Interview by: Emily Sisson
https://www.instagram.com/esofficialstudios
“What’s up with that Will Wood guy?.. Is he still trying to replace himself?…”“Last I heard, he’s traveling around North America holding seminars about Timeshares and Rodents…”“ He moved to Bulgaria!”“He’s gonna be on SNL next week!…”
Wrong.
He’s back and better than ever! Once you find out, you won’t believe what’s next! MGM has the never before seen inside scoop on Will Wood’s upcoming shows, concert film , and his recent pastime philanthropy. Please join us while we whimsically roll way into what’s resplendent and readily on the radar of the musical raconteur Will Wood. Ready or not, there’s news to come! We asked Wood what’s next and Will answered. Will Will Wood continue onward following his post tour momentum; or would Will Wood rather recoup, respite and reminisce the recondite knowledge he’s gained respectively. I know you’re all asking the same questions, and now that we have the answers, you can too! So stand up soldiers and let’s start, because all this speculation and alliteration has been seriously stressing me out!
Hello Will,
Thank you for taking the time to answer some burning questions regarding where you are now and what’s next on your creative horizon! After a needed hiatus, and post tour (filling bunches of sold out shows), you have since hinted that your arsenal is filled with many creative projects set or due to be unveiled. By that information, your fans and I could not be more excited and intrigued. I’m sure you to are aflutter to share and tease these new projects, and even if you can’t spill ALL the beans, I hope there are some to tumble! So let’s get into it.
MGM: What can you tell us about how or what you have been building up to share with your audience?
Will Wood: I’ll be going on a pretty special tour, celebrating surviving a decade of this whole thing, starting on the weekend of the 10-year anniversary of my first album. I’ll be touring with a band for the first time since like 2018 in the eastern half of the country, then doing some really big theater shows in the West/Midwest. I kind of think it’s time to put a button on the past ten years of my career, and I think the Tapeworm tour, the show I’ll be bringing to the theater gigs, and the concert film/standup special we’re working on will do that. So I’m calling the tour “Mr. Wood is Dead,” and I’ll be doing the sort of thing I’ve always done or used to do but with a bit of a twist on it. Dates are going to drop soon, keep both ears to the ground, folks. Don’t tell me you can’t do it. Cut your head in half. Easy.
MGM: Can you tell us a bit about the project you are most excited to release, and what it means to you?
WW: I put together a show that I like to call “Slouching Towards Branson” and brought it on the road a couple of months ago, and we filmed the shows so it could be released like a movie, which is pretty exciting. We’re in the early stages of editing now, and I’m hoping we can have it out by the end of the year. So that’s exciting. It also looks like that stupid concert film Chris Dunne and I put together a thousand years ago is finally going to be on streaming for real soon. So that’s uh, a relief, I think is the best way to put it.
MGM: What kind of strengths do you feel you’ve gained recently? Were they sought after or naturally occurring?
WW: I’m probably a little too close to see, but I do feel like I’m always getting better at what I do. Some of it is very hard-earned, some of it just the result of the practice you engage in just through performing or jamming. I think I’m a better and more focused writer these days. More conscious without being too self-conscious.
You have shown to have had a very productive year in 2024 ending with many accomplishments. Subsequently, this new year is set to create new beginnings and exciting changes you’ve been working to set into motion.
MGM: How are you challenging yourself these days?
WW: It wasn’t until I decided I wanted a piano in my house that I realized I’ve never really had one. The last time I practiced on a piano regularly was when I was in my parents’ house using their piano in my early 20s, and I’ve been an unwitting keyboardist ever since. Even digital keyboards with weighted keys and everything have a very different action from a real mechanical piano, so if you practice on a keyboard for years you get good at the keyboard. So now that I finally have my own piano, I’m learning the hard way just how much I’ve messed myself up by not having one. So unfortunately I’m challenging myself by learning how to play the instrument I play for a living.
MGM: It was revealed last year that the legendary parody artist “Weird Al Yankovic” added your song “Mr. Capgras Encounters a Secondhand Vanity…” to his ‘SOUND ADVICE’ playlist on spotify as a recommendation to his fans. How did it feel when you learned Weird Al listens to and endorses your music? Does that earn the spot for the most surreal moment or does another idea come to mind?
WW: It was the single most meaningful moment of my career. Up until then, every victory had been at best a numb sense of completion – the joy overcast by the shadow of my sense of undeserving and the anxiety inherent to the experience of the escalation required by victories in the performing arts. It was my first uncorrupted landmark moment. It was when I truly felt as though I had made it. When I came to terms with entropy. It was manna in the dessert. I’m finally okay.
MGM: Have you had any doors open up for you recently regarding new opportunities you may be interested in pursuing or any that you flat out refused?
WW: Apparently, I’m one of the MLC’s top artists with unclaimed royalties so that’s an opportunity, I guess. I’d like to pursue that. I’m told that Wyndham Vacation Club is a great opportunity. I turned down hosting SNL. Lorne kept saying “Will, America needs you. I need you.” And I was like “no.”
It’s very inspiring your ability to express yourself in such a way that changes lives for the better. Your continued vulnerability and out of this world demonstration of yourself has solidified you as a one of a kind creator. As you grow and settle into the career you’ve made, you do so knowing you have brought your audience along for quite the ride and proved as a positive example in many ways.
MGM: You’ve touched on finding yourself more emotionally attached to the creative process itself recently. What has your creative process looked like as of late?
WW: It’s nice to be where I’m at and seeing papers with all kinds of scribbled-up freak babble stacked and scattered around a piano again. All the intrusive thoughts and shameful bad ideas mixed in with the closest thing to true beauty I’ve ever been capable of in a way that makes me forget which one’s which. Hasn’t been like this in years – where the process is a bloody, pulpy mess that involves space outside my head. It looks the way it did when I was younger, back when the process was the whole point. Thank god for AI’s inevitable destruction of trust in all recorded media. Release us from hyperreality, ye kings of industry. History itself is a doomed pursuit. Welcome to the new dark ages – playing the lute and making fun of the king in the forest or on a cobblestone street between turns in the stocks is BACK.
MGM: How are you approaching this next wave of your career?
WW: With God on my side. Allowing it all to fall apart and accepting that. A lot of good books were written in gulags, you know? All about enjoying the process and living in the moment. We’re all a bunch of 900-year-old partial skeletons speaking dead languages with entire value systems based on the maladaptive coping mechanisms of others. So, my approach this time around is sort of nihilistic in a way it hasn’t been in a long time. I’ll say what I want, perform however’s the most fun for me, and laugh when I fail.
MGM: If you were to go where the wind takes you, where would you say you’re going?
WW: Church, honestly. I mean I’ve never been to Sunday mass, but nothing else has worked for me either. Maybe just deeper into the pine barrens, there are some ghosts I admire and some beautifully run-down casinos out here. Away from the internet, that’s for sure, I have no idea what people think or say about me anymore, and I plan to keep it that way to a radical extent. You can’t actually tell what the world is thinking based on an algorithm-oriented miasma of ragebots and goofballs anyway. Might be why we have the Gulf of America on google maps. Wherever I end up, I think it’ll be somewhere few people like but I fit right in.
MGM: What’s most important to you right now?
WW: My girlfriend and my cats. We found Roswell (one-eyed gray one) and Dr. Paolo Loudward Spooky Mulder Jr. (in the cross necklace) at a construction site in South Carolina while on tour. We took Dr. Jr. home with us, much to my TM’s chagrin, then went back for seconds a few weeks later. Now we have like eleven stray cats. Looking for good homes for them. Email [email protected] if you want a cat or two or four or five or six or seven or eight or nine or probably not that many but we’re partnering with Atlantic Critter Rescue so it’s legit. They’re sweet and non-feral, but like spicy still, so you gotta really love cats.
After your head is cut in half, you may find it more difficult to be a cat caretaker. Perhaps just for now, one ear to the ground will suffice as testament. Split or not, we’re looking forward to seeing more of Will Wood’s work as we move through the year. When searching for a spark in your day to day life; Once and only after the internet dopamine wears off, remember this article.
Please support Atlantic Critter Rescue by visiting https://linksta.cc/@
Mr. Wood is Dead” Ten-Year Anniversary Tour 2025 Dates
May 16 – New York – Gramercy Theatre
May 17 – Brooklyn – Warsaw
June 13 – Rochester – Anthology
June 14 – Cleveland – The Roxy
June 16 – Minneapolis – First Avenue
June 17 – Chicago – Concord Music Hall*
June 18 – Lansing – Grewal Hall*
June 20 – Pittsburgh – Mr. Smalls Theater
June 21 – Allentown – Archer Music Hall
June 22 – Boston – Royale
July 11 – Washington – The Howard
July 12 – Carrboro – Cat’s Cradle
July 13 – Atlanta – Heaven at Masquerade
July 15 – Orlando – Plaza Live
July 17 – New Orleans – House of Blues
July 18 – Houston – House of Blues
July 19 – Dallas – House of Blues
August 20 – Denver – Paramount Theatre
August 23 – Portland – Newmark Theatre
August 24 – Seattle – Neptune Theatre
August 26 – San Francisco – Palace of Fine Arts
August 28 – Los Angeles – Wilshire Ebell Theatre
August 29 – El Cajon – The Magnolia
August 31 – Mesa – Mesa Arts Center
September 3 – San Antonio – Aztec Theatre
September 5 – Oklahoma City – Tower Theatre
September 7 – St. Louis – The Pageant
*Tickets will be available starting with Citi presales beginning Tuesday, April 1st at 12PM. Additional pre sales will run throughout the week ahead of the general on sale beginning Friday, April 4th at 10am local time at willwood.net
About Author
