Artist of the Week: Mike Willis

Hometown: Decatur, Ga.
Why He’s Worth Checking Out: The Sugary-voiced Willis knows just how to charm his audience, and he delivers tunes that are hook-driven, melodic and sometimes heartwrenching.
Fun Fact: In high school, Willis penned a comical ode to 1996 Olympic gymnastics champion Dominique Moceanu, one of the first songs he ever performed.
For Fans of: U2, John Mayer, Shawn Mullins

In contrast to all the shuffling, last-nights-clothes- and Converse-All-Star-wearing, hair-in-the-eyes indie mopers ripping off Joy Division these days, songwriter Mike Willis isn’t just breath of fresh air, he’s a full oxygen tank. Admittedly going for a more pop sound, Willis is out to prove doing things independently doesn’t necessarily mean keeping out of the mainstream, or for that matter living below the poverty line. And with the music industry trying desperately to make sense of the download age, he’s ready to capitalize on the new possibilities.

“I personally think that maybe the album is a passing thing,” says Willis. “With iTunes and mp3s it’s really getting more centered around songs. I think would be a very viable thing to put out an EP or two a year instead of a 16-track album with maybe two or three great tracks every three years. So this way we can hyper-focus ourselves on that particular record into one very powerful six-song selection.”

Mike Willis and his band The Escape Artists’ latest release, Free, is just that, a propulsive six-track EP that’s two parts U2 and one part John Mayer. Tell Willis he sounds like the baby-faced pop troubadour, and he rolls his eyes. But the two have more in common than their melt-in-your-chair-sweet falsetto vocals—as fledgling musicians they also shared stomping grounds. Flashback to the mid ’90s: A little-known guitar player named John works the door at tiny acoustic hotspot Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Ga., where a teenage Willis plays the open-mic any chance he gets. “I stayed on it pretty hard,” says Willis, “playing the open mic and trying to be a part of the [singer/songwriter] competition, and [even though I] never won … Eddie just saw that I was trying real hard and threw me a show, on a five-act Friday. So I played at seven and a guy named John Mayer was headlining.”

But when Mayer eventually hit it big, Willis was still stuck schlepping his backpack through the halls of Decatur High. So is there any bitterness? Nah. “For us, in high school, being in that community I think was really inspiring to both Mike and I,” says high-school friend and Willis collaborator, bassist Ben Farmer. “It was in a time when everything went down with Shawn Mullins and there were just so many really great acts there. There was a real sense of community.”

As for the scene's influence on Willis' rhythmic guitar sound, he says, “My guitar playing ... is very centered around Shawn Mullins and what he was doing, and that was very characteristic of Eddie’s—the percussive-like slap, almost hitting the guitar instead of just strumming it.”

Willis drew extremely well in the Decatur area, bringing a solid crowd to Eddie’s Attic so often that the bartenders sometimes doubled as fly girls, dancing on the bar and singing the hooks to the bittersweet love songs of his debut, In the Red. But despite his local success as a solo artist, it wasn’t a tough choice for the singer/songwriter to take the next step and put a full band together. “Even when I was doing my own shows, this is what I wanted," he says. "And ultimately I think this kind of sound will reach a wider audience.”

Though the new album is much more rockin’ and much less acoustic than In The Red (to the disappointment of some of Willis’ most loyal fans), Willis doesn’t feel locked into this new direction. “My next EP might be totally acoustic, you know. So that’s where I think the power of an EP comes in. It enables me to really come in on a creative vision, isolate it to a record and then move on. And in concerts that’s where we bridge the gap.”

He may change musicians, experiment with different sounds, go from full band to acoustic and back again—but that’s what Willis likes about doing things his own way. “We know that we write pop music, but we don’t want to bow down to a label,” he says. Pop music going independent? It may seem like the world flipped upside down, but it’s the path Mike Willis is taking.