Karl S Williams

Karl S. Williams – 

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist and poet – an artist that you never saw coming. A genre defying and multifaceted musician, for whom music is a vocation and the solution is, to love more. What makes Karl truly remarkable, is that he is unafraid. With complete humility and the charisma of a ‘rock-star’, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he speaks universal truths and he crosses boundaries. This is blues, roots, folk and rock .. and Americana, if you will … but not at as you know it.

Karl’s music is steeped in the swamp water of the cane country of Northern NSW, the landscape of his childhood. His songs are a distillation of life, love and the human condition. Timeless and deeply rooted in tradition, yet ever conversant with the present. As a performer, he is at once beautifully vulnerable and then transcendent.  

“He’s a wrecking ball, a loaded gun. He’s an unmerciful magistrate. He’s “a daisy-cutting, motherfucking judgement day.” – Martin Farrer, The Guardian

Delivered with powerful conviction that takes your breath away - whether solo or with his incandescent band - a Karl S. Williams performance is frequently referred to as a visceral and ‘spiritual experience’, leaving an audience slightly altered in the best way possible.

Additional BIO information

“I love discovering artists who have that special IT - the Zeitgeist - watch out for Karl!”       ­– Peter Noble, Festival Director - Byron Bay Bluesfest

“So good it may even save your life.” – Noel Mengel, The Courier Mail (review of 2013 release Heartwood)

Karl S. Williams built his reputation over many years playing around South East QLD before his debut album Heartwood was released in 2013. In 2014, he was signed to Footstomp Music, an imprint of Warner Music Australia, and re-released Heartwood to widespread acclaim. He was recognised as artist of the year at the inaugural Gold Coast Music Awards in 2015 and took out a QMA in 2018 for the single ‘Blood To Give’.

Karl has toured extensively in Australia including festivals such as Bluesfest, Woodford Folk Festival, Dark Mofo, Panama, Queenscliff and Festival of The Sun. H has shared that stage with other artists such as Donavon Frankenreiter, Mia Dyson, Tex Perkins, Don Walker and Busby Marou.

Following a departure from previous industry relationships, Karl went back to the studio as an independent artist to begin recording Lifeblood. In 2020, he releases this next offering, a pint of his lifeblood and an album of new material that replies with vitriol to the ills of our time while offering the ageless solution - love more. As the long-awaited follow up to Karl S. Williams’ debut, Heartwood (2014), Lifeblood is the move towards longevity as an artist, a songwriter and a human. With this offering, Karl cleanses the slate and redefines the terms of engagement. Lifeblood is ultimately an album of hope - a revolt against the powers that be and proof that with art and love, we shall overcome.

The way music comes through Karl S Williams, is a deeply personal experience for anyone. On our behalf, Williams dives through experiences that shape us, mirroring our own love and anguish, inviting us to stand in his music’s solace with him. As Williams plucks that thread – whether with a feather touch or anguished grasp of desperation – he lays the sounds on the stage and delivers us all an opportunity to transcend. Be reassured. Know the feeling. You are not the only one.

At a time when a straight edge razor drawn across the cheek of Karl S. Williams would have collected no follicle, the young musician heard music that sounded like where he came from. The gently undulating fields of Australian sugar cane, tea tree-logged river banks of his childhood and the dark lush rows of coffee plants stood before him as a working man seemed reminiscent within The Song.

What an artist like Karl S. Williams proves is that despite birthplace or position, colour or intention, music affirms the notion of universal soul. There is a common thread that binds us and Karl sees it; feels it looped around his wrist, rubbing at his back, spun lightly between his fingers. In the dark and by sunlight he follows it: into people’s ecstasy, across their despair, underwater with their fear, and across the long, dry, plains of their heartbreak. 

He can channel the pain of life and warp it into beauty.— Beat 

For all the visual dichotomy Williams’ aesthetic might provide, it is absolutely superfluous once he begins to play. I don’t take any notes. I have no words. — Blank GC

The Citadel bar will be open from 6pm, and the audience to be seated by 8pm for the concert to begin.

The Citadel has a fully licenced bar and will have mini pizzas available to purchase.