Evan Williams interview – “There were always guitars in the house”
Wave on
“You can see the Costa Del Sol thing came along and just killed it,” says Evan Williams of Margate, close to his Kent home town of Broadstairs. “It’s taken 40 years to claw its way back.”
Williams, sat in the splitter van that he’s been travelling the country in in support of his debut album, parked up close to South London record store and venue Dash The Henge, lives off the Old Kent Road these days, but the seaside town remains close to his heart.
After all, the place played a significant role both in his upbringing and, for our purposes, even more importantly, his trajectory from bedroom rock star wannabe to the recent release of his excellent debut album, The View From Halfway Down. You can even see him, fully suited and booted and with guitar in hand, soaked and semi-submerged in the Broadstairs surf, on its sleeve.
“They were definitely aware of us before we met,” he laughs, speaking of The Libertines, whose frontman Pete Doherty signed Williams to his Strap Originals label. “We were the kids who were always throwing our CDs on stage.”
In the end, it was Williams securing a job at The Albion Rooms, the Margate hotel which The Libertines opened in 2020 and ran until its closure at the end of June 2024, which finally gave him the opportunity to bring his music to the attention of Doherty.
“The first few months it was open, Doherty was still living upstairs, it was a very chaotic start ha ha. But I was already a fan, so it was case of your favourite band moving to town and then you get to work in their bar. At the end of my first year working there I was going off to uni so to thank me they gave me a couple of days in their studio as a thank you. Then when they heard what I’d done they said ‘hold on, don’t anything out, we’re gonna start a record label, we want you on it. So it all came from Margate – and the Albion Rooms.”
The “small but incredibly well kitted out” studio – which has now replaced the hotel, with rooms for recording bands to stay in – hosted the three sessions which birthed the ten very different tracks on The View From Halfway Down. The first was a straight recording of Willimas’ live band in action – see tracks like the raucous first single from the album ‘Ride On’ and ‘Traffic Lights’ – while the subsequent stints included more writing in the studio and improvisation, spawning the likes of ‘For Anyone’, one of the more emotional and heart-tugging moments on the LP.
It’s distinctive and thought through enough to stand well apart from the vibe of Doherty and the Libertines, not least to Williams’ deep and very resonant voice, which already carves out a niche for itself in the indie rock pantheon with its strength and its individuality. But it does share one characteristic, however, and that’s the mixture across the ten tracks of socio-political anger – check the devastating title track and its expression of generational rage – and a poetic way of looking at the world. “I think that’s what drew me to his music in the first place,” says Williams, “wanting to make a point, being angry and addressing things, but also a love of poetry and writing.”
Williams grew up with music around him. His father – who older readers will remember as Trevor from pant-swinging stars of kids and hungover student Saturday morning televison Trevor & Simon – was always playing “in covers bands and ‘dad bands’ as he calls it now, when I was younger. So there were always guitars in the house and I was quite often watching him play, so that’s how I was drawn to it initially, and because I was drawn to it he got me a guitar for my sixth birthday. It took about a year before I could play it properly but it was there very, very early on.”
A gift of his dad’s entire music collection ripped onto an MP3 player when he was eight really set Williams off on a musical journey, introducing him to David Bowie, The Clash, Arctic Monkeys, The Specials, Madness and many, many more. “It was my only real access to music, pre-streaming,” he recalls, “but that really solidified my taste.”
And while the rejuvenation of Margate and nearby Hastings has, in his eyes, been a double edged sword – house prices have been pushed up by the influx of Londoners, for example, excluding some locals – as a place to play and experience music, its rebirth has definitely had a plus side.
“Margate especially is great,” he says, when quizzed on the strength of Kent’s music scene. “There’s a guy called Sammy Clarke who runs a venue – it was called Elsewhere, now it’s WhereElse? – he’s a Margate local but he put Margate on the map for all the small tours to go to. I worked for him briefly when I was 18 and every single band he booked went on to bigger things. The year I worked there he had Black Country New Road, Black Midi, Porridge Radio and Squid, everyone who’s ended up going through, basically. It’s only because of that that you’ve seen lots more local bands pop up.”
Evan has certainly taken up that baton and run with it. His show at a packed Dash The Henge sees his tightly drilled three piece set up performing with the kind of assured confidence and charisma that many more seasoned bands would kill to have. He’s got a set of songs that really sweep through the emotional range, his voice rings out above it all as a truly individual and powerful force in its own right, and he’s comfortable and confident enough to entertain his audience between songs too.
This week sees probably his biggest show to date, as the Strap Originals crew kick off The Great Escape alongside Peter Doherty, Warmduscher, Trampolene, Real Farmer and more, on the beach in Brighton on Wednesday May 14. He’ll doubtless smash it – just so long as we can stop him wandering off into the sea that is.
Ben Willmott
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