Wild Child to Sir Woman, Kelsey Wilson Is Taking the High Road
The laid-back ringleader reinvents Wild Child and forges a new path with Sir Woman
By Doug Freeman, Fri., Aug. 25, 2023
Kelsey Wilson floats into the Pershing in her familiar long black dress, and immediately the private Eastside club pops with a new energy.
Her band, Wild Child, soundchecks on stage, but gravity recenters as the singer wanders around the room with her strange combination of laid-back chill and commanding authority. The early April secret show serves as a trial run before Wild Child leaves for an East Coast tour. Dates are already selling out, and the band's new album, End of the World, plays in heavy rotation on Austin radio.
Yet none of this was really supposed to happen. After nearly 10 years and a rising national profile, Wild Child had effectively ended following the tour behind 2018's fourth LP, Expectations. In fact, things had gotten so bad that Wilson nearly stepped away from music altogether.
"I didn't want to pick up an instrument, didn't want to write anything," Wilson confesses. "That was heartbreaking. Music has always been the only way I can express anything, but I needed to take a step back. It was very important that I figured out how to not lose that. I can't hate music."
Today's Wild Child is an entirely different animal from its previous incarnations. Whereas before the band sprawled informally with friends and family behind the anchoring duo of Wilson and Alexander Beggins, the outfit now tightens with Cat Clemons on bass, John Calvin Abney on guitar, and Micah Motenko on keys. But the biggest change is Wilson herself.
"I've been singing by her side for so many years, but she has this new kind of confidence and lightness on stage," notes Beggins. "She feels very at home in front of a big audience now. I see that she really feeds her soul from the live music. It's powerful."
Wilson and Beggins kick off the Pershing show on familiar territory, pairing harmonies on the ukulele-strummed "Pillow Talk." Soon enough, though, Beggins steps to the side and Wilson takes center stage command. Her powerful voice growls with teeth on new songs like "Dear John," yet also rips open a vulnerable vein. Loose but suave, she draws the crowd in less by singing to them than through them.
It's a side of Wilson now familiar through her other main project, Sir Woman. The powerhouse R&B- and soul-integrating pop band garnered Best New Act at the 2020 Austin Music Awards and took home Band of the Year in 2023.
Together, Wild Child and Sir Woman express two sides of Wilson – the former intimate and sincere, the latter a brazen, funk-fueled dance party of defiant anthems. Both allow her to create the kind of healing experience that she believes music can encapsulate, for herself and her community.
"[She's] surrounding herself with people that she wants to be onstage with, musicians that are of a high caliber, and people that she wants to work with. You probably couldn't always say that about every lineup we've ever had," adds Beggins. "In order to feel that kind of freedom onstage, in the studio, it's all about building that community around her."
Party City
Patches of sunflowers spring in wild riot out front of Wilson's South Austin home. The nearly acre plot spreads like a bohemian oasis – part clubhouse, part hippie commune. Out back, a tentative treehouse overlooks a chicken coop made from the set of Sir Woman's "Party City" video as Wilson's sister, Helyn Rain, sets up for their weekly informal songwriters circle.
Inside, every inch of wall space seems covered with posters and photos and artwork, an intentional clutter. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her home studio, Wilson reflects on the tension between her house as both a respite and a hub of constant activity.
"I grew up in a house with probably nine kids all the time, home-schooling, parents always there, just chaos," she laughs. "I went from that to compound living to touring in a van with eight people and sleeping on floors together. There was never ever solitude.
"The pandemic was such a mindfuck for me. It was incredible. Turns out, I don't want to be around 30 people all the time! But sure enough, when the world opened up again, I went straight back to it. I don't know how to be alone, still to this day."
– Kelsey Wilson
The past five years presented a series of reckonings and resets for Wilson, who found her voice while moving into her 30s. Wild Child's 2011 debut, Pillow Talk, launched the band into a whirlwind of national success for which they were ill-prepared, a barrage of festivals and late-night shows, and a deal with Dualtone Records. (See "Aloha!" Nov. 8, 2013.)
Wild Child's appeal hinged on the charming chemistry between Wilson and Beggins as they plucked bittersweet folk-pop ballads. According to Wilson, however, an increasingly chaotic scene swirled around the band.
"I was like, 'Damn, you guys are traveling around in a ukulele band playing for teenage girls and you're on crazy drugs,'" says Wilson. "The music was never gonna get to that place as long as half the band were on uppers and the other half were on downers. Zandy and I were always looking at each other like, 'This is terrible!'
"I ended up being just the mom of the compound," she recalls. "I ended up in like the caretaker, babysitter role, doing all the driving. I couldn't fire everybody, so I just fired myself."
Sinking Ship
The stress of holding the band together wasn't Wilson's only inflection point for leaving Wild Child. Rather, the bigger pull came from wanting to create a new sound that didn't fit with the band's more winsome ethos.
"I knew the music that I wanted to make, sonically, but if the ukulele is fronting a band, you can't really veer too far from like folk/Americana," she says. "There's so much love there and I feel so indebted to fans of Wild Child, so I kept dedicating most of my time to Wild Child, even knowing that I needed another outlet. That was hard. I felt very, very guilty for a long time."
The catalyst came with Glorietta, a supergroup organized by Austin-based Delta Spirit bandleader Matthew Logan Vasquez that wrangled Adrian Quesada, Nathaniel Rateliff, David Ramirez, and Noah Gundersen, among others. Vasquez insisted Wilson join them in New Mexico to make the band's 2018 album, even as she balked at the opportunity.
"I wasn't gonna go, was fully like, 'No fucking way, that sounds terrifying,'" she laughs. "But I learned what I bring to the table that week. I had so much shame around the fact that I can't play guitar or piano or bass, and I don't know how to speak about music. But there's a place for what I do – the melodies and lyrics, just capturing emotion is what I'm really really good at.
"By the time we came back, I was like, 'It's on, I have so much to do.'"
The subsequent hard-partying Glorietta roadshow didn't alleviate a lot of Wilson's den-mother impulses, but for the first time she was playing with professionals and unleashing a powerful, even joyous sound onstage. Expansion beyond the comforts of co-writing with Beggins unlocked a confidence. Back home, she began collaborating with multi-instrumentalist and producer Taylor Craft on what would become Sir Woman.
After Wild Child's 2019 tour, and with Sir Woman's first singles gaining traction, the tensions of Wilson's creative commitments finally crashed. Unsure of her next direction, and struck by her sister's death from an overdose, she walked away from all of it, just as the pandemic shut everything down.
"My relationship with music was about to be destroyed," she reflects. "The songs that I liked the least were the ones that always did the best. I was starting to resent the [Wild Child] audience, in a way. And being around so much drug and alcohol abuse, it was just so much, and writing a song meant I was gonna have to deal with that."
High Road
Wilson's solution came from the opposite extreme. She stopped drinking and smoking, cut out caffeine and sugar, dedicated herself to meditation, and began exploring musical therapy based around frequencies. Launching into what she calls an intense "spiritual masochism," she tried hallucinogens, DMT, and ayahuasca.
"I was like, 'I have one year before I turn 30, and I'm just gonna fix generations of trauma and knock it all out,'" she laughs. "I came home completely broken. I just, like, broke my brain. Turns out you can't just schedule healing, no matter how clearheaded and prepared you think you are."
That spiritual journey did, however, feed into her music. She realized how Sir Woman could be an outlet for healing, confrontation, and catharsis. And audiences felt it, too. Whereas Wild Child hinged on heartbreak and yearning nostalgia, Sir Woman drives forward on deep grooves and celebratory independence.
"I was so intentional with the writing for Sir Woman, doing a lot of work around different keys that were good for different vibrations and organs in your body," Wilson explains. "If there was a song about speaking your truth or dealing with dishonesty, I would put it in the key of F, because that's your throat chakra. I basically was trying to turn pop music into medicine, but without anybody knowing."
2020's Bitch EP introduced Wilson's new sound with the exuberant soul blast of "Highroad," shifty beats and basslines of "Making Love," and slick anthemic statement of the title track. In 2022, Sir Woman's eponymous debut LP cemented the dance party vibe, with Wilson torquing like a gymnast through racing lyrics and soaring ballads.
Wilson's quick to credit Sir Woman's complex yet hook-laden sound to the collective of standout artists she's recruited in the band, though. The current lineup includes Erykah Badu drummer Cleon Edwards, Gary Clark Jr. keyboardist Jon Deas, bassist Montez Garner, and the powerhouse vocal duo of Spice and Uncle Roy (who recently launched their own project, US!).
"Kelsey loves to collaborate, and she's also the type of person who really, really loves to see people shine," offers Spice, who has taken an increasingly prominent role in the band alongside Roy. "She always pulls us forward, like we're all doing this together. She's not afraid to share that space at all, and I think that is a beautiful thing about her."
Glorietta's Vasquez echoes: "She knows that it doesn't have to be some big ego train, and in fact it's better when other people get involved. She realized at some point that she just can grab the reins herself, and be the boss. I feel lucky to have witnessed that transition."
Wilson likewise sees Sir Woman as a platform for building community as much as a band. Her role is less as mother these days than as ringleader and orchestrator. She's determined to use her success to open doors for others, like insisting on her bandmates as opening acts.
"I have a platform where I can make demands, so it's just a matter of demanding that space for them," says Wilson. "If I can make music I really believe in, with people that I love, and also make Austin just a tiny bit more diverse, I'll just keep doing that. It's a lot more work, it's a lot less money, but I get to do more damage in the music industry than anyone."
Get What You Want
Another Pershing evening, another black dress – this time with sunglasses and a gold robe. The private July show preludes Sir Woman's upcoming tour, part of Wilson's tireless schedule that has alternated runs between Wild Child and Sir Woman all summer.
Starting the show with gospel-infused "Good Lady," Wilson catches the club's attention with high trilling notes before the full sixpiece kicks into the wicked basslines and racing pulse of "Making Love." The audience begins to shift in their seats as Wilson lets the band lay into the groove. By the end of the evening, the crowd's packed the front of the stage, dancing wildly to "Blame It on the Water."
"My focus with Sir Woman is really more [on] showcasing every piece of the band, so I'm steering that ship differently and it's a different show," Wilson allows. "I wrote music that's so complicated that I really have to focus on what I'm doing. I'm singing so fast, and the melodies are so hard, and I'm fronting a crazyass band – it's just bouncing the whole time. I'll start a Sir Woman show and I'll just black out, and then it's over."
Even amid the constant summer schedule, which has included playing Newport Folk Festival with Sir Woman and Blues on the Green with Wild Child, Wilson is plotting her next move. Unsure whether the Wild Child revival will continue beyond this season, she's still seeking balance between her whirlwind creative energy and necessary respite. As she prepares Sir Woman's sophomore LP, she's also leaning more into producing, including the debut EP from her younger sister, Skylar Rose.
"I'll always make records, but I think I'm a producer – write songs for other people, get the right players together, produce the albums," Wilson admits. "I don't have another 10 or 15 years on the road, not like active touring. There's just no way of balancing healthy relationships, spending time with family, taking care of your body and your mind.
"I could see, for Sir Woman, a couple more years of work and pushing another album," she adds. "So that's why this year is so crazy. I'd rather do a year of touring both bands than a year of each. I was just like, 'Get it all done at once,' like my spiritual masochism."
