This is part of our ongoing series on musicians who perform in The Berkshires.
A self-described wanderer, Berkshires-based indie-folk singer-songwriter Billy Keane has cultivated more than his share of lived experiences. Keane gained notoriety touring with The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow prior to his solo project, and is now about to release his second album, Oh, These Days, on September 8, 2023. The album release is followed the next day by a performance at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington.
I had the pleasure of catching up over Zoom with Billy while at his Lenox home to learn more about his new album and musical journey. When speaking to Billy, you get the sense you are talking to someone wise beyond their years. He is kind and humble, and the philosophical maxim “Know Thyself” comes to mind – he seems driven to understand himself and the world he lives within and, by doing so, seeks to lead an authentic life. I hope you’ll see that in our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Your second album, Oh, These Days, is coming out on Friday, September 8. What can you tell folks about this album and how it might be similar to or different from the first album, Too Much To Let It Go?
It’s very different, I think. Oh, These Days, both thematically and musically, is a much more cohesive centering of ideas and thoughts. I wrote every song on the new record within a short period of time, right here in my little cottage. I mention this because that environment lent itself to some of the themes that came through in the music. The song “Fresh Flowers,” for instance, is a great example. The record in general is a collection of songs that came from a place of trying to express some of my experiential understandings of how my life works, and from a perspective that I try and take that’s separated from more specific experiences. In other words, it’s this recollective notion of all these weird things, feelings, or emotions that have happened in my life, and trying to find the depth within them that can express even some kernel of open understanding. That’s what this record is all about.
Did you find this album come together easier or more difficult than the prior album?
I always hesitate to use words like “easy” or “difficult” because it’s so dependent. You’re a bike rider – you can make a ride as easy or difficult as you want – it just depends on how hard you’re pedaling. I think the process was shockingly straightforward for this record. The songs were part of about 18 or 20 demos that I compiled, which I sent to James Wallace, who is producing the record. I was traveling and playing, but by the next time I heard from him, he had collected 40 minutes worth of music that he really connected with and wanted to turn that into this record, which for me, was great. Both financially and timewise, we couldn’t do every song that I had prepared. So having my producer curate his list of favorites was very much a simplified way to do it, as opposed to me getting all heady about what I wanted to record.
I have been touring with the band The Waking Dream a bunch now, but at the time, we’d only been playing together for about six months, but we were playing heavy, with lots of bookings, so the guys were really solidly and profoundly prepared for the recording process. And financially and timewise, I could only do five days in the studio, but the studio owner, who also engineered the record, Andrew Oedel, a very good friend of mine and a big supporter of my music, gave us this incredible deal and an opportunity to basically live at the studio all five days. When he needed to go home, we kept everything running, and we just kept tracking. It was it was long – 13-hour days. But the band and James, our producer, and myself, we were just honed in in this incredible way. It felt like we were riding and surfing this wave of creativity. Everybody was professional and also humble – if there were things happening that weren’t jiving right, we were open to discussing that and creating pathways toward a successful recording process. I think I did all of the live vocals right there. Usually, we do the record and then come back in and do vocals – and I did them all right there. Some of them are the actual takes – “Bathing in the Light,” “I Only Love You When I Think Of You,” and “Halo” – those were the vocal takes from when we were just playing it live.
So the process was wildly simple in that regard, but also it required such an intense level of concentration at every moment to make the most of that time. Then we went to Nashville to do background vocals, and it was similar. For two days, James and I were in his studio, and we brought the musicians in, and then it was like rapid fire: “Let’s get this take, this take, this take, line up those parts” – it was very quick. Immediately after recording, it went to mixing, but I was touring again, and James was doing his thing. So we didn’t connect on the album again until the mix process was done. Then we finally hopped on a call after a month out of the studio, and we were like, “Did we just finish? Are we missing something?” since the process was so simple and smooth, but I guess it’s just luck of the draw.
Tell us a little bit about your musical journey. How did you first get started with music? What got you interested?
When I was a very little kid, three or four or five, I started communicating through music. And my parents have all these funny anecdotal stories about how I would connect with things musically. My father’s a minister, which meant that every Sunday we were in church for a certain amount of time, and churches often have pianos. We never had a piano in the house, but I would write on the piano when I was really young. I talk about writing a lot, though for me the process began as just hearing and creating music. This aspect of writing [Billy gestures as though writing with a pen] did not become part of my life until much later – like close to now.
I was able to participate in some incredible experiences, like singing with some semi-professional choirs as a kid or being a part of various things through either church or school and then eventually picking up more instruments and continuing to create music in that way.
But something I said recently surprised me – because it just kind of came out of my mouth and I realized how true it was – which is that I’ve given up on myself and my music many, many times. And it’s other people and experiences and opportunities that have kept me going, which is the strangest thing to think about because music was such a huge part of my life. It was almost like a family member – my musical connection.
I was telling somebody recently about why I got into deep sea diving. Part of that, the first turning back, was when I was accepted at the Berklee College of Music and I chose not to go. I think there were all kinds of weird pressures that were suggesting to me not to go. I had been playing the coffee shops, doing all the random shows, and playing and writing a lot. And I had a collection of songs at the time that I’ve literally gotten rid of since then. But I wanted learn more about life, and in this weird, naive way, I thought to myself, “Well, I better do that before I approach any kind of musical academia,” which, in hindsight certainly has made things more challenging. But I can’t say I regret it. A lot of the shit I write about happened in those times when I would remove music from life.
Eventually, I dropped out of school a couple of times, and I ended up going to dive school in Seattle. I remember when I was working offshore, one of the guys ended up getting a guitar and bringing it so that I would play when we were off shift – which is a rough crowd, by the way. They were intense dudes, and they just wanted that kind of sensitive connection so we would play songs together. But then it wasn’t until I moved back to the Berkshires that I recorded a record. I’m a person that is deeply concerned with living an authentic life. When you get divergent from true authenticity, I find that very problematic, spiritually. Music is just a visceral thing for me.
When did you first start performing for audiences?
Oh man, like immediately, I guess. I remember writing harmony parts. My older sister is three years older than me, and she had a lovely voice. And when we were very young – maybe 5, 6, 7, or 8, we would sing duos. And I would write her harmony parts in my head and then I would sing them to her. The weird thing is that even today, when we’re in the studio, it’s so much easier for me to just sing somebody a harmony part, like layer them up and have them repeat, than it would be for me to sit down and write it or notate it. But yeah, I’ve been performing for as long as I can remember.
Who were some of your significant musical influences along the way?
Oh, man! There are so many influences and so many adaptations of those influences. So I’ll give you the overview. From a folk music perspective, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and James Taylor. Nick Drake was a big influence on me when I was a kid. In some other genres, I loved heavy rock. I really love Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. I listened to a lot of Pearl Jam back in the day, and I listened to a lot of Radiohead. And then there was this whole other genre – Arvo Pärt, a classical composer. I think he’s still around but generated some fame in the 80s – he was huge. Morten Lauridsen is another good choral composer who is based out of Washington State. He was really hugely influential on me. So it’s an expansive list that keeps growing – there’s so much good music.
I have a saying that I use for myself and for my bandmates, which is “be inspired and not intimidated.” I think sometimes when you’re hearing something that’s so outrageously good its easy to be intimidated. Bob Dylan was so huge for me, man. I couldn’t even believe how incredibly profound his music was. Certainly poetically, but the actual melodies of the music itself, too. And I remember for some years there I couldn’t even listen to it, almost – like I listened to it so much and then couldn’t listen to it. It’s those types of mistakes that I’ve made over the years that reminds me that influence and to be inspired should be the intended goal. The more you listen, the more you can be inspired, as opposed to getting into that negative internal space of being intimidated by somebody else’s work.
Who are some of the artists you are listening to now?
Oh, man – tons. Leon Bridges has been on repeat in my house for a while. Hiss Golden Messenger, for sure. I always go back to Bon Iver. I’m a huge fan of The Tallest Man on Earth. Maya de Vitry is an incredible songwriter I’ve listened to lately. She had a band called The Stray Birds back in the day. I’ve been listening to some interesting North African pop music – Tinariwen is a band I’ve been listening to. They play these really jangly, high-end Stratocaster-sounding grooves. And then there’s this really interesting rhythmic thing going on. I don’t know what they’re saying because I don’t understand the language, but whatever it is, it’s super groovy. [Editor’s note: Check out this song by Tinariwen to hear what Billy speaks about]. Yeah, there’s an incredible amount of amazing music out there.
Your bio indicates you were born in Australia, raised in Connecticut, but you now make the Berkshires your home. What brought you to the Berkshires, and what makes the Berkshires a special place for you to create and perform music?
What brought me here is pretty clear; I had a friend who wanted to work with me to produce an album. And as it happened, I got pretty severely injured on the job [deep sea diving], and that was going to put me out of work for a few months. And so, in true young Billy fashion and I got injured, was onshore within about six hours, had the surgery the next day, and then I just loaded up my Subaru and drove up north, and that was literally the last time I was down there. It didn’t seem strange at the time, but now I recognize how hard that is to just like, leave. I owned this really shitty boat down there with a friend of mine, and I left it at the apartment complex. I wonder if it’s still there.
I kept the apartment in Louisiana for four months, since I didn’t think I was going to stay here [in the Berkshires] because I didn’t know anything about it. I’d never even been to the Berkshires. But James and Kim [Taylor] and their whole crew were very supportive. And I quickly formed a band, which was the first time that I’d ever really done that, and just kind of started winging it, really. I thought, when I first moved up here, all the gigs were three hours, and if you wanted to play a show anywhere you had to have enough original music for a three-hour show. It never even occurred to me to pick up a slew of covers, which would have been so much easier. So I ended up writing three hours of original music, and we just started going. We used to go pretty hard at places like Dream Away or Mission Bar. And then I just ended up sticking around. I’ve always been one of those people that’s gonna follow the path as it unwinds. And I’ve never seen very far down that path. So, it seems strange in hindsight, but at the time it seemed like the only thing to do.
I read that you were studying Buddhist Psychology at Naropa University. I also observed that some of your songs connect to Buddhist ideas, like “Fresh Flowers,” which speaks to finding joy in the present moment. And “Halo” speaks about this balance between spirituality and formal structured religion. Will you share a little bit about your spiritual journey and how that has shaped or is shaping your musical journey and the connection between the two?
First, I don’t practice Buddhism. I should say: I don’t practice any religion in particular, not because I wouldn’t like to, but simply because I haven’t found one that resounds with me in a way that feels like I can make a commitment without necessarily adhering to all the various tenants that go along with that.
I don’t really distinguish [my spiritual journey] from the rest of my life, which includes music. Music feels very spiritual to me. If it doesn’t, then I don’t listen to it. The vast majority of music does feel authentic and spiritual to me. When people define certain aspects of music as being spiritual, I kind of chuckle because maybe [some music is] more spiritual than other [music], but if somebody is expressing themselves musically, it’s hard for me to believe that there isn’t some kind of spiritual connection there.
My spiritual journey has been very strange and windy, and I’ve left it behind, like with my music. I’ve given up on myself many times. “Bathing in the Lights” speaks of that. I didn’t intend on writing it – it kind of just came out: “running in circles, you’re still bathing in the light.” That represents the feeling that I am literally chasing my own tail. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where I’m heading. And in fact, it appears as if I’m heading nowhere. Yet that reality doesn’t affect the truth of the situation, which is that I’m still within this cocoon of universal connectivity, which is just something I feel – it’s an experiential thing for me.
That is another issue I have with religious dogma: it sometimes begins from a place of, say, acceptance or belief, and then gets to an experiential place, if you’re lucky. Where for me, it seems like spirituality should begin at an experiential level and end with some kind of orthodoxy, so that you can cultivate it. It’s like running. I run all the time – it’s one of my favorite things to do. The practice of the running isn’t something that I give a shit about. I don’t measure the time. I don’t measure the miles. I don’t measure any of it. I don’t quantify it, right? Just because that’s the way my mind works. But I do feel connected to it. The feeling I get from exercising my body in a way that wears it down, to be reborn again. These things are experiential.
So music is the same way for me. A lot of times lyrically, I will start specific and get more general. A lot of my lyrics on this record requires a person to contemplate them – whether or not an audience wants to do that, we will find out. Sometimes people want a story to be spelled out clearly. But these songs, if you want to fully embrace what I’m trying to get at, you have to sit with them a bit, I think.
Many of the songs you’ve written, both with The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow, and solo, address social, environmental, and geopolitical issues or challenges, including “Close to the Edge,” “Hey Lady,” and “Plenty Other Reasons.” Do certain events trigger you to write about these issues, or does it just come organically out of your creative process, or is it a little bit of both?
Yeah, those were songs I wrote about pretty specific situations. “Close to the Edge” I wrote after Freddie Gray had been detained by police and died in their custody in Baltimore, which is years ago now, yet still retains its relevancy – that’s kind of depressing. It’s the job security of the folk musician: there’s never a shortage of things to write about. “Hey Lady” I wrote after having attended the Women’s March in New York City with my ex-wife. We had just gotten married and we were a part of a movement that we felt certainly connected to. And it was an incredibly powerful experience. I don’t think about it categorically like this.
Your not intentionally out to make these statements, they just come through your natural experience. Is that fair?
Precisely. Sometimes I think we feel an urge to say something. And sometimes that urge is to speak about the fresh flowers. But sometimes that urge is to speak about a social issue or event that is just too heavy not to speak about.
Having worked in the sustainability field, I found it really interesting that in “Plenty Other Reasons” you point out that Richard Nixon was the one that started the EPA. At one point, the Republican Party used to be much more interested in addressing environmental issues.
I wrote that song for my conservative friends, not my liberal ones, because I don’t know anybody that doesn’t care about the earth. I really don’t. I have never voted anything but Democratic, and my uncle, who has never voted anything but Republican, likes to tease me about that. And, he likes to protect his 140-acre farm in New York state, where he does nothing but tend to the land. Literally, he goes out into the woods, and he hunts there responsibly, he fishes every day. His life is literally based around the environment and always has been. When I put the song out, I was kind of thinking about him. He texted me after he heard that song and he was like, “Man, I felt like you were singing to me, and I just appreciate it.” And the point that he wanted to make was that his connection with the Republican Party and whatever it is that they stood for at the time or stand for now had nothing to do with a lack of appreciation for requiring stewardship of the environment.
Who is it that’s deciding that these things need to be mutually exclusive – because it’s not the people deciding that. I think that’s the point of that song: It is to remind folks that the fight for environmental justice should be a bipartisan thing. It’s also to point out that it’s the politicians that are creating this division. The people themselves don’t want to ruin the environment. I think there are people that truly don’t give a shit or that truly don’t understand the connection – I guess those people are lost to us at this point. But most the people that I know love this planet, as we damn well should, and appreciate the strength that it requires of us to be able to recognize the impact that we have on it.
What keeps you busy when you’re not performing, rehearsing, writing, and recording music?
I read a ton. I kind of have a passion for weird things that I don’t understand, like quantum physics, for instance. I don’t have a math background, but there are these incredible books that cutting-edge scientists will write about a concept, without requiring the reader to have an in-depth knowledge of the mathematics behind it. Carlo Rovelli, for instance, puts out these incredible books about time and about the history of the quantum physics movement.
There’s an incredible array of interesting books that I like to get into, which sometimes I read very poetically, especially Carlo Rovelli. I read a lot of poetry as well, which is an art form that I have a deep passion for, and also I get intimidated by poetry because it’s something that I don’t find myself very capable of creating. But poetry is such an incredible art form. I dive in deep. Sometimes these scientific book and poetry books behave very similarly. It’s interesting – you’re like, “Wow, that sounds beautiful. I don’t totally understand what that means, but it certainly means something to me.” It’s like an exploration of truth that goes beyond proof.
What else do I do? I don’t know. I like to exercise a lot. I try to keep my house tidy, mow the lawn, and various things…
All the day-to-day stuff, the chores et cetera…
Yeah, but you know, I’m like the busiest not-busy person that I know. I’ve got more free time than most people that I know. But I still keep the days full. I don’t have a TV or a kid – I think that might make a big difference.
This coming Saturday (September 9), you’ll be performing at the Guthrie Center, celebrating the release of the new album with your band The Waking Dream. Do you have anything special planned for this show?
We’re going to play through the whole record, which is very exciting. It’s just The Waking Dream [accompanying him] – we’re not going to have any support that night because we’ve got plenty of material to get through. I’m very excited to play through the whole album for folks live. We haven’t actually done that yet. We played all the songs in various locations, but we’ve not played it all the way through.
I’m also excited for people to buy the record in advance – we have a store going now that you can get to from my website. It’s very cool. It’s run by this local company, The Swan Brothers, right out of Pittsfield. And they have my vinyl – the actual ones are ready so you can buy the album in advance, which means you get to listen to the whole thing before it even comes out on September 8th, and ideally people will do that so they can sing along with us at the Guthrie Center.
Will you have your usual band members for the show at The Guthrie Center?
Yes, Brian Kantor, Miles Lally, and David Tanklefskey. They are three of the greatest players that I’ve had the honor of sharing the stage with. I like to tell people that really I’m the singer for The Waking Dream. They’re not my band – they are an incredible band that I get to sing for.
Your website shows you have tour dates in September, October, and December. Do you have any additional tour plans beyond those listed?
We are trying to keep it loose for the fall, since we want to record another album.
Wow! Already?
Yeah, the songs are there. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to make it. I’m talking to a producer who’s kind of a hero of mine and he’s interested – we just need to figure it out.
But we will be in Nashville and Knoxville, so we have a run down there. And then various shows up here. We’ll definitely be around. And, I may drop in somewhere if there’s an open slot, and I haven’t played for a while. I like to swing by The [Egremont] Barn or the Dream Away [Lodge].
Well, if that happens, make sure you let us know so we can be there.
My last question is: is there anything else that I didn’t ask that you would like to share with our Music in the Berkshires audience?
I’m just excited for folks to hear the record. I really hope they come to the show at the Guthrie Center next Saturday night. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. There is such a legacy there. It’s going to be a great show, and I really hope people check out the store and buy the album in advance. There’s nothing better than hearing people singing along in the crowd. And I’d love to know their thoughts. So they can check out the store, and get a ticket to the show at the same time. And hopefully, we’ll see a lot of people on September 9.
You can learn more about Billy Keane at billykeane.com. You can find his music on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon. You can also follow him on Instagram and Facebook.