Blog #1: Tour Dates Go Live Tomorrow

It will have been two years since my last concert when I play my first show. There will be 31 around the country.

The preface from Joan Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" includes the following passage:

"I had not been able to work in some months, had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act, that the world as I had understood it no longer existed. If I was to work again at all, it would be necessary for me to come to terms with disorder."

The chaos. The atomization. The alien ugliness that seemed to be coloring my relationship with the world at large, with a fanbase that used to be small and intimate and would comfortably rest on the line between social and parasocial, with myself - I couldn't keep up. TikTok, cancel culture, the incessant urge to conflate media literacy with reading everything like a political essay, scathing reviews that barely talk about the music and instead focus on the critic's idea of who the artist is supposed to be as a person, cultural norms shifting, intergenerational friction, the looming evil of so-called "Artificial Intelligence" and its devaluing (yet simultaneous setting of a higher bar in terms of vision) of that which seemed to make us human, the forgotten concept of using art as catharsis instead of commerce or commentary, the erosion of all I found sacred as an artist, all I knew as a so-called "public person"... The more I tried to cope with these anxieties, the more I tried to ideologize my way out of these realities, the more bent and despondent I became. I was splitting apart from myself. Will Wood exists in this world? Reacts artistically to this world? This is the context in which I am to be known? In which I am to try and know others? How can I possibly keep up with that? How can I find my footing in shifting sands? I can't. So I gave up.

Earlier this year, I found myself itching to get back on the road. I had promised myself and informed the folks I work with that I would be taking off no less than a year, and that I wasn't even open to discussing returning until January 2024. I knew I had to commit to it, otherwise I might not do the amount of internal exploring I felt I needed to do in order to know for sure whether or not I wanted to keep pursuing music. Some people gave me a playful "oh you'll be back, this is who you are." Others gave me a pleading "don't go back, this isn't who you are." I told them all that they were right, because I didn't know who I was. Not after the previous few years. I had been grinding since 2014, juggling too many tiny revenue streams and sub-careers in an attempt to cobble together a living, and when things blew up in 2021 I was already such a nervous and exhausted wreck I nearly died.

My heart and sense of self just couldn't take the attention that I was getting. As lucky as I knew I was to finally be able to make an actual living doing what I'm good at, and as grateful as I tried to be for the positive parts - neither ire nor adulation was tolerable to me, my system rejected all of it. I wasn't wired for it, so it just made me sick. I wrote sad music, I stress ate till I gained fifty pounds, my addict brain poked at me, and I squirmed like a bug under a shoe for 2-3 years. I was so deeply unsatisfied and disappointed by the ways my public life differed from what I had set out for, so scared by violently overzealous fans who lacked the faculty of determining right from wrong when presented with the for-some-reason unacceptable distance of my existence, and so overwrought by the workload required to keep up with something that seemed to just be bringing problems and dysfunction my way that I knew I had to get out. I also knew, however, that I had no idea how to exist without my music career and my artistic endeavors, so I had to swear to myself that I wouldn't do any concerts, go on tour, or record anything for at least a year.

During that time, I came to emotionally grasp the previously only intellectually known fact that one's public life cannot fill a void in the soul or whatever. If your private life is not in order and you are not satisfied by it, your heart will seek satisfaction in your public one. And if you allow that to happen, you will get hurt. The joy must be in the creation itself. I also learned better skills on how to roll with punches and protect myself from the scary parts, and re-organized the inside of my head to more effectively cope with the head-spinning and gut-wrenching weirdness of it all. What it does to my personality, my idea of who I am, my relationships, people close to me, etc. "Fame" or whatever is like rain. It isn't my fault, and as much as the cloud may be right over me it isn't who I am. And there is nobody who doesn't get wet in some way or another. I am learning to distrust. I am learning to suspect. I am learning to guard my heart. But I am also learning to let people in.

I am now happier in my private life, so I don't care about my public one anymore. I enjoy the good parts, and don't care about the bad parts. Because I gave up on the idea of being fulfilled. I gave up on my dreams. When I said "and if dreams can come true, what does that say about nightmares?" I must have forgotten about the time I said "all nightmares start as dreams." I then went on to say "won't follow my dreams, no they all got me waking up screaming." Really, what I should have been saying all along was "wake up, Will, reality is here." Dreams can't come true, the second they become reality they are no longer your dream. They are life. It's a beautiful thing when that happens, but a waking dream is called a hallucination, and I've been sleepwalking with my thumb on the snooze button. I gave up, I woke up.

Okay, lines will be crossed. Okay, I can't have normal relationships with whoever I choose anymore. Okay, I will be held to moral standards I don't always personally agree with, and be expected to accept deeply immoral treatment from others. Okay, people say insane untrue things about me. Okay, I need to be careful who I trust. Okay, I'm going to get creepy phone calls/emails/whatever. Okay, there is a subculture that passes around google drives full of childhood recordings of mine and photos from my mom's Facebook. These things suck. Okay. Deal. Fuck it. Accept. Ignore. Move on.

At no other point in my life have I felt capable of living like a normal person, I've always felt on the outside of things that came naturally to everyone around me. There are many ways in which I have to structure my life specifically to my unique needs outside of these things. I don't get to have a normal life? Well, when was I going to anyway? I accept. I have to come to terms with the disorder.

Okay, the world is changing rapidly and uncontrollably, in terrifying, invalidating, humbling, confusing ways? The dreams I followed can't exist in the world as it is today? The myth of the balladeer is over, the old pantheon has crumbled, reverence rarely lasts longer than a generation, irreverence is an ever-expanding eternal backlash? Paintings haven't always even had titles. There was a time before the printing press. Before novels. And soon they'll say that about content recommendation algorithms, and despite my certainty that those are inherently dangerous and toxic to society, I can still recognize it as a symbol of impermanence. There was a time before microplastics and Covid-19 too. Fuck it. We will all decay, and so will our gods. The center was never going to hold. Things fall apart. I am coming to terms with the disorder.

None of this is what I expected or dreamed of, but it's reality. And in many, many ways, if I can wake up, it's much, much better.

I just want to gratefully enjoy the incredibly fortunate opportunity to make a living doing something I love, and know that there are people out there whose lives are in some way improved by it when I do. It required me to be happy enough with my real life where even if my public one was an absolute disaster it wouldn't break me. Even if they hate me, have entire fictions around who I am no matter how authentic I try to be, try to humiliate me, believe ridiculous ugly stories about me - even if the name Will Wood becomes no longer associated with a single positive thing and every last shred of even petty control I once had is ripped away, I let the love in, and put love out, and the rest isn't even happening as far as I'm concerned. I go onstage, and perform as a leap of faith.

Faith, I've come to feel, was my most lacking and is now my most precious virtue. I don't mean faith in god, although that can be what it means sometimes and to some people. I mean that simply waking up and stepping outside in the morning requires faith that the sun won't explode and the ground won't crumble beneath our feet. That an aneurysm won't burst in our brains or we won't be run over by a truck. Love is faith. Hope is faith. Every breath we take is an expression of faith in something. Faith is belief despite a lack of evidence, a thing I used to find laughable before I realized how each moment of life is dependent on it. I will have faith that I will survive, have faith in others, and have faith that disorder, the future, atomization, will not break me.

I am writing again. I'm nowhere near close to beginning even the earliest stages of demoing, so don't get too excited. I don't think I see an album before 2027 frankly. But I am writing, and what's coming out is so liberated from the crushed and twisted feelings that gave birth to my last album, and from the feelings that created the albums before it. It doesn't sound like anything I've done before, and I was starting to worry that wasn't going to happen anymore. I have faith that it will.

I am enjoying being a public person again too. I am enjoying practicing piano. I am enjoying working on the novelization of The Prescription. I am enjoying shopping for new stage clothes, writing jokes, bouncing ideas back and forth with my girlfriend and creative confidant El Beebo, and all the little things. I have faith that it'll all work out just fine, and that I'll be just fine if it doesn't.

I've given up. On all of the things I was looking for as an artist. On the person I was trying to become. On the sacredness of my medium. On tradition and progress alike. On order. I am no longer seeking control or evidence. Just walking in faith in the ground beneath my feet.

Thanks for reading my spiel. This has been a blog post. You'll be getting more as a member here.

In love and faith,

-ww

TOUR INFO:

I cannot wait for these shows. It'll be a lot, and I'll be exhausted, but I couldn't be more excited.

The shows are solo as usual, and are all either 21+ or 18+ with maybe one all-ages exception at some point on the run if something changes in our agreements behind the scenes. Sorry kiddos, maybe another time.

I will have to have faith that my back won't give out on stage. It's gotten bad since I last saw you. I need surgery for what appears to be an affliction known hilariously as "back mice." Of course Will Wood needs surgery to remove mice from his spinal column.

I'll be playing a pretty different setlist than the last go-round. I'll be filming them for Patreon again too. I am working in faith that these renditions of these songs will move people in a way that, were I to personally know that movement, I would be happy to know I caused. (Don't worry, I'll still be playing the hits. Moreso than usual, actually.)

A handful of the events are a little unusual and will require a device locking pouch. We'll have you put your phone in a cute little homemade pouch, and have someone waiting by the merch table to unlock it in case you need to make an emergency call. This is not just because phones are distracting, it's because I plan to workshop some new songs, which used to be a big part of my writing process, and publishing a song before it's finished often totally ruins that process. The bigger shows I'll just ask politely, although I likely won't play new stuff at those. I am working in faith that people will appreciate and respect that.

But also, shows are made better when the phones are away. I'm serious, I would know, I put on shows for a living, remember? Have faith in my expertise!

The VIP passes will work differently this time around. Instead of being two tiers, one with a meet & greet and one with a Q&A, it's one tier that offers both. The meet & greet is early admission for a professional photo and signing, then the Q&A is a pass-the-mic-around pre-show half hour or so, and you'll also get a laminate and lanyard. They'll still be sold separately from the tickets like in 2022, check the links at willwood.net/events early tomorrow, the VIP packages are being sold by MasterPass.

On a concrete, less woo-woo level, I think what I learned is that I will most likely need to take one-to-two year breaks from touring and recording now and again. To rearrange my brain, re-learn how to be an artist, and sort of update my operating system.

I would say I'm officially back starting October 9th. Dates and other info below. Much love everyone. Thanks for everything. Looking forward to see you out there.