I had the pleasure of running into William Elliott Whitmore at the Mission Creek Festival back in April. It was just after his performance at the Englert Theatre, where he played just before Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan. If that sounds like a weird combination of artists, I promise you it made perfect sense to everyone who was there. I wish one of us had thought of taking a selfie, but we were having too much fun.
The Englert Theatre is a place that Whitmore holds near and dear to his heart. “I always like to say I've played in Rome, Italy, and I've played in Rome, Georgia. And I've played at Carnegie Hall, and I've played in basements and everything in between,” said Whitmore. "And I'm pretty proud of that in a 25-year touring career. But the Englert sits real nicely right there in the middle where it sort of feels like home because I've played there a lot.”
In addition to his pure affection for the place, Whitmore has practical reasons for wanting to play at the Englert. “The older I get, the more I'm kind of (into) playing these seated joints,” said Whitmore. "I still play these punk rock places, or rock venue places, or Gabe's in Iowa City or whatever, these classic places. But there's something about just the nice, seated theater, and it's just a beautiful place.”
William Elliott Whitmore returned to the Englert Theatre in November, opening for Rodney Crowell. It was the final scheduled performance of 2025 for Whitmore, whose most recent album, Silently, The Mind Breaks, came out in 2024. Whitmore describes that album as “a lot about mental health,” and he also called it his “least autobiographical (record), but still somewhat autobiographical.”
“It was an experiment to sort of write from another person's perspective,” said Whitmore. “I was thinking a lot at that time about the human mind and things like ‘are we our mind, or are we our body, or are we both? Are my thoughts me? Who is thinking my thoughts?’ It sounds trippy, but I mean, when you talk to yourself, who's talking? And who are you talking to when you're talking to yourself? Are we our worst thoughts? Are we our best thoughts? So, you know, some of the songs are about things like that, but also just about people being pushed to the limit of what they think they can be pushed to and actually surviving.”
If that sounds “trippy” to you too, you’re not alone. But listening to Silently, The Mind Breaks is a classic William Elliott Whitmore experience. He sings about universal feelings and topics with his signature solo sound, and also with a band on a few tracks. Still, the subject matter of some of the songs raised a few eyebrows among folks in Whitmore’s inner circle.
“I'd play it for my people to say, 'hey, here's the new record,’ and a couple of people were like, 'Hey, man, are you OK? You know, just checking in,’ and I said ‘Yes, nope, I'm OK.’ This isn't necessarily about me, and we all struggle with mental health and things, but no, some of the darker stuff is not about me. No need to worry, but I appreciate you checking in.”
Although Whitmore hasn’t officially started working on a follow-up record yet, he's drawn inspiration from another relatable subject: fatherhood. Whitmore’s daughter was born as the pandemic began, and since then he’s thought about making a kids album.
“She'd be sleeping, and I'd kind of just be sitting there with a guitar and looking down and kind of coming up with these little songs,” said Whitmore. “And that was going to be my next record, (but) it just wasn't quite good enough and wasn't quite right. And so, I did have a whole bunch of songs that I kind of wrote about that experience, but I haven't worked on them or put them out yet. I'm waiting to kind of make them a lot better and hone them into something.”
Whitmore may be taking it easy for the rest of 2025, but he'll be embarking on a busy performance schedule in January. He sees sharing music and performing as his way of making a positive difference in the world.
“In my idealized version of what could be, I like to think that music does bring people together and can remind us of beautiful things, even when a lot of things in the world are ugly,” said Whitmore. "When you hear a beautiful song that can move you in a certain way, I still feel like that has a lot of power. And I'm thankful for that, because otherwise I don't know what I would do.”
“I just feel helpless when big things are happening and decisions are getting made that I have nothing to do with, as I'm sure a lot of people do,” said Whitmore. “And so, what I personally can do is write songs about it and sing about it and talk about things on stage. No matter who you are and what you are or who you love or what body you're in, we're all just trying to figure it out. And so, I'm always trying to remind myself and everybody that we need love in this crazy world. And I think music is a good way to do that.”
William Elliott Whitmore’s music is available for purchase on his website and Bandcamp, and you can also listen on major streaming services.
