Music runs in Sam Williams blood, literally. The grandson of Hank and Audrey Williams, and son of Hank Williams Jr., Williams both looks and sounds shockingly similar to his famous grandfather, a heritage he gladly embraces.
Williams just released “Gemini,” from an upcoming freshman EP, where he hopes the legacy Hank left will continue in him and through him.
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“‘Gemini’ I wrote probably about 18 months ago,” Williams told PopCulture.com. “It was when I first started writing songs, and I was doing a write with this girl named Jaida [Dreyer], and she brought this idea of straddling light and darkness and walking a line, almost. I’m a Gemini and I brought up the Zodiac sign – I probably had read my horoscope that morning.
“My dad’s a Gemini as well, and a lot of people attribute to Geminis having two personalities,” he continued. “One of them does something wrong and you put the blame on that one, but Geminis are very driven people, and so I wrote the song just with tying those concepts together.”
Williams is excited about “Gemini,” but he’s equally excited about his next single, a cover of one of his dad’s well-known songs.
“My next single’s gonna be a cover of my dad’s song, ‘Weatherman,’” Williams revealed. “It came out in 1981 and we’re really excited to recreate it because my version of it is a lot different than the way that he released it. A lot of people give me a lot of suggestions on what I should be cutting and releasing. I have my own songs in my family’s catalog that I resonate with, and that’s definitely one of those that means a lot to me, so I’m really excited about that.”
Williams is also the brother to sisters Holly and Hilary Williams, but even with so much rich history in his family, the rising star is determined to make music on his own terms.
“Honestly, my dad doesn’t do a whole lot with my music,” admitted the singer. “I mean, he believes in me a lot and is encouraging, and he lets me know that I have it and that I’ve got it, but he’s definitely not in Nashville pulling any strings. I think there’s probably a large weight for him that his father passed away when he was three and a half years old, and he had to carry his legacy for his whole life, so I’m sure he wasn’t dying for me to get into music so quickly. It just happened and it’s time for it to happen and he knows that.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Williams didn’t initially plan on pursuing music, and even considered a career in politics, before realizing that his heart would always be somewhere else.
“I always knew that I was gonna do music one day and it was within me, but when you’re young – I’m 22 – I didn’t wanna rush into anything like that. I think that it’s such a heavy weight, and people place so much opinion into my family’s name and what the music is and should sound like and how the genre has changed. It’s definitely a nerve-racking thing, so I guess what’s changed is, the universe just said it was time for you to start singing, so I started singing.”
Williams has a song, “The Lost Grandchild’s Plea,” that pays tribute to his legacy, and his desire to carry the name forward.
“It’s about me and [my sister Katie] not ever getting to meet Hank and Audrey, and Holly and Hilary didn’t get to meet them as well, but we’re the last kids of my dad’s,” Williams reflected. “You wish that you had that grandmother in your life that was picking you up when you were down and things like that. I decided to do that and put it out before I started going different places with my music, so I can really feel like I honored them, in a way, before things got serious.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Nashville Music Media/Andrew Thorpe
