Probably better known as the guy on the keyboards in The Constantines, Woolley Leaves is Wil Kidman's solo 'œin-between'? thing. Kevin Shutterbug met up with Wil outside of Sneaky Dee's late on a Tuesday night, but there was a birthday bash happening, so they headed over to the Cloak & Dagger, except it was holding a meeting for S.O.F.T. members, the Society of Free Thinkers, which had a $5.00 cover for non-members, so they headed over to Piccadilly, which was apparently closed despite the crowd inside. Eventually they found themselves on the back patio of Ted's Collision, and over rum n' cokes, whiled away the evening.

WHERE DOES WOOLLEY LEAVES COME FROM?
I was just living in Cambridge, making up songs, whether there were shows to play or not, just always making up songs.

YOU PLAY AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR FOR WOOLLEY LEAVES AND KEYBOARDS IN THE CONSTANTINES, BUT I REMEMBER SEEING YOU PLAY ELECTRIC GUITAR WITH NATHAN LAWR'S BAND AND YOU WERE COMPLETELY ROCKING OUT ON STAGE.
There's a Neil Young quote, something like, 'œI want to be the guy who plays guitar solos on his knees, but later plays songs about his feelings.'? That makes perfect sense to me and it's kind of what I'm after. I don't own an electric guitar now. I had to sell my last one. I remember the day, August 27th 2003. Just to pay rent. But I didn't ever use it that much; everyone else has guitars, so we just share.

WILL YOU BE RELEASING YOUR RECORD, QUIET WATERS, SOON?
Yeah, I'm not sure how. I just finished it at the end of last year. This year's been busy with other stuff, so I just haven't had time to get my shit together, and I'm not very good at getting my shit together. I mastered it last week, the artwork's half done. I've been kind of nervous about asking people to put it out. I mean, Woolley Leaves is just an in-between thing for me. I get to tour, play loud songs all the time, and then it's nice to relax and play something quiet in my spare time, and it's just as valid as the loud songs, just as legit. Plus, I'm slowly going deaf from playing shows. But that's fine; you live and die by the sword you carry.

WHO ELSE PLAYS ON THE RECORD?
It's really all just me. I've always been into thinking I can do something whether I really can or not. The only time I get to play drums is when I record drums for one of my songs. All the songs are just recorded all over the place whenever there was time, on different machines. You can hear it in the songs, like pressing record in one room and then going to the next and playing the song. Or there're sounds outside the window, like sirens and traffic and people. And there're lots of versions of every song. For me it's about finding the version that really captures the song's vibe, rather than the best recording of it.

THE RECORD IS BEAUTIFUL AND HAS AN HONEST SIMPLICITY. MAYBE 'œSINCERE'? WOULD BE THE BEST DESCRIPTION.
That's good. If anything, it's just to make something honest. I don't really care about much else but making honest songs. All my favourite people doing it, being musicians, are doing it because they're supposed to. They're the inspiration, really.

PEOPLE LIKE NEIL YOUNG?
Yeah. Stuff like that is just classic, but it's classic for a good reason. I just love kindred souls, people that have an honest presentation. You can't fuck with them, '˜cause it's real. People like Neil Young, Syd Barrett. Right now, I've been into David Essex's song 'œRock On.'? From 1972, a one hit wonder. Everyone knows it and it's one of the greatest songs of all time, and it just gives me faith that you might not write a million great songs, but you still might write one, it could happen. I mean, good songs make the world go around. Everybody likes music; no one doesn't like it. Even music that totally sucks, if it makes just one person happy, that's kind of a good thing. You just have to find what you like, which isn't always easy, but it's out there.

HOW HAVE YOU FOUND BEING IN A TOURING BAND, PLAYING BIG SHOWS, AND THEN COMING HOME AND DOING YOUR OWN SONGS SOLO FOR FRIENDS AND SMALLER AUDIENCES?
I just know I'm really lucky to be playing music. I use to be pretty self-conscious about playing a big rock show and being out in the audience as well as playing a little acoustic show, but I think I've come to terms with it all. It's all the same thing, just songs. I'm just trying to learn how to sing better. Practice, I guess. I should've listened to my hockey coach.