“Ohio State” was a minor breakthrough for William Harries Graham. “It was one of the first cohesive songs on the new album that really embraced a new songwriting style—the idea of putting so many personal details into a song,” he says. “The more specific you get, the less personal it feels. It becomes something that anyone can relate to.”
Based in Austin, Graham is the 24-year-old son of Jon Dee Graham, long revered for his tremendous body of work as a solo artist and a guitarist for seminal ’70s/’80s Austin acts the Skunks and True Believers (with Alejandro Escovedo). Making his first appearance onstage at age six at the Austin Music Awards, the younger Graham already has five releases of his own. His latest, Annie’s House, will be available October 25 via Strolling Bones Records (also home to his father’s most recent release).
“Everyone always calls me an old man in a young man’s body—what a cliché,” says Graham. “But you hear it enough times, and it must be true to some extent.”
“Ohio State” has a low-slung indie-rock feel, its almost-conversational prose delivered in a quivery-sweet higher register that bears no resemblance to his dad’s Tom Waits-like grumble.
“People always say that you should focus on the present,” says Graham. “It’s something that I subscribe to, as well. But the reflective nature of the past and future are so deeply important to me—and that’s at the core of ‘Ohio State.’ How does life shape us? Or do we shape those around us, for better or worse? These are the things I spend my time thinking about more and more these days.”
We’re proud to premiere “Ohio State.”
—Hobart Rowland
