"I've always been partial to going into the dark places of the psyche," Will Quinlan says, gazing at the concrete floor of New World Brewery. His signature black cap nearly touches the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. A well-trimmed beard covers the majority of his face.
Long recognized as one of Tampa's top alt-country artists, the singer/songwriter plumbed bleak, personal terrain to emerge with Navasota, the finest recording of his career.
Quinlan's small eyes seldom widen, and he rarely smiles. He might punctuate sarcastic or self-deprecating comments with a smirk. Quinlan is a stocky fellow in his early 40s who stands over 6 feet tall; up close, though, and when not on stage, he projects the vulnerability of a much smaller, younger man.
Quinlan speaks in a low, hesitant, yet impassioned tone, much like his singing. At times, I have to lean forward to hear him, ask him to repeat himself when the New World jukebox gets too loud. The discussion quickly turns to the prevailing theme of his new album.
"A week before my mom passed, we had plans for me to take her to a bed-and-breakfast and visit Navasota," Quinlan says. "We never got to do it. The city became an emotional touchstone. The idea of that place in Texas, it's idealized in my mind even though I never lived there. It's this idyllic, beautiful place that makes me think of my mom running through the fields as a kid, grabbing tomatoes and riding horses."
Navasota is the East Texas town where Theresa Claire Rolirad Quinlan was born and raised. The album is a soul-baring combination of love letter and prayer to his late mother. It's a difficult but highly rewarding listen best suited for headphones. Close inspection allows you to glom onto each word and catch Rebekah Pulley's lilting harmony vocals. There's also the richness of tone achieved by co-producer Steve Connelly, who sweetens Quinlan's acoustic guitar work and complements the rhythm section with searing lead guitar licks, Dobro, slide guitar, pedal steel and mandolin.
The focus, though, always remains on Quinlan, as he delivers songs inspired by his mom's life and death. "I didn't realize until the mixing [stage of recording the CD] that almost all the songs related to my mom," Quinlan says. "Not directly, but in relationship to the emotional fallout of watching her go through hell. She was this sweet, gentle, thoughtful, demure woman, and all these hideous things happened to her."
Quinlan was born in 1965 to Mr. and Mrs. Maj. William F. Quinlan. They raised their son in San Antonio. When Will was 6, his mother was diagnosed with what was then called manic depression. His parents divorced not long after. At age 11, Will relocated with his dad to Tampa Bay. He visited his mom during the summer. "She was placed in a [Texas] state hospital," Quinlan says. "Have you ever been to a state hospital? To watch this sweet, quiet woman in a place like that, to watch someone you love, no one deserves that."
Quinlan attended Countryside High School in Clearwater, where golf, not music, was his passion. He played on the varsity team his freshman through junior years. But Quinlan had started drinking before he was old enough to legally drive, and it had escalated by the time his senior year rolled around. He wouldn't find another passion until he became serious about songwriting and guitar playing at age 23. Interestingly, Connelly's old band, The Headlights, was the act that inspired Quinlan to become a musician. Uncle Tupelo records also figured prominently in his musical direction, as did the Neil Young concert film Live Rust, which finds the iconoclastic troubadour turning in equally ferocious solo acoustic and electric-with-band sets.
In 1992, Quinlan formed his first substantial and longest running band, the Pagan Saints. They earned a loyal local following and seemed poised for van tours and the chance of being recognized by labels like Bloodshot, which were signing similar sounding cow-punk and alt-country acts at the time. But Pagan Saints never even gave themselves a real chance at being heard north of the Florida-Georgia line. "My emotional state through the '90s," Quinlan says, his voice trailing off, "I was a raging drunk through the '90s and really shot myself in the foot, burned bridges. The Pagan Saints could and should've done something. … But I had to leave the band a lot to go to Texas to care for my mom. My frustration and anger was channeled into self-destructive drinking. I was pathetic, the narcissist artist and I wanted to be seen that way — thought it was romantic. I realized that was bullshit."
Quinlan's mom died of a massive stroke on Sept. 28, 2000. Her funeral took place in San Antonio on Oct. 1, her son's birthday. Quinlan then went into a state of paralysis. He made "half-hearted" attempts at writing but nothing stuck. "It was a shitty three years," Quinlan says. In 2004, songs finally started coming to him. But in order to reenter the music scene, he needed a change. "I had to kill off Pagan Saints in order for the door to open," he says. "It was so hard — I'd been with them 12 years."
"Hallowed Ground," the opening track on Navasota, was the first song he penned for the project. It includes devastating, poignant lines like: "Oh my mother, won't you gently lay me down here in hallowed ground/ And with bright eyes still shining, and without a sound/ Far across the river, she still walks on hallowed ground."
Quinlan has never been known for injecting his music with humor, not even of the black variety. But he's also never been as confessional or dramatic as on Navasota. "I listen to sad music, and it's cathartic, makes me feel better," he says.
Does Quinlan consider himself morose?
"No," he says, guardedly. "Melancholy, introspective, reflective. But not morose."
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2008.