans to help people trying to rebuild. “I wish I could see it with my own eyes, because I don’t trust anyone else’s.”

Mason doesn’t have any misconceptions about what he’s gotten himself into with being on the road so much, although there have been times the fast pace of touring has caught up with him, like last year when he was on tour in the United Kingdom and, as he put, he went AWOL.

He admits the carelessness of missing part of the tour makes him embarrassed for letting people down, but also said he thinks the flaky reputation musicians sometimes earn is because they have little spontaneity in their lives once they have tours and appearances scheduled, usually a year or more in advance.

“It means you’re being productive, but it also means you’re sometimes cut off from the kinds of impromptu experiences that make the life of an artist inspiring,” he said.

There’s no arguing touring isn’t doing positive things for Mason. He has the opportunity to share his music with audiences all over the world, and has garnered a fan base from the states to the UK and further.

“I’ve traveled to Japan, Australia, England, all across America. I’ve driven across America twice living in a van, sleeping on couches, hanging out with random people that I never would have met otherwise.”

The tours with indie stars Bright Eyes, Death Cab For Cutie, M Ward, and Rilo Kiley are piling up, but Mason doesn’t think the experiences have altered his outlook from the days he was couch surfing at college in New York.

“I still play music the same way I did and I still think about things the same way I did.”