Will Carter is a country singer and songwriter from Katy,
Texas whose talent and commitment have earned him over a dozen singles on the
Texas music charts. Three of these songs have crossed successfully over to Nashville’s
Music Row Chart, extending his fanbase nationwide. For the last three
consecutive years, Carter has been nominated Male Vocalist of the Year and
awarded Songwriter of the Year at the Texas Country Music Association Awards.
Texas born and bred, Will Carter was raised on his family’s
farm with a day-and- night work regimen. It’s where he learned to respect hard
work and traditional values. This environment provided Will a gateway to
country music.
Carter’s love and passion for storytelling infuses his
songwriting with compelling narratives. An even more intimate relationship with
music developed when Carter was a teenager. When his father became severely
ill, Carter created a playlist of his father’s favorite songs to share with his
dad, providing both with renewed comfort and joy. Carter sold the same playlist
on CD to help raise money for his family which, in turn, landed him on the
Debra Duncan television show when he was just 13. These songs were played for
his father every day until he passed. The peace, comfort, and inspiration made
possible thru heartfelt lyrics and simple melody continue to guide Carter’s
songwriting, consistently landing Top 20 singles on the Texas charts.
Carter has been actively touring with his band, performing
over 150 shows a year. Will Carter’s high-energy performances offer a country
music tour de force that appeals to music fans of all ages. He currently boasts
over 17,000 social media followers, has opened for Cody Johnson, Randy Rogers,
Bart Crow, Jack Ingram, Larry Gatlin, Saints Eleven, Josh Ward, Cody Canada and
others, and has been featured on podcasts such as The Troubadour, The Sports
Guys, and Scenes Live. His catalogue of music can be heard on radio stations
nationally with particularly heavy airplay in Texas and surrounding states. Be
sure to catch the next Will Carter show when it comes to town!
Alan Mercer: Will,
you have had such great success the last couple of years. Why do you think this
is happening for you?
Will Carter: I’ve
been writing a long time and I’ve had the pleasure of writing with some
fantastic songwriters. Clay Mills and I wrote ‘Started With A Whiskey’
together. He’s had hits with tons of great artists like Diamond Rio and Darius
Rucker. Shane Stevens is a very close friend of mine and also one of my
favorite writers. He had his first hit with Lady A called ‘American Honey’. He
has enjoyed a lot of success. We started writing together and we click real
well so we write together a lot.
AM: So, you credit
your songwriting partners?
WC: Also, I didn’t
grow up like a lot of my peers. I grew up on a self-sustaining farm in a very
small town. We were a very poor family. I milked goats every morning and
gathered eggs and had a three-acre garden. My dad was diagnosed with cancer
when I was very young and as part of that, we had to get all of the alcohol out
of the house. You would be amazed by everything that has alcohol in it. We made
our own soaps and toothpaste. It was crazy. I grew up almost Amish. We still
have the property but I don’t live out there anymore. We do go out there a
couple times a month to shoot skeet or ride dirt bikes.
AM: Don’t you live in
Katy, Texas now?
WC: Yes, We moved to
Katy, and I graduated from Katy high school and then I went to Texas A&M. I
have my own construction company now. I live a very different life than I did
back then. I would say I have a ton of different perspectives.
AM: It’s a broader
perspective.
WC: Sure, as a writer you write what you know. The more things you’ve seen just gives you that much more material.
AM: Do you write a lot of the melodies?
WC: I do write the
melodies and I co-write the lyrics.
AM: When I hear your
melodies it’s an instantaneous like.
WC: I like hearing
that. When I was growing up, we used to say that my dad was country, and my mom
was country club. My mother was born in Pasadena, Texas, but her father was in
sales, so they moved around a lot. They moved to Ohio and California and then
back to Texas. My dad had only been here, and he was always so country. I grew
up listening to every Chris LeDoux album with my dad. My dad didn’t care for
Chris LeDoux’s double live album because he said it had too much guitar. He
liked the more traditional stripped-down style. My mom was more into rock &
roll. We had a little bronco four-wheel drive that we used on the farm. My mom
took it to town one day and when she came back, my dad and I get in the car and
the radio was blasting Aerosmith. I like both styles of music.
AM: You can hear that
in your albums.
WC: If you look at
the three albums that I have put out, you will hear everything from very
traditional, almost Johnny Cash style music like ‘Laredo’ and ‘Wishful
Drinking’ and then you’ve got your more contemporary nineties-two thousand kind
of country like ‘Undeniable’ and ‘House of Cards’ and then we have ‘Siesta,
Fiesta, Tequila, Repeat’.
AM: I love that song!
WC: It’s crazy but the best feedback I get about that song is from kids. They can’t sit still when they hear it. Some people hate that song but then they like the other styles. I have something in there for everybody. I’m not married to any one style or genre. I grew up listening to a diverse selection of music.
AM: I like the fact that much of your music is upbeat and fun. It’s good time music.
WC: I grew up
listening to Garth Brooks because of his high energy live show. I was picked up
by a dancehall band called the Emotions, that have been around since the late
1970’s. I got hired on as one of their lead singers right out of high school.
We had wireless mics; ear monitors and guitar pickups and we were all over bar
and the dance floor getting the crowd engaged. I learned how to put on a high
energy, interactive live show. If you go to see a concert you are going there
to be entertained and you want to have fun. I place a lot of focus on that.
AM: I think it’s
obvious for anyone who has been to one of your shows.
WC: Tom Jackson is
arguably the most famous live show producer in the world and we flew his team
down three times to work with us one on one for forty hours a week, taking the
songs and stripping them down to understand what song fits in to what place in
the set and how to get the most out of it. What we are doing on stage is not an
accident. We have a lot of thought, time and practice to get there.
AM: Yet it looks like
you are just casually having a great time.
WC: He has a book
called ‘All Roads Lead To The Stage’ and the theory behind it is to create
moments. You want to take the audience on a journey by bringing them way up and
then bringing them down. You create a moment when you bring the lights down and
sit on a stool and sing a ballad. People remember that. It’s not so much
scripted or choreographed as it is giving you the parameters while allowing you
to the freedom to let the audience kind of guide you a little bit. You have a homebase,
but you are allowed some flexibility to be spontaneous in the moment. No two shows are the same, even though the
general outline has been premeditated.
AM: What made you
decide to dedicate a song to the first responders?
WC: The song is
called ‘What About Love’. Back in March 2020 when all the craziness was going
down with covid. My wife is a doctor, and she was in the thick of it. She said
we would come out of this but there would be all this hate and division and she
was right. People either went real far right or real far left and we see all
this bickering and hate. At the end of the day, it’s ok to think differently
and feel differently, but it’s not OK to be unkind to one another. The purpose
behind the song is to remind everybody to choose love over hate and be kind to
each other regardless of what your personal thoughts and beliefs are. It’s also
a thank you to the heroes that sacrifice so much so the rest of us can enjoy
the freedom and liberties that we do.
AM: You have lots of
good quality videos. Is that something you enjoy making?
WC: Videos are an
absolute blast. I like to write in a way that leaves the song open to
interpretation. I want the listener to be able to make it their own and relate
to it in their own way. However different we may all be, we are also very
similar at the core. I like to make videos that show my take on the song
because it can be interpreted differently.
AM: Do you have a favorite
video?
WC: The current
single, ‘Had It All Wrong’ is my favorite to date because it was my chance to
somewhat capture the unique way I grew up. To be able to capture that and tell
my story as well as have my band and some friends in it, all filmed on the
property where I grew up. It’s special and personal to me.
AM: How much time are
you able to put into your construction business?
WC: Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 and then music is Monday through Friday 6 to 10 and on weekends all day.
AM: That’s a lot. Do you enjoy working this much?
WC: Absolutely! I
lost my father when I was 13. I was the oldest of four. My mom had only ever
been a mom. She had 4 kids, with one being autistic, so she had her hands full
and no work experience. We were very poor. I’m the one in charge and I have to
provide for everybody.
AM: Does your family
help you now?
WC: My mom works for
my company and my sister works for both jobs, like I do. She handles all the
marketing and social media. I’m very blessed to have a very strong team so I don’t
have to be in the weeds all the time. It’s the same with my music. I have a
fully staffed label. I have management and booking, I have social media teams,
radio promoters and publicists.
AM: Looks like
everything is going good for you. What are your goals for 2023? Is there a new
album coming?
WC: The first two
albums I put out; I did like everybody else. You write the songs and go into
the studio, you hire a producer and they use session musicians to build the
tracks and then your live band goes and performs them. I’m also blessed that
the guys in my band are all studio musicians as well. When you come to see my
show live, I want it to sound like the record, so we are halfway through
recording the new album and we are going to finish it in February and March.
And release it this Summer. This will be the first full length album with “the
band” going into the studio the old school way and press record and do what we
do on stage live. That all kind of started with the song ‘Wrong Side Of Town’
that I’ve been playing for nine years. I’ve had it produced several times
because when people hear it live, they ask for it. Everybody asks for that song,
and I’ve tried to have it produced but it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t what we
do in a show. So, I thought, let’s just bring the band into the studio and do
it the way we do. That’s the song everybody likes and asks for. So, we did and
I absolutely love the way the track sounded. I knew that going forward this is
what we were doing. The guys are unbelievably talented, and I knew I would be
happier. I love every track we have recorded. I’m super excited because when
you go to a show you will be seeing the exact same guys who recorded the album
playing live.
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