Nightlife / Music

Webb Wilder a character off-stage and on

By David Burke | Thursday, December 21, 2006 | () comments

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Webb Wilder plays the Rock Island Brewing Co. on Dec. 30, for the first time in 6 1/2 years.

Some performers adapt an on-stage persona that’s 180 degrees different from who they are in real life.

But Webb Wilder says what you see of him is what you get.

“I feel like I am myself — at least the more presentable aspects of myself,” the country-rocker said in a telephone interview from his Nashville home. “I’m a little like Robin Williams — I’m a bunch of people.

“But that’s just me. In my real life, I’ll go into all sorts of characters that have nothing to do with the Webb Wilder character.”

Wilder’s image was magnified through several movie appearances and in videos for country artists.

That, he said, only increased the legend.

“Being the kind of guy who’ll never leave myself alone, I’ve beaten myself up thinking I’m supposed to be the Webb Wilder character, quote-unquote, on stage,” he said. “But generally speaking, I just go for it.”

Wilder, who was a regular at the Rock Island Brewing Co. during the 1990s, will make his first appearance at RIBCO since April 2000 on Dec. 30.

A Hattiesburg, Miss., native, Wilder moved to Austin, Texas, with his band 30 years ago, hoping to hit the big time.

“We didn’t know what we were doing, but it was cool,” said Wilder, a musician since age 14. “The Austin thing is different from the Nashville thing. When you look at either of those cities, they’re so much cooler than the rest of the country in many ways, if you’re into music.”

Pinned down to a description, Wilder says his music is a combination of British Invasion, rockabilly and Chuck Berry.

“It’s expanded in some of those general directions, and I think it lives in the middle that was borne out of its own years of doing it,” he said. “It’s a terrible description since ‘middle’ implies mediocrity.

“I think we’ve melded the points of the star into the center.”

Although Wilder lives in the country music capital, he eschews much of what comes out of Nashville.

“A lot of people don’t play rock ’n’ roll. A lot of quote-rock-unquote bands don’t play rock ’n’ roll. And you have the bad rock ’n’ roll-and-country thing going on right now,” he said. “It’s not like you can’t twang and rock ’n’ roll, but there’s a lot of bad rock ‘n’ roll posing as country music, or is it country music posing as bad rock ’n’ roll? It’s so schlocky, who knows?”

Wilder’s first studio album in nine years, “About Time,” was released last year. He’s hoping to release a new CD next year. He knows it will include more songs written by him, but beyond that, he’s uncertain of the direction.

“I’m always uncomfortable about talking about something that doesn’t exist,” he said. “Webb Wilder albums are really a team effort. Maybe it’ll be a little more me in the writing department than previously.”

The 52-year-old Wilder said he’s simply doing what he’s always wanted to do.

“If you could go back and tell the 12-year-old kid that I was that, at 52, I would still be playing rock ’n’ roll, I think that kid would smile,” he said. “That’s a pretty cool thing.”

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.

if you go

Who: Webb Wilder

When: 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 30

Where: Rock Island Brewing Co., 1815 2nd Ave., Rock Island

How much: $7

Information: (309) 793-1999