William Clark Green has never shied away from soul-baring songwriting. The Texas native’s catalog, and the fan base he has built over 18 years as an independent artist, is a veritable autobiography, capturing eras of Green’s life that stretch from a hard-partying student at Texas Tech University to a father of two children, with a third due in May. Even with that, however, Watterson Hall stands out for the artist.
Watterson Hall — which lent both the album and the title track its name — is a real dance hall near Bastrop, Texas. It’s where Green and his wife spend their holidays two-stepping, and it’s where Green found the sentiment that blankets Watterson Hall, his seventh studio album, from start to finish.
“That’s where me and my wife go dancing at Christmas time,” Green says. “It’s not a music venue, it’s just a dance hall. They have a cover band, and that’s where we go dance. There’s no beer on the dance floor. You can’t stand on the dance floor. It’s one of those places, and it’s real strict. Kids are there. Grandparents are there. It’s a legit old-school dance hall, which doesn’t really exist much anymore.”
Watterson Hall has 14 tracks, and Green co-wrote all of them with a cast of songwriters that includes Muscadine Bloodline’s Gary Stanton, Sean McConnell, and Logan Wall — who also produced the album with Green. The album’s current single, “Where the Wild Things Are,” has spent most of February in the top five of the Texas Country Music Chart, which monitors radio airplay in the Lone Star State. Throughout the record, Green’s gravelly, reverberating vocals are front and center, accompanied by electric guitar and keys, with the occasional fiddle thrown in for good measure. Fans of Green’s best-known songs like “She Likes the Beatles” or “Ringling Road” should recognize his straightforward, deadpan lyrical approach, even as Green says he’s pushing himself to the edges of his comfort zone.
The most striking such example is “Man on the Moon,” which he wrote in Los Angeles with Justin Glasco, Sean Van Vleet, and Joe Walker. Most of Watterson Hall is steeped in traditional country, but “Man on the Moon” finds Green experimenting with pop melodies and riffs over lyrics that could easily have fit into a classic country love song instead. When Green sings, “Nothing but time doing our thing/me and you, and the man on the moon,” though, he does so over heavy percussion, keyboards, and backing vocals.
“It made me want to go back to L.A. more and more,” Green says. “I went in with a negative vibe, like, ‘What the fuck am I gonna write? They’re writing pop in L.A.’ But what I found out was that they were so fucking sick of writing pop that they were fired up to write with me. In Nashville, they’re doing the same thing every day, and I felt like I was excited to write in L.A. because they were excited to get out of their lane, and I was excited to get out of my lane.”
Green has a heavy tour schedule planned in the wake of Watterson Hall, highlighted by his annual Cottonfest at Cook’s Garage in Lubbock on June 26 and 27. Green will host and co-headline with Flatland Cavalry and 49 Winchester, but between now and then most of his shows will be in support of Treaty Oak Revival, a band he has forged a tight friendship with in recent years.
When Treaty Oak Revival frontman Sam Canty approached Green to help him compose “West Texas Degenerate,” the title track of Treaty Oak’s latest record, Green’s response was “Hell yeah. I’m in,” and they wrote it in the green room of Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth. Green liked what he heard.
“William was like, ‘Man, that song is so badass. Do you think I could be on it?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? Of course, you can be on it, you’re William Clark Green, dude,’” Canty says. “And, through that song, me and him have become really close friends.”
For most of the spring, Green will join Treaty Oak as the opener for a series of high-profile concerts. The first such show is March 12 in Springfield, Missouri, at the Great Southern Bank Arena. Green has played arena stages before, supporting artists like Cody Johnson and Koe Wetzel, but he says playing ahead of Treaty Oak at Houston’s Toyota Center on New Year’s Eve taught him that his fans and Treaty Oak’s have a heavy overlap.
“It’s a huge blessing,” Green says of his West Texas friends. “They’re very aware of where they are and what they’re doing, but they have remained extremely respectful and humble. Including me in writing the title track, which was something they didn’t have to do, was awesome.
“Approaching a tour like this, I told the band, ‘Let’s not pretend to be Treaty Oak,’” Green continues. “We’re not gonna out-rock them. Let’s go and do our show and see what happens. We’ll adapt to the show.”
Green, who joined up with Josh Abbott, John Baumann, and Flatland Cavalry’s Cleto Cordero to moonlight as the Panhandlers back in 2020, turns 40 in May. He says he’s trying to cut back from his usual tally of around a hundred shows a year, especially with another child on the way.
The problem with that, as Green sees it, is that he and his band have found a groove. After two decades of grinding out a living, he’s discovering more opportunities than ever to bring his music to a wider audience.
“Man, it was a dead space for a couple of years,” Green says. “But I kind of feel the aura around me growing. I’ve been doing this for 18 years, and to feel like there’s growth and light at the end of the tunnel, it hits a different note.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.
