Friday, July 25th • 5:00pm • Side Stage
Will Overman is a man coming into focus.
The Virginia-raised singer-songwriter spent the last four years watching his first solo album slide away in the rearview mirror. The life he had when he wrote and recorded The Winemaker’s Daughter is gone. His sophomore effort, Stranger, finds Overman with eyes fixed firmly on the dotted line unspooling ahead of him.
“The album is the most fully realized version of me,” the musician says. That’s evident in the tracks. “Virginia is For Lovers,” an earworm of a single released last year, is peak Overman — nuanced, specific, and catchy as all hell. “Held Up by a Woman,” the most recent single, builds on an acoustic foundation toward a powerful, cathartic, electric release. Meanwhile, the intensely autobiographical “The Bottom” finds Overman wrestling with relatable questions of doubt, life choices, relationships, and mistakes — all without providing easy answers.
Recent converts will find much to explore in Overman’s densely layered tunes. And longtime fans will be happy to hear that Overman’s signature traits — deft storytelling embedded in hooky tunes, anchored by precise lyricism and powerful delivery — are all present and accounted for on Stranger.
But don’t expect Overman to stay in one place, musically or otherwise.
Restless by nature, a traveler with a poet’s eye for mountains but a working man’s taste for road food, Overman’s always on the move. He comes by it naturally.
That’s because Overman spent his formative years as a child of two worlds. Summer surf sessions in Virginia Beach gave way to fall backpacking expeditions in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rinse, wash, repeat. Sunscreen and fly rods, flip flops and hiking boots. Two different landscapes. Two different soundtracks. Rock and pop where water meets earth, bluegrass and folk where trees meet the sky. Somewhere in between, maybe on the interstate between Virginia’s edges and its heart, that’s where the country music is.
Ask Overman about his influences, and he’s just as likely to say The Killers as the Avett Brothers. So it’s inevitable all those worlds would sonically collide inside Overman’s head. A live performance will probably include a harmonica. But you’ll also get a good old-fashioned rock show. Or is it alt-country? Alternative?
Impossible to say, and that’s just the way Overman likes it. That’s because the versatile singer-songwriter has some road behind him now. Has lived enough life to know it doesn’t matter what you call a thing as long as it does the job. And that’s what Overman’s songs do. Aided by unforgettable vocal delivery, Overman fires each track directly at the heart by way of the ears.
Overman is as hard to pin down as his music, a trait illustrated in the album bookend “Landlocked Heart.”
“He lived out of a bag, will read my epitaph,” the song begins. “Ten years on the road, not much to show but a show. Late nights in a van, I don’t know where I am. Loading in and loading out, I never get to see the town.”
It’s an accurate description of a life Overman’s passionate about — playing live music for a real audience. Between brief stays in Nashville, the musician ceaselessly roams the country, solo and with his band. He’s also toured with acts like Boy Named Banjo, Austin Plaine, Justin Wells, and Jonathan Peyton. Notable headlining gigs include the State Fair of Virginia and Artisphere Music and Arts Festival, while a powerful set at Ocean Fest won new fans.
It’s not easy, but it’s real, and it’s true — things the maturing artist values more than anything else these days.
So yeah, Overman’s coming into focus. But he’s moving too fast to stay there long. And anyway, what’s the point of sitting around?