“It’s like working every job at a fast food restaurant before becoming a manager, knowing the difficulties of each station and the best way to interact with them to get the result you want.”
Ahead of the San Francisco Public Library’s Bay Beats Bandshell party—the program’s biggest event of the year—we sat down with Bay Area multi-instrumentalist and arranger William Johnston. Having anchored sets across every imaginable genre in the region for over a decade, Johnston embodies the collaborative, genre-blurring DNA of the local music scene.
Read the full, unedited conversation below as we discuss his journey from foundational sideman to leading his own multi-piece superband, honoring the legacy of local scene builders like Anthony Ant, navigating the economic realities of large ensembles, and his uncompromising dedication to artistic integrity in the Bay.
You’ve spent over a decade anchoring sets across every genre in the Bay before launching William Johnston’s Extravagant Superband. How did all those years of sideman work shape the exact sound and vision you wanted for your own project?
William Johnston: It’s like working every job at a fast food restaurant before becoming a manager, knowing the difficulties of each station and the best way to interact with them to get the result you want. I definitely draw a little bit from every scenario I’m in, but it takes a bit to bubble to the surface, and sometimes it takes a second to recognize- for example in ‘Silence and Stillness’ it’s the arrangement is “verse, verse, (guitar plays the verse melody super low like Ring of Fire by Jonny Cash), rinse and repeat” and it took a second to realize that I was directly inspired by my longest collaborator (13? 14 years?) Ren Geisick’s song ‘Goodbye My Wandering Friend’. Also shout out to Ren’s insane country guitar player Chris Motter (I play bass for Ren when Chris is available, and attempt to copy his licks when he is not), he is easily in the top 3 country guitarists in the state.
Studying under legends like John Santos at the California Jazz Conservatory, playing gospel in Redwood City, and diving into Latin jazz, soul, and indie rock: How has the sheer musical diversity of the Bay Area formed your DNA as a songwriter?
John Santos’ class was insane and transformational but was more of a survey class, my real education came from my friends such as David Lechuga (La Doña, Yeni Valdes, many more) and Ryan Trujillo (Conjunto Trujillo, his Selena Tribute band, we did a Chicha set a couple times- look up Ranil y su Conjunto), especially when we went to Cuba for the Havana Jazz Fest in January 2024. David’s Cuba connections allowed us to go out to the countryside to hang out with Cotán (Los Van Van, first person to use a Wah pedal on a Cuban recording) and learn about Cuban guitar stylings- fun fact he was absolutely obsessed with Donald Fagen’s solo record ‘The Nightfly’, which I thought was hilarious. My older brother Madison on sax also played in a salsa band his whole life, sang all the coros, knows all the campaña (cowbell) patterns. The band called him ‘el maestro’.
Also the thing we have in SJ that might not be as prevalent elsewhere is total coverage by professional mariachi groups doing 5-7+ gigs in a weekend with custom wrapped sprinter vans, and I end up just hearing and being obsessed with random boleros and such. Check out ‘Historia de un Amor’ by Los Tres Ases.
I also have the incredible pleasure of accompanying Moscow-born Masha Campagne playing some of the finest Brazilian music available. We do lots of random duo gigs and sometimes I get to play bass on her larger gigs, playing alongside such monsters as Ricardo Peixoto, Frank Martin, Michaelle Goerlitz, and so many more- right now we’re working on Samba-ifying (adapting into Portuguese) some of my more explicitly Brazilian flavored compositions such as Archipelago, Cult to Follow, and Softly Say. You wouldn’t immediately detect a Brazilian influence because it’s not terribly obvious, but to someone steeped in the genre it becomes clear where I’m drawing certain things from, and she immediately recognized. I would directly point to coming up in the completely unique Brazilian department at CJC, headed by the Brazilian John Santos equivalent, Marcos Silva. We have such a strong Brazilian community, especially in the East Bay, and there was a semester where I did a 2-hour student Brazilian ensemble, then subbed playing bass for the 2-hour adult Brazilian ensemble, then Marcos would often have me sub in to one of HIS rehearsals, and all of a sudden I’m getting my ass kicked in 7/8 by Deszon Claiborne, playing grooves like Maracatu, Xaxado, Baiao, Samba-Funk, Partido Alto… I’m definitely the Brazilian-pilled one out of all my friends.
You’ve played everywhere from sold-out shows at San Jose Jazz Breakroom to regular slots at the Boom Boom Room in SF and the Stork Club in Oakland. How does the vibe of the music scene shift across different pockets of the Bay?
I will start out by defining: the #1 most influential cultural export of SJ is DIY hardcore music from the east side (Spy, Gulch, Sunami), which the city will never acknowledge because hardcore music doesn’t sell hi-rise luxury condominiums to tech workers, or encourage tech companies to rent office space from Gary Dillabough (don’t even get me started). I grew up on the west side (Campbell-ish) and it was a complete wasteland, and if I get famous enough I’ll end up listed next to the only other culturally relevant attendee of Prospect High School/Westmont, Smash Mouth (lol). The vibe of a scene is only allowed to exist if the economic conditions allow, if you can’t afford a practice space, if you don’t have a place to put the drums, you simply do not have a band. It ceases to exist. The church I play at in RWC is a 100% culturally black gospel church whose members were scattered to the winds during the pandemic, the organist (Jeff Goodkind, keys for Ren Geisick) is the only person that actually lives in the area. Most of the congregation is driving from as far off as Antioch, Santa Rosa(!), the pastor is in SJ, not a single person at that church can afford to live in that area. The peninsula, and by extension anything that Tech touches, is a wasteland where everything is economically gatekept. We tried looking for a place to rehearse that wasn’t the church and the only thing we found was Sound Union in RWC… which is fucking insane https://soundunion.com/membership and is a shameful window of the future of the entire bay area.
My point of reference for this is the Fillmore District, formerly known as the ‘Harlem of the West’, was labeled ‘blighted by negroes’ in official government documents in 1949, and from ’50-’53 summarily it was bulldozed and the community expelled to Richmond and Oakland. Bill Graham bought his famous Auditorium from a black club owner who used to host the Isley Brothers (when they still had Jimi playing lead), Chuck Berry, etc, after his clientele was subjected to a legal pogrom by the racist-ass SF government- my latent theory is the ‘psychedelic sound’ of the 60’s in SF was just all the white people (and Santana because they hadn’t gentrified the Mission yet) that were economically allowed to make music, practicing in their parent’s garages (think about the term ‘garage rock’ and how the conditions for free, nonfunctional artistic development require owning land, then think about who was allowed to own land and where). Constantly playing different places, the only factor I see anymore is class, people tend to live where they are forced to live, and the further you get in class, the less you value art. The war being waged on artists by Big Tech has homogenized so much of culture, and the only people who are allowed to claim the hallowed throne of ‘SF rock band’ are tech workers who can pay $400+ a month for a practice space or rich kids who still live with their parents. There are a couple of holdouts in rent controlled apartments, but it is a war of attrition and we are losing. We are not building affordable housing anywhere in the Bay, the landowners have no interest in it.
When I say ‘functional music’, that’s music that is created to perform a specific function like a salsa band, church band, wedding party band, something that performs a task. My main point is: poor people are not allowed to create nonfunctional music. That is a privilege reserved for the upper classes, and attempts to codify regional styles are often wishful fantasy, relying on tropes of a bygone era. And don’t get me wrong, there are some regional scenes (like ESSJ hardcore, Richmond and Oakland rap, etc.) but again I say: it is a war of attrition and we are losing.
You mentioned the impact of Anthony Ant and his tragic passing earlier this year. How did spaces like his shape your community, and why is it important to keep that legacy alive through the local music scene today?
Anthony Ant was the kind of person that saw me do my thing one single time, then invited me to play one of his legendary Starry Plough Thursday funk nights, simply because he dug a weird kid who was doing something slightly different. He was not interested in social climbing, wasn’t interested in any quid-pro-quo, he simply wanted to bring people together in a way that most people are simply not selfless enough to replicate. His legacy IS the legacy of the Bay Area music scene as it pertains to Funk/RNB/Soul/Hip-Hop harkening back to previous innovations that came out of the Bay- Frankie Beverly & Maze moved to the Bay from Detroit because they were seeking a sound, a scene. Herbie Hancock hired the East Bay rhythm section of Paul Jackson and Mike Clark after getting dunked on by the Pointer Sisters opening for him in LA with his ‘Mwandishi’ project, and Miles Davis made Bitches Brew after seeing Sly and the Family Stone. Anthony Ant’s legacy is a continuation of everything that made the Bay special, and might just keep the Bay special if we can hold onto it- the kind of spaces he created were the definition of synthesis, which is the combination of two or more things to create a new thing that isn’t just different things happening at the same time.
Also, it was so insanely traumatizing for every single person that has ever met him, my very first thought when reading the question was: ‘passing’ is what happened to my Grandpa after a battle with pancreatic cancer- Anthony Ant was *executed* by one of the dirtiest Sheriff’s departments in the state of California. This is not to mince words, just to outline how insanely fucked up it was for every single person even remotely involved in the scene.
Operating a multi-piece “Extravagant Superband” with rich vocal arrangements and horn/percussion sections in one of the most expensive regions in the world is no small feat. What keeps you committed to staying and building big ensembles in the Bay Area despite the financial strain?
I mean… I just never expect to make any money on the actual shows. I’m following the Ren Geisick playbook (as her #1 highest paid subcontractor for the past… 9 years straight), which is you as a sideman don’t ever have to worry if a gig pays or not because I will *always* pay you at least $100. I haven’t actually made any money on any of the shows on my Boom Boom residency (every third thursday) because it is more valuable to me to play with at the very least aux percussion AND drums to really work on the rhythm section fusion, and sometimes my vocalists show up and I throw them some cheese if they stick around to the end. Most of my songs simply require percussion and vox! I’m finding that I can do just fine without keys, because the percussion/drums fusion carries so much if done properly, and in order to do it properly, they have to play together as much as possible. That is more valuable to me than making any amount of money.
As someone who has played nearly every room in the region since 2013, what do you see as the biggest challenge currently facing local working musicians, and what would you love to see change in the local venue/funding ecosystem?
The biggest challenge facing local working musicians is the cost of living, and rising apathy towards live music. This is referring to the process of musicians playing functional music at enough different times of week to actually fill out a schedule on a weekly basis. I mostly go to places that aren’t SJ to play gigs, because especially in SJ (but also common everywhere else) we have a class of tech workers/retired homeowners who will play places for free/nothing where otherwise there would be a full time professional getting paid. The bands at San Pedro Square Market in SJ always suck, because they don’t pay enough to hire actual professionals, so the only people that can afford to play there suck, so people think live music in SJ sucks because the only live music they end up hearing sucks. This is a vicious cycle that can really start at any step of the cycle. Rising cost of living means parents can’t afford music lessons, and it also means musicians have to charge more to make it feasible, so things simply fall by the wayside in the face of cheaper activities like sports, where you don’t have to maintenance a $2000+ piece of metal and/or wood. I’ve literally been told a residency I had (not BBR) is getting cancelled because the management told them to hire bands that will play for food and drink- and I can’t drink alcohol if I want to sing or play guitar so it is of no value to me.
The Bay has a unique history of musicians playing in each other’s projects across unexpected genres. How does that spirit of cross-pollination impact the way you assembled your current band line-up?
With all this discussion of funk and latin, it’s important to not lose sight of a cornerstone that I haven’t really referenced yet: Indie Rock. The percentage of Indie Rock songs I actually like is among the lowest of any genre, whereas I completely love 99% of salsa songs I’ve ever heard, my acceptance rate with indie rock has got to be under 1%, and it is a testament to how much I actually love indie rock that I keep searching for diamonds in the rough. With my Indie Rock track record (Sour Widows, James Wavey, Classic Hat) it is important to me to have a bass player that understands this side of things, which is why I hired Keenan Lewis of Poor Image to hold down the bass chair. His very own musicality is why I hire him directly, but every so often you get a glimpse at the legacy he carries in his veins, being the son of legendary jazz drummer Jason Lewis (go check the personnel on the latest Boz Skaggs record & the Monsters Inc. intro song) and nephew to Jeff Lewis (Pacific Mambo Orchestra), both of which are professors of my percussionist Dominic Johanneson at SJSU. His indie rock cred can be experienced at its finest on ‘I Love You’, as he scythes through the harmony with a beautiful counterpoint to my guitar part. I described what I wanted briefly, and he immediately nailed it, with the sort of finesse you don’t see very often.
Between monthly residencies at Boom Boom Room and funk nights at spots like The Crepe Place, which Bay Area rooms or stages feel most like home to you right now, and why?
Boom Boom Room feels like home, Bottom of the Hill feels like home… Art Boutiki felt like home, so did Amnesia, and Cafe Stritch. Stork Club feels like home, Oakland Secret feels like home, along with both San Jose Jazz venues, Breakroom and the Boom Box Truck. The Chapel feels like home nowadays as well. After running a jazz jam every week since January, Poor House Bistro feels like home the strongest nowadays.
I think the key factors are A. How dope the green room is, and B. How many truly dope shows I’ve done there. After 2 dope James Wavey shows(opening up for Shannon & the Clams and W.I.T.C.H. respectively), Jerry Garcia Amphitheater feels like home.
I accept loss, but the hardest losses have been Amnesia, Art Boutiki, and WILL BE Bottom of the Hill. The first time I played BotH I was 19 playing with a goofy rock band, and the closer had a mic stand that just was just an M16.
When the hustle of gigging, arranging, and surviving as an artist in the Bay gets heavy, what specific aspect of this community or its musical history reminds you why it’s worth staying?
I guess I already talked about Harlem of the West, and later how in the 70’s many artists moved here to be part of a ‘sound’. Probably my most inspirational band is Sly & the Family Stone, for:
– the sheer eclecticism of their instrumentation and arrangements: strings, flugelhorn (solo on Running Away), and hybridized drum machine with drums
– psychedelic lyrical content without being overly florid or goofy (think Strawberry Alarm Clock)
– gender/race integrated band- flugelhorn and strings were ladies, and the Bay Area Special of white boy drummer/funky gospel bass player (see also: Mike Clark and Paul Jackson in Herbie’s band)
– Miles and Herbie both saw a Sly show and completely changed what they were doing. I hope I or anyone else is brave enough to change when provided with the proper inspiration, instead of just playing it safe and chasing whatever’s popular.
Having seen the Bay scene evolve over the last 13+ years, what gives you the most hope about where local music and the community are headed next?
It’s going to be up to us to break free of the shadow of LA and it’s incredibly shallow, stifling, attention-seeking culture. People here are so desperate for status and recognition that they will ‘ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears’ so to speak, and glom onto anything gaining traction. Multiple times in SJ (for example) we’ve had people come up from LA and start claiming to represent SJ culture (SJ Come Up and now SJFoos) and start throwing well funded events and running PR for our fascist tech broligarch mayor Matt Mahan. SF has a much more centralized and explicitly evil version of this directly funded by Daniel Lurie’s Zionist donor network, I am of course referring to Civic Joy Fund and Downtown First Thursdays. This, compounded with our atomized tech culture which places entirely too much emphasis on IG and Spotify numbers, means artists tend to replicate the worst capitalistic tendencies of the industry; namely the desperate attempt to recreate past successes instead of making art that strives to be better than it was before. We’ve been starved of so much for so long, we tend to accept anything with an appealing enough packaging without actually listening to what’s going on. I see faux-latin artists that couldn’t play their way out of a paper bag somehow getting massive props, indie rock girlies turning into ‘jazz singers’ hosting ‘jazz nights’ whose bands would be summarily executed at any given jazz jam (the singing is alright), I see some of the WORST sax playing I’ve heard on bands getting seemingly every opening slot for touring bands at the top venues, the worst rappers and RNB singers getting the most recognition over the most shallow music. If you don’t respect the music enough to do it right and with sincerity, then you don’t respect the audience you bring it to! You’re just… the marketing wing of a T-Shirt company.
Besides, my new thing is that LA isn’t shit compared to CDMX. LA’s entire schtick is just the movie industry and pretending like there isn’t a tropical megalopolis to rival Tokyo or NYC a few hundred miles south.
That being said, shout out to:
Spellling (opened for them on tour with S’Widows)
Sour Widows
Ovrkast
Salami Rose Joe Louis
Azuah (I played with for years AND did a show where Salami was on keys)
Cheflee
Glowing Brain (never been to a show only ever heard them through the wall at OMC but I’m fully obsessed)
Get Close (new band you would absolutely love)
I Am The Octopus
Bolero!
The Hogan Brothers (honestly the best band in the bay pound for pound)
Rip Room
Half Rotten Goddess
Buzzed Lightbeer
Perhapsy
Nava Onti (you need to check out Black Iron Prison)
Freeze/Frio AKA Julian Lopez
Jas Stade (and all associated bands like gumby’s junk etc)
Pachex (the only artist from SJ on this list)
Poor Image
Veotis
Amanda Magaña (I played cello on one of her tracks)
Slappers Only! (My brother’s new project which is completely indescribable and completely like anything I or you have ever seen)
Ian Santillano (subbed guitar for him once and we share multiple band members)
Angalo (Filipino supergroup that features Ian and our respective drummer Shawn Urbie-Tennie who also plays in Top Chefs)
Diiwa
Amihan (amazing revolutionary rappers/singers)
AstraLogik
Ruby Ibarra et al
and for the record my favorite bass player who I call sometimes is Guillermo Landaker. Keep an eye on him.
