Editor’s Note: Julian Hernandez won the “Interview Your Favorite Band” item in CL’s 2012 Holiday Auction, and when The Wilson Van confirmed a gig in downtown St. Pete, it proved to be a perfect fit: The winner of an auction to benefit The Children’s Home uses his win to interview a St. Pete-bred actor playing with his family band to benefit the Gold Shield Foundation.
You likely recognize Patrick Wilson’s face from films like Hard Candy, Insidious, and The Watchmen, and most memorably from a recent steamy guest spot on HBO’s Girls. Music has always been a part of his life; mom Mary K. is a voice teacher and professional singer who performs around Tampa Bay with tuneful husband (and veteran Fox-13 news anchor) John Wilson, and he and his brothers grew up singing in the choir and playing. The past several years have seen the trio getting together to rock out and give back to the local community as The Wilson Van, with Patrick doing a little singing and a lot of drumming, Mark (a Fox anchorman like dad) shredding guitar solos, and Paul (CEO of Wilson Media) howling lead vocals. The Wilson Van only play for charity; this show’s beneficiary was set up to help the families of police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty. Rock the Shield is also among the first concerts to christen the newly re-opened Club Detroit after its soft opening festivities last month.
Patrick and Julian talked for over 30 minutes and touched on a huge range of topics not included here. Some interesting snippets below; read the entirety of the interview below. —Leilani Polk
So why the Gold Shield Foundation?
We’ve got a lot of family and friends who are cops, some dear friends, and so it’s a very personal organization. We’re going to have some of the widows there, not only to talk about it, but also express the importance of these things, of the long-term impact and care that Gold Shield provides.
Has The Wilson Van always performed for charity organizations?
A new charity each time, that’s sort of been our thing. Us playing together started out as a way to spend time with the family and it’s fun. I don’t live there so our rehearsals are usually limited to the day of/day before and the odd trip down there. We sort of slam it in when we can, Skype when we can, voice memo, all those things that makes it possible to send the music back and forth. Doing it for a charity each time really takes the pressure off.
We’re not out for our own glory, just to have a good time. So each time we’ve done it, it’s been something different, special, and this one, us being one of the first bands to play in Club Detroit, is very exciting.
Did you ever go to Club Detroit back when it was first open?
Oh, yes. There and Jannus Landing. I spent much of my high school and later years going to concerts there. In college, I’d come home and see bands there. For me, that was a way into the music world, because this was the 1980s, pre-Internet, so the only music you knew was the music on the radio. The only way to see live music was to go to these shows and certainly the ones at Jannus and right around the corner at Club Detroit were awesome. When I turned 18, I was very happy that I could go in there.
Who are you own musical influences?
The first answer is Van Halen, which obviously represents itself in the six songs we do. Because we grew up in a church choir, all of our musical tastes vary from church hymns that we sang twice a week to rock and Top 40 radio. I think from early on, when you’re influenced by church music you have an appreciation for melody and for singing, and singing together. But more than not it’s the musicality and singing that I gravitated towards. Like Steve Perry and the great singers and for me obviously male singers that inspired me.
Was it singing that drew you into musical theater?
When I was looking at colleges I wanted to be an actor and I didn’t know in what capacity — Broadway, TV, film or whatever, because I didn’t know how to do any of it, really. I just wanted to be an actor. So when I auditioned for my school, Carnegie Mellon, I didn’t have any sort of Broadway aspirations. I didn’t look down on it, I just wanted to do a lot of things in the acting field. I remember very specifically at the audition they asked, “Do you want to audition for musical theater?” I said “Uh, no.” “But you sing?” “Yeah I sang in choir, and I’ve kinda been singing my whole life.” “Well our musical theater program is the entire acting program, you just get to sing and dance as well.” So I literally went down the hall, sang for the voice teacher, and she talked to my mom and they were like, “Please, do musical theater,” and I said, “Okay!”
