Birmingham ‘feels like home’ for musician Will Stewart

Musician Will Stewart moved back to Birmingham in 2016 after living in Nashville for four years, but it wasn’t due to a lack of success in Music City.

He worked steadily there — writing songs, playing guitar and fronting bands — and his group Willie and the Giant was named a “new band of the week” in 2015 by The Guardian.

He simply had good reasons to return.

“Birmingham just feels like home,” he told Iron City Ink in July 2016. “There’s so much amazing music going on under the radar.”

And Stewart immediately began adding to that music. His first year back, he wrote all the songs for his first full-length album, “County Seat,” which was released April 6 by Cornelius Chapel Records, a Birmingham label.

The nine tracks on “County Seat,” which Stewart co-produced with Les Nuby, are a powerful mix of rock and country and were recorded in a series of live takes in two days.

Stewart — on guitar, banjo and vocals — created what he calls “a love letter” to Alabama, especially its countryside.

And “County Seat” is another reminder of an increasingly vital Birmingham music culture — both in terms of the artists working here and the infrastructure springing up to nurture them.

“County Seat” has already drawn national media attention, as Rolling Stone says Stewart’s work is “literate, introspective folk-rock” and calls him one of “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.”

And Stewart himself believes he got it right on “County Seat.”

“I’ve never been prouder of anything else I've recorded,” he said.

A Montgomery native, Stewart has played in bands since seventh grade and likely was destined to become a musician.

“I've been playing guitar since I was in fifth grade, and I took classical guitar in school,” he said. “I’ve always been obsessed with it. I knew from an early age it was something I was tapped into — the sounds and the beats.”

Stewart studied advertising and public relations at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. After graduating in 2006, Stewart moved to Birmingham and became part of the city’s nascent music scene.

He has lived in Crestwood since 2008 and owns a house he rented out while he was in Nashville. Stewart maintained close Birmingham ties while living in Tennessee — visiting family and friends and playing lots of shows. 

“But I just wanted to get back in the mix,” he said. “There’s so much energy now.”

There were also personal reasons.

“Nashville is a very transient town,” Stewart said. “I never felt completely grounded there. I would make friends, and they would move away.”

Birmingham’s also improving its musical infrastructure, according to Stewart, citing labels like Cornelius Chapel and Communicating Vessels and venues like Saturn, The Nick and The Syndicate Lounge.

 “There’s a lot of different vibes going on, and it all works together,” he said.

Being back home also put Stewart “in the mindset” to write songs with a country feel, he said.

“I’ve always liked that style, but I've always done the rock thing,” he said. “Something about this feels more natural, and I think that comes through.”

Stewart wanted “County Seat,” including tracks like “Sipsey” and “Brush Arbor,” to evoke the rural Alabama that’s so much a part of him.

“Especially sonically, I wanted the music to capture the landscape,” he said. “We use a lot of pedal steel, and we made it very atmospheric to capture that lush pastoral vibe that I get from being around the landscape.”

He touches on universal human concerns, including isolation (on “Mine is a Lonely Life”) and mortality (“Equality, AL”).

And Stewart delves often into the loss of youth. “As I get older, I feel as though I’m losing that sense of awe and sense of wonder,” he said, adding that it’s easy to feel nostalgic but that can act as a trap. 

“You can never recapture exact moments or feelings,” he added. “Instead you just have to move forward and get a new experience.”

Stewart is certainly following that advice.

He made his first appearance at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, in March. He’ll play Sloss Fest this summer.

He continues to play in the indie-rock duo Timber with Janet Simpson, who offers backing vocals on “County Seat.” And Stewart doesn’t want to “get pigeonholed and trapped” doing one type of music. Despite “County Seat’s” country feel, it’s not pure country.

“I think it's a blend,” he said. “I like to rock a lot, too. I don't want to have to kowtow to one certain genre. If I'm in the mood to turn up my amps and guitar, I want to do it.”