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For promotional photos to accompany his new album, Alex Williams essentially sports a Tommy Lee starter pack: shiny black skintight pants, a tank top and tricked-out tennis shoes.
It’s an unexpected look for Williams, who grew up in Pendleton and made his name as a no-frills country singer in the tradition of Waylon Jennings. But it’s also a visual that fits “Space Brain,” Williams’ album that arrives in stores Friday.
“Space Brain” is a covers album, made up of interpretations of 1980s hits popularized by Poison, Ratt and Lee’s band, Motley Crue.
Williams, however, transformed songs such as “Look What the Cat Dragged In,” “Round and Round” and “Wild Side” away from a context of double kick drums and cartoonish walls of guitar amplifiers. He stayed true to the Alex Williams sound: a robust baritone voice paired with rootsy instrumentation.
And when Williams plays a record-release show Friday at Broad Ripple’s Turntable venue, don’t expect him to show up in a hair-metal costume.
“We just did that for the album, man,” Williams said. “I’m never going to do that again.”
Williams said he didn’t play in metal bands as an adolescent in Madison County, but his affection for the original versions of songs that appear on “Space Brain” is genuine.
The 2009 graduate of Pendleton Heights High School attended more than one edition of Ozzfest at Noblesville’s Ruoff Music Center with his father, Bryan Williams, who works as an attorney in Anderson.
Alex Williams said he initially discovered yesteryear’s headbanging titans while checking out Bryan’s CD collection.
“My dad had a bunch of wooden crates in the basement,” Williams said of his pre-teen explorations. “In the last couple of years, I thought, ‘It would be cool to do a whole album of alternate versions of these songs as an ode to him.’”
Williams said it’s gratifying to present the songs in a way that emphasizes storytelling rather than bombast.
“I feel like a lot of people miss lyrically what’s going on underneath the riffs,” he said. “I think the coolest part is letting the songs themselves shine a little bit more.”
“Wild Side,” for instance, is a cinematic portrayal of bleakness in Williams’ hands, rather than the Crue’s fist-pumping anthem. (That party is immortalized in a 1987 music video captured during a concert at Market Square Arena in downtown Indianapolis.)
One of the era’s biggest bands, Guns N’ Roses, has strong Indiana ties thanks to vocalist Axl Rose and former guitarist Izzy Stradlin—two natives of Lafayette.
Williams covered Guns N’ Roses song “Nightrain” for “Space Brain,” and the album’s title is taken from the song’s lyrics.
Although Williams said he’s never crossed paths with Rose or Stradlin, Cinderella vocalist-guitarist Tom Keifer appears on “Space Brain’s” rendition of “Nobody’s Fool”—a power ballad that reached No. 13 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 singles chart for Cinderella in 1987.
Keifer contributes a slide-guitar solo to the song, which also features a pedal-steel guitar solo by Nashville ace Dan Dugmore (whose credits include work with Linda Ronstadt, John Prine and Don Henley).
“A few people have gotten angry, saying I’ve screwed up these perfectly good songs,” Williams said. “But that’s all right. It’s more or less a personal thing I wanted to do to switch things up.”
Alex Williams
- When: 8 p.m. July 18
- Where: Turntable, 6281 N. College Ave.
- Tickets: $18
- Info: Visit turntableindy.com.
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