SPOTLIGHT: Reeb Willms and Caleb Klauder On Being Rooted in Place and Loving One Another

EDITOR’S NOTE: Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms are No Depression’s Spotlight artists for Nov. 2024. Learn more about them and their new album, Gold in Your Pocket (released Nov. 15 on Free Dirt Records), in this interview, and these videos.

Reeb Willms on The Importance of Place

Place has always been a part of my identity; I am the fourth generation of my family on our farm, and probably more like the seventh generation in our county on both sides of my family. The high desert landscape of Douglas County (where I grew up) is vast and open—big skies, few trees, rolling wheat fields, and grasslands peppered with sagebrush. Farmhouses and barns speckle the landscape, though few and far between. Some are old and worn, slowly falling down after decades of abandonment. Little creases in the fields turn into draws full of sagebrush thickets, home to many birds and coyotes and deer, badgers, and other critters. It’s mighty lonesome and quiet out there, and life is still a bit slow compared to city life. The corporate tech world speeds ahead while the farmers keep farming. 

My childhood was filled with grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts and uncles, great-aunts and uncles, and lots of cousins. I sometimes wish I was born in an earlier time, drawn to the notion, albeit nostalgic, that life was simpler and slower. But even more so, that I could experience firsthand all the storied characters in the tales I heard my parents tell about our family history. I always reckoned I would get along with them, and have the same dry sense of humor, values, work ethic, and sensibilities. 

My dad’s side of the family was musical. He and my uncles taught themselves how to play the guitar—playing and singing by ear, and finding harmonies naturally. As a young girl, I was always drawn to the music, entranced by the stories and laughter that happened between the old country songs my dad and uncles would sing. Growing up in a small farming town, you made your own fun, and at the end of the day gathering with family, neighbors, and friends to share a meal and visit was—and still is—an important pastime. 

The slowness of this upbringing, the interaction with the natural world, and the intergenerational familial and community ties have always informed my values and sense of ethics. Being kind and helping others was normal because you knew everybody. It’s a lot harder to “other” someone when you know them personally. There was always time for stillness. Though, it wasn’t all rosy. There’s plenty of alcoholism, poverty, toxic masculinity, racism, drugs, political differences, religious oppression, and unhappy marriages to go around—but we don’t talk about it for God’s sake. 

For me, song has always been a powerful form of expression. Even before I wrote a song, I was drawn to lyrics and stories. The act of singing is a pastime that isn’t about me, it’s about all of us, and how it helps us feel. We can be moved and we can feel things in ways that we may not have the chance to otherwise. It is a tender place in a hard world—a tear that slips out unexpectedly, a small breach of a dam holding back a lifetime of heartache, grief, and quelled emotions; we hold it together in a society that pushes us to ignore these things and wants to forget these old, slow ways. 

Caleb Klauder on Writing Toward Loving Each Other Better

Our new album Gold in Your Pocket has brought me real joy because, for the first time, all the songs that I’m singing on the album are original. I’m coming into a new phase of songwriting; the theme of which lately has been, ‘how can we love each other better, maybe even love ourselves better, and reach out to help others as a community?’

I’ve been writing songs while thinking about how we can become better people. I’m not trying to preach anything, just exploring that for myself and sharing that experience with others. Some of these songs have come to me quickly; others come with a little more effort and craft. “He’s Gone,” the album’s opening track, came quickly after the death of a dear friend. He was my best friend‘s father, someone who had a big influence on my life—it was as if the words dropped out of the sky. When people got up to speak about him at his memorial, many referenced things about him that were directly in the lyrics. There’s a connection between the song and the actual reality of what people thought of this person. 

Other songs I’ve written lately have themes like that in “Church With No Walls,”  another that came to me quickly. It symbolizes the gathering around music—whether it’s at a venue, a festival, or even a living room—where people come together and cry or laugh, get excited or get sad. The camaraderie that you get to experience with music and dance, and the fellowship you have through music, festivals, and gatherings through song and music, that is a Church With No Walls. It’s not a religious church, but rather a spiritual place to be safe in: “We’re building a church with no walls, so we can gather one and all. / We’ll make sure nobody falls, when they come to the church with no walls.”

Anybody can come. I love that concept. People are responding to this song and others I’ve written, like “Surrounded By Love,” because that’s something that we all want and need. Maybe a lot of people just aren’t saying it. Maybe they are saying it. I don’t know. But it still feels good and right for the times.