Willie Nile Digs the Brooklyn Scene, Rough Trade…and a Slice of “Pie”
Willie Nile Photo by Howard B. Leibowitz/B.L.Howard Productions
Willie Nile has been one of rock-and-roll music’s best kept secrets for more than three decades. This iconic and talented steward of power guitar chords finally arrived in Brooklyn, the real rock capital of the northeastern United States.
It was at Rough Trade NYC, one of Williamsburg’s hot-spot venues where Brooklyn Roads talked with Willie Nile and bassist Johnny Pisano during sound check to get their take on the experience.
Surrounded by rows of vinyl records and racks of CDs, Johnny “Pie” Pisano spoke about a range of topics, from Marky Ramone’s Smart Phone Swatter video to blues guitarist Meyer Rossabi, and credited Jesse Malin with bestowing him with his Johnny Pie nickname as “anything Jesse says will stick.”
When Willie Nile needed a bass player, he asked Malin, who, Johnny told us, recommended him to Willie “without batting an eye.” As for the local music scene, the native Brooklynite had been turned off to “the whole Brooklyn thing at first,” because, “being the proud New Yorker, when people came to New York who weren’t originally here…they overcompensated by acting tough and stuff. New Yorkers — we’re really nice people [but] don’t cross us — then you’ll see a bad side, — but in general, we’re all nice people. Now, it’s turned around and it’s gotten cool again. Now, it’s like super cool and there’s great music, great bands, great studios.”
Taking a break from sound check, Willie Nile was animated as he told Brooklyn Roads that 2015 marks not only the 35th anniversary of the release of his self-titled first debut album, but also a live double CD of his legendary shows at New York’s famed Bottom Line Cabaret. Willie also waxed poetic about his newest album of songs, If I Was A River: “I always wanted to make an album of just piano songs and I finally got to do it.”
Johnny Pisano Photo by Howard B. Leibowitz/B.L.Howard Productions
About Rough Trade and his first-ever band show in Brooklyn, Nile said: “It’s great, I love this room…what a great place…just like the old days.” He was thrilled to walk through the album racks and see one of his vinyl LPs on one of them. Willie told us that Williamsburg’s music scene “feels like Asbury…it feels like a music scene. The music scene moves around so much, from Memphis to Liverpool to Athens (Georgia), Austin, Seattle…it moves…the Village, the folk days and now, it’s nice to see Brooklyn smokin’ it up,” he told us. “I think it’s really great that Brooklyn is exploding like it is, musically. It’s hard to find scenes where there’s street level music.” With all the music rooms and larger venues like the Barclays Center, he said, “it’s hopping, it’s happening. It reminds me of the Village in the old days, a newly burgeoning scene.”
Music lovers in Brooklyn and beyond should make it a point to get to Willie Nile’s next Brooklyn show, which we hope is soon, so stay tuned.
Editor’s Note : Brooklyn native and acclaimed blues guitarist & recording artist Meyer Rossabi , just released his first jazz / easy listening single called “People Change” , while Johnny Pisano was profiled in an early issue of Brooklyn Roads as on of our “Artists on The Horizon”.