Jim Wilson: Turn It Up!

Jim Wilson is a rocker. A dyed-in-the-old-school purveyor of balls-out, bluesy riffs and rhythms with lyrics to match. Jim’s credentials run deep. He’s been guitar slinging and songsmithing in the L.A. music scene for 30 years. He forged a reputation for himself in the early 90’s in Mother Superior, an L.A.-based rock band, who went on to double as the Henry Rollins Band in the early 2000’s.

In Mother Superior and as a solo artist, Jim has collaborated with a host of artists ranging from Alice Cooper to Emmylou Harris. In 2013, he came together with Scott Ian (Anthrax), Joey Vera (Armored Saint, Fates Warning), John Tempesta (The Cult) and Pearl Aday to resurrect the songs of Mother Superior in a rocking new band, Motor Sister.

Jim is a prolific songwriter. He recently released an EP, Rockers Delight, with drummer Phil Jones and collaborated with Pearl Aday on her bluesy, country gem, Heartbreak & Canyon Revelry. I caught up with Jim as he was working on the new Motor Sister album. As always, I was interested in his creative process. After the initial pleasantries, we dove right in.

Jim: Lately, I’ve been doing things a bit different than how I used to write, but it seems to be working for me. I’ve been taking walks. I’ve been a walker for a long time, especially here in Southern California.  It’s just so beautiful, if you know all the cool back roads. I love to listen to music on my phone when I’m walking, but I try not to because usually, if I’m walking around, something will pop in my head. Music seems to find me. A lot of times it will be a riff or a beginning of a song. It’s usually based on a guitar thing. I can just almost imagine or hear it. Then I say, “I’m going to make that riff go places.”

 

Naia: Sounds like walking helps you tap in differently. 

Jim:  Yeah, I find that if you sit down on a keyboard or with a guitar in your hand, you start getting fancy like: “What if I’m working from E minor to G sharp seven‘ or whatever. You can start doing things that you don’t really need to do for the song. I feel like it’s even more forced if I try to sit down to pick up the guitar and try to make something up on the spot.

Yesterday, I was just walking and not even paying attention to the scenery, and a couple of ideas came. Then all of a sudden I was two miles away from home and going, “I don’t even remember turning down here.”  One thing that’s for sure, if you see me with my phone in my face walking down the street, I’m probably not talking on the phone. I’m probably talking to myself as reminders of the song or whatever’s going on.

 

 

Naia: When you’re incubating a song, how do you get on that inspirational wavelength?

Jim: It comes from somewhere that I can’t explain and the best thing I can do is open myself up to it. I just started thinking, What do I want to hear? That is where a lot of it stems from, for me, is what do I want to hear. I look for hooks I guess. I look for things that are going to catch people’s attention. Usually, hopefully, that’s what comes up first is a hook or a guitar riff in my head. It’s very easy to write a bunch of verses. It’s harder to come up with a great chorus or a great hook that’s going to take that verse somewhere else.

I remember there was some song I was working on for Motor Sister. At one point Scott said, “It needs to go to the chorus.” You might take it as like, What do you mean it needs to go to the chorus? But I didn’t. I went, No he’s right it needs to go to the chorus. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you can’t see past that and you think that you have a complete song but you realize that it still hasn’t reached that place.

 

Naia:  What’s your process like for writing lyrics?

Jim: A lot of times I’m not sure. It just seems to happen and sometimes it’s the attitude of the actual riff or something. I just start thinking about what would go good there? I found there’s more time spent on the lyrics than the music. I always just have a notebook with a pen. I come up with lyrics in my head then I literally have to start writing it down. Sometimes I just talk into my phone. I’d always make a note of what my little phone things are and then I’ll go back to it. Then I have to write it on paper to sing to. That’s just the way that I learned how to do when I was a kid.

The other day I was, “It is what it is and was what it was” and I was, Hey! write that down. I can never sit down and go okay I’m going to write a song and go, It is what it is … or it is whatever it was. But if I had a melody or a little chord progression that went like ta-da-da-ta, ta-da-da-ta. Then I might go Oh wait, “It is what it is. It was what it was.” You know what I mean?  A lot of times it comes down to a title. I’m always collecting titles. But sometimes that doesn’t even seem to make sense, because I have way more titles than I ever actually put to songs, because the song usually makes the title happen itself.

 

Naia: I imagine having a title can help you to hone in on a subject.

Jim: Yeah. Of course, once you have a subject then that’s when it get’s even harder, because you got to make it make sense. It can’t just be verse 1 is about my heart is broken; verse 2 is about I’m down at the local bar. It’s got to have some kind of story or who cares. Usually, I write the first verse only. Don’t waste your time writing lyrics for a whole song, because if the song is thrown away there’s no point. Of course, sometimes it’s those ones that you can’t seem to finish, that drive you crazy. It might hang around for a while before you go, You know what? This isn’t even worth it. It’s not always like that, but for sure there’s ones that I just think about too much. Then one day you wake up and just say, Why am I even pursuing this? There’s so many other ideas and options.

 

Naia: Would you say you write autobiographically or are you more of a universal storyteller?

Jim: Unfortunately, people always think that it’s totally about you personally. I don’t want to just write from my own personal experience, because that’s boring.  In songwriting, you can take it as far as you want. You can rob a bank. You can murder someone and throw them in the river. You can take it as far as you want in songwriting.

 

Naia: Who are some of your songwriting influences?

Jim: I get ideas from listening to everything. I hear things that inspire me and I go, I should have a middle section that breaks down like that. From country music to Frank Sinatra or Kiss, anything that would make me see a different couple of lines, so it’s not something I’ve ever done before.  Steal from the best. [laughs]

This might sound strange, but one of my biggest influences as a songwriter is Michael Jackson, who didn’t play instruments. I was always fascinated with the idea of those songs coming from his mind. Christopher [Difford] from Squeeze is another guy that influences my lyric writing. Todd Rungren has been a huge influence on me as a musician and a songwriter.

I’m not necessarily ever going to match those guys, but they make me aware that you can do different things. Every song doesn’t have to be, “She goes out at midnight, and she has a good time, and she likes to party.” You could find other things to write about. A lot of times I like to keep things in a bluesy vein just because everybody is dealing with relationships and friendships that they can relate to in music. Everybody’s got a broken heart or everybody’s has a good day, whatever it is.

I’m just trying to keep it a little more simple these days. I like simple music. I’m still making traditional music that I’ve always been in love with. A lot of times that gets criticized as being retro ’70s or whatever they call it, because I use guitars and bass and drums and singing. If that means retro, then I guess it is, if that’s what people want to call it. They got to put it in some kind of category.

 

 

Naia: Well your music might be retro, but your career is on a forward roll.

Jim: These have been really amazing days. It’s amazing to me for the fact that more people are listening to what I write now more than ever. I have so many different outlets to write songs for. It is the best thing. What I’ve always wanted. I’ve been having these four different little notebooks in my head of, This is really good for Pearl. That’s definitely Motor Sister. I can use this one for my own next record.  I’ve been in Motor Sister land recently. I’m trying to keep everything upbeat. My goal – I’ve said even in the press release – is the simple goal to make the best rock n roll record of all time. Being funny, but also being serious, like what’s the point of making a rock and roll record right now unless it all kicks ass.

 

Naia: Can’t wait to hear the new Motor Sister album.  I also enjoy your work with Pearl on her solo albums. I really enjoyed getting to see you perform with her here in Indianapolis. Your voices work so well together.

Jim: We are really lucky that we can sing that way together. It doesn’t happen very often. We’re both very aware.  In Motor Sister too, it’s just such a strength to have her singing along, because we really can fit together.

 

 

Naia: You and Pearl collaborate on songwriting too. What’s that like?

Jim: I write the melodies and the music and a lot of the times I leave the words to her. Sometimes I’ll sing the melody that I’m hearing. It’s kind of a way to guide the song to not go somewhere that it doesn’t need to go. It gives her something to hold on to. I think she respects me as a songwriter. She wants me to come up with those … Joey Vera calls them: Jim Wilson moments. He’s always like, that’s classic Jim Wilson. [laughs]

Just a couple of weeks ago, I sang with Pearl. I did background vocals at some ’80’s show here in LA and it was a big show. A bunch of people played. Charlie Benante actually played Beat It with John 5 doing the vocal on guitar, doing it instrumental. Actually, it was a last-minute thing too, like somebody else was going to play drums with John 5 on Beat It. Charlie was sitting there, because he’d played on a couple other things. John 5 said, “You want to play Beat It?” He’s like, “Yes.” He was perfect from the start. Then, funnily enough, Scott had been practicing Beat It at home, just learning the riff. So he joined in. It was a great version.

Also this is a funny story, the coolest thing that anybody’s ever said, Charlie said to me backstage that night. I walked backstage and opened the door. Somebody said, “Jim Wilson” as I walked in. Charlie turned around and said, “Jim Wilson?! Turn it up!” I thought that was the coolest thing anyone has ever said. [chuckles]

 

Naia: You are a busy guy. Sounds like you have several irons in the fire right now. 

Jim: Yeah, I’ve been super busy. We’ve got all the songs for a great Motor Sister album and they’re all rehearsed and ready to record–just waiting for a time that everyone’s schedules clear up! We almost had a few studio days, but producer Jay Ruston was delayed from another project so….ASAP!! I’m super excited about the new songs and Scott is happy that we have so many new killer tunes. We debuted 2 of them at a recent L.A. gig that we did. I’ve been recording for the last 2 weeks with Daniel Lanois, singing and playing on his next record. It’s like heavy gospel music!  I’ve written a bunch of songs for Bernard Fowler, but we haven’t recorded yet. He’s been on the road doing the Bowie tribute show. He told me I can be his guest at a show on the next Stones tour! I’m also recording my next album with Phil Jones now too!

 

Naia: That’s awesome!

Jim: Oh, I almost forgot to mention I have a book coming out, tentatively set for October! I got a little book deal with Rothco Press and it’s a bunch of stories about music and my life in Hollywood. It’s called Occupation Rock & Roll…I just finished writing it!
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Sounds like Jim is in the creative sweet spot. Stay tuned for all this on the horizon.
Follow Jim on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & his blog.