Preface: Dylan is from the southern, Middle Tennessee area between Davidson County (Nashville) and the Alabama state line. The counties we talk about include Maury Country (Columbia), Williamson, Giles (Pulaski), and Lawrence (Crockett, Ethridge, Summertown, Lawrenceburg, Leoma, Loretto).

*This story is a re-print and edit of KLE’s July 22, 2023, Liquid Smoke show announcement.

Nashville, TN – Nashville-based songwriter/musician, area-Tik Tok popularity, Dylan Wilson, has two concurrent cases moving through life, right now. 

One case involves an ongoing civil dispute with himself that’s run Wilson into some serious binds under Tennessee state law, while another case on the docket is under an alias, King Lazy Eye, the stage name of Wilson, and who’s grown popular posting his authentic, backwoods TN comedy and solo, acoustic folk-punk videos online for a few years. And, with both cases as genuine as they are public, it’s easy to see they’re both fights in the same upward direction, though area-stereotypical/humorous through Wilson/King Lazy Eye, respectively. Both are fueled by anticipation towards King Lazy Eye’s debut album, All Cops Are Boyfriends, too, which Wilson loosely predicts will be available by late fall. Meanwhile, King Lazy Eye will make an appearance showcasing his popular, online and extraordinarily genuine solo work at Murfreesboro Proper beer and cigar lounge, Liquid Smoke, [February 23, 2024].

Folk & Proper sat down with Dylan for lunch at Nashville’s Village Pub, June 23, 2023, to talk about the progress of both these cases:

“I didn’t go to high school [in Lawrence County]. I went to elementary school there. [Crockett, Summertown, and Ethridge]. I moved to Columbia when I was in, -I didn’t go to school for an entire year.  Me and my family were “on vacation,” but they weren’t on vacation.  They were on the run, so like we were just staying at this hotel, and a bunch of cops just kick the door in, and I was like, ‘why were they kicking our door in on our vacation?’”

‘It’s Thanksgiving, guys! Everyone’s here!’

They were like, ‘you don’t have to go to school anymore.’  I was like, ‘awesome!’

Is that when you learned how to play guitar?

I learned how to play guitar when I was in seventh grade. That’ when I started.  My dad showed me, like, three chords. […] Then I started smoking pot and I stopped skating, locked myself in the bedroom for…years.

I used to get so pissed off playing music.  It used to be just a real point of intense stress for me […] just because I wanted to be better than I was, y’know.  I always wanted to be a writer.  I never cared about getting really good at guitar.  I just wanted be able to make a song that gave someone chill bumps, you know what I’m saying? That’s the goal. […] I mean, I do okay, but I’m not… 

I started a band in high school with my best friend, Greg.  Started playing shows in Murfreesboro when we graduated high school, and stuff.  I was still 17. He was still in high school. […] We were playing Three Brothers, when it was still open.  Playing a bunch of house shows.  We were, like, in a punk band.  Really loud. Really fast, and shit.  We were a two piece for a long time.  And, I started using drugs, -I had already been using drugs, but it was definitely out of control.  The reason why I started doing acoustic music is because, well, I burnt my bridges with literally everybody else I played with, so I was just by myself.  So, I just started doing acoustic music out of necessity more than because I chose to. [Old bandmates and I are] good, now, but, uh, yeah, I was getting really drunk and being an asshole.

I stopped performing for a little bit when I turned 25. Went to jail. Started getting into a lot of trouble, and kind of just kept going to jail and getting into trouble, and shit.  My Mom started [a] Tik Tok [account], and [,though ,] I was pretty much, ‘fuck that shit,’ […] I did, and it really helped out. It kind of like pushed my music further out there for other people to hear, and I was also doing comedy videos and shit like that, so I developed a following.

I have a few shows coming up just to keep people, like, somewhat happy because they’re really bothering me about playing out, and shit, [but] I’m just working on this album. That’s my main focus, right now, and it sounds really good.

How’s da baby?

He’s awesome, man.  He’s two. Turns three in January, so like two and a half, almost. He’s wild. He loves  music.  Carries his little guitar around with him everywhere.

I played a show in Decatur, AL, one time. I couldn’t find a sitter, so I had to bring him with me, but he wasn’t allowed in the brewery, so Sara [the mother] talks about holding him outside, but he saw me in there screaming through the glass, -they have those big ass garage doors that’re see-through, and ever since then, he’s been hooked.  Screams at people, yells at people. He thinks that’s what Dad does for a living.

He says ‘Dad does it!’

Dad does it!  Screaming at people in public, and stuff.  He likes really loud, fast music.  It’s hilarious. 

You’ve made a little punk already.

He loves The Dead Milkmen.  My son’s favorite band. (Miles, Dylan’s friend who’s joined us, giggles).

Stephanie (Dylan’s other good friend joining): Did he mention his favorite song of all?

“He likes a lot of their music.  He likes Stephen Lynch, too. ‘United States of Whatever’,” Dylan says.

The shows you’re talking about are on King Lazy Eye’s Facebook page. It’s Cobra, then Liquid Smokes after that, and a couple other spots, but folks have been on you about playing live?

Yeah, they’re really bothering me about it.  […] At first, I’m going on [a podcast called Back Alley Chat with Allie Severino], then Cobra on the 19^th of July.  Liquid Smoke is on the 22^nd. I’m a people pleaser by nature.

It’s a curse.

It’s a curse, [but] I’ve been trying to work on getting my priorities straight and all that.

Went through the whole pissing people off drunk and going to jails myself thing, so it’s somewhat understandable. I’m hoping that gives me a bit of clearance asking if you’re sober.

Actually, I am.  Miles [my assisted living house manager], here with me, we live in a sober-living house.

Rock n’ roll. That’s the question I was nervous about asking you…

I’ve had a lapse, -Naw, you’re good.  You can ask anything you want.  I don’t care… But, Yeah. I’ve relapsed, but all in all, I’m taking things pretty seriously.

How was the relapse?

Um, my first relapse was with methamphetamine.  That was a couple months ago. […] I overdosed.

Well, it’s good to see you.

Yeah. Didn’t know that was going to happen.  Just kind of came out of it, and [when] I woke up, there were paramedics and cops all around. I was like. ‘Am I going to jail?’

They [said], ‘No. Why would you be going to jail?’

I was like, ‘This is obviously not Maury County.’ 

Then I drank some alcohol after that, like, a month later.  That wasn’t too, too bad, but still a relapse, and relapses are…

…Well, it’s good to see you.

Plus, I’m like, court-ordered not to. […] I’m on paper for six years.  But, I’m on a furlough right now. I go back sometime in July to go back to court to get reinstated to probation, so I can go out of state and go to shows and stuff, which I’m not really worried about, right now. I’m just trying to keep it, like, open, right now. 

Running into any hiccups anywhere during production? 

Weirdly enough, no.  It’s coming together pretty fluidly. I’m actually, uh -it’s the first time I’ve ever recorded anything sober in my life; like, everything I’ve ever done in the studio that I… fully sober, and it’s awesome. […] I’m just going in there and putting it all on the line, just trying to… just trying to give it my all this time, y’know.

I’m working with the guitar player from Royal Teeth, kind of like a poppy rock band from the 2010’s […] and he’s producing my album.  His name is Thomas Onebane. […] He’s amazing. […] It’s completely different from what I’ve recorded in the past. You can [still] tell it’s me, but a lot better produced, bigger sound.  There’re some synths and some weird shit going on. [..] And, this is the first time I’ve ever, like, -I’m rewriting every song that I post, that I’m recording, we’re redoing the arrangements, so what you hear for the song “Pretty Ok,” with the video I posted, people really liked it, but […] the arrangement half-way through changes, you know what I’m saying?  Like, the chord structures and stuff like that.  We’re rewriting it.  We do that with every song.  We all get together, like, -the song I added a couple days ago, we added harmonies when our drummer [was] back, -my old drummer, and now he’s drumming for me again, so… […]  Riley Stevenson […] He’s in a lot of pretty successful acts around here.

Everything’s been very cohesive.  Everything’s been very fluid.  It just comes out, like, -we’ll just sit there for hours, -like, we have actual writing sessions.  We’ll go in the studio and we won’t record. Sometimes we won’t record shit [because] we’re just writing a song.  Sometimes I’ll show him, ‘hey, I wrote this song,’ and we’ll rework it to make it sound, -y’know, give it a formula without sticking to the verse, chorus, verse, chorus bullshit.  Y’know we wanna make it sound…

My favorite song, period, is Dwight Tooley Band, “Looking for the Magic.” […] They were kind of like a one hit wonder.

Did you craft anything of yours off them?

I am a huge fan of the way the vocals are recorded on that song. They had, -they tremelo’d it, but tremelo’d it in a way it cuts out, (does a vocal example). [The effect is tape echo, or “slapback” echo, -Steve Morley] It’s amazing. Kind of, like, at-a-glance, we’re a pop band [, now].

Any projected release date?

We have a season.  Yeah.  We have, like, late fall. […] I don’t know, man.  Since I got sober, and got my meds adjusted I’ve been on this weird, -I mean, [Miles, “I’m just a small part of what he’s doing, man.”] will tell you, I write all my songs in a broke down Saturn that sits on our property, and I’ve just been pumping songs out left and right.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m manic, or because I’m medicated and happy and sober, or what’s going on, but motivated, y’know.  I just sit inside, wait for everybody to go to sleep and take my guitar and I’ll go sit in that cramped ass, old two-seater Saturn, -it’s a little coupe. And, I’ll just sit in there and write songs.  I just, -I don’t know.  I can’t stop.

I was kind of in disbelief with the acoustics, and just the audio quality of your Saturn; just sitting in the back of a car.

In the back of those cars. So, there’s been several cars I’ve happened to be doing this:  Jeep, Grand Marquis, -that was the one Grand Marquis my dad stole and turned into a demolition derby car when I was in jail. […] There was a Nissan Altima, -or Nissan Sentra. […]  We have a running joke in our family me and my dad can’t be out of jail at the same time.

Those are the best ones.

[But,] everything I recorded online, everybody thinks I’m playing to a pre-recorded track, I’m not. I’m playing on my phone, and I mix the audio in an app. I just used an app to lower the mix down so it doesn’t make that clicking sound, then I put a compressor on it and reverb, and that’s it.

[Thomas has got this old, antique, Soviet Union microphone], man, but it’s a really cheap ass mic.  He’s obsessed with cheap Russian audio equipment, […] so he’s got this weird ass old Russian mic, and we used it to record the vocals, and […] a lot of the acoustic guitar layers that you hear in the background.  It’s really got a weird, sad Soviet sound to it.

So, now, I got a new lead player randomly through a pop singer named Alex Winston.  Then, we were, -he was like, we need a drummer, so I asked Riley a couple days ago.  But, all the drums we’re doing right now are just place holders until we can go to the studio to track’m, but the songs are almost done.  They’re like, programmed, right now, but they sound really good.

I’ve got you pegged to a collective out of Nashville…

Sky Daddy [Collective]? […] I didn’t re-sign with them.  I still work with them.  Y’know, they’re still my homies.  I was kind of like the first artist they worked with. Actually, my old bass player, he started it.  Michael Carter.  He started it.  He’s been scheduling shows in Alabama and Tennessee; in that area. He’s like the show king.  He can put a show together anywhere. And, he’s my bass player, and he kinda, like, got me started on it, and he really gave me a leg up, and stuff. I didn’t, -I chose not to re-sign with them just because they were more of for paying for the recording than for, y’know, which is basically getting recouped with interest, you know what I’m saying.  And since we’re recording it ourself, I do have a publishing deal with Upstate Sound, who are some amazing dudes.  They sign a lot of artists around here, like hip hop, -they’re mostly like a hip-hop label, but they’re doing all my publishing, and shit, and I’m, kind of like, the only artist that’s in my genre that they’re with.

I met these guys a long time ago when I was not even performing anymore, when I was kind of in a really low point in my life and I met these guys kind of before they got their legs up, y’know. They were always a fan of my songs, and shit, and maybe once I kind of like, got my shit straight a little bit, they were like, they wanted me to sign with them, but I didn’t.  But then I signed with Sky Daddy, and they were like, well, let us handle your publishing.  Sky Daddy hadn’t really figured that part out yet. And I did, and it was an incredible decision.  I’m still signed with them. As soon as our contracts up, I’m going to resign with them again just because they know what they’re doing, they have my best interest at heart. They have, like, penthouse lawyers and shit like that. […] They’re like some of my best friends.

[…] We’re doing everything in the [house] studio.  Then we’re going to take, -to do the drum tracks, we’re going to go into the studio to just do the drum tracks.  It’s all recorded to a click, so it’d be… […] We’re kind of going in reverse.  Y’know usually, you start it with a drum track and build everything off of that, but we’re doing it in reverse. […] Using a lot of, like, weird synth sounds and adding a lot of, like, weird textures, and shit.  They’re almost subliminal, but not.  Almost subliminal.  They’re almost not there.

“I got into [it] with, like, a bunch of the cops in the jail.  They tried to jump me in the jail cell, so I just kicked both of my feet up on both sides of the door and kicked as hard as I could and they all went tumbling down, like dew-dew-dew-dew (sound effect).

They make the noise and everything?

[…] I’m not even allowed there anymore.

So, this is some of the material in your songs.  Not all of it, though.  Are you pulling anything from the atmosphere, now?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m writing a song called, “Blues your Favorite Color, Now” pretty much about trying to fix somebody while you’re trying to fix yourself. 

First line is, “I’m digging up landmines I found on the front lines from a war you wage in your own mind,” like, basically, you feel like you’re walking on eggshells around someone who’s not taking their mental health seriously. While you’re trying to fix yourself, you’re trying to fix them, and its just not working out. 

That is extraordinarily relatable. I bet a million people respond to that.

People love… People love, -really like that one.  I’m not sure, -I think it was pretty divided on how many people like the lyrics versus the tone of my voice in it.  I’m really known for writing fast, like, down stroke-y, like, songs that’re like, dat dat duh.  When the…

In unison: the Punk

…comes in, y’know, but this ones like a little more, -the tempos fast, but the vocal pattern is more relaxed and shit, like, more drawn-out notes. 

Do you catch a lot of comments on your vocal stylings?

I used to. I used to. But I’m like the clap-back King, so, I would… The cool thing about Tik-Tok is that you can reply back with a video.  And I’ve embarrassed a lot of fckn people, just where like, -so actually the song, “Ha Ha,” […] somebody said you should stick with the standup act, so I wrote an entire song about cool ways to kill yourself.  And, he got a lot of hate mail for it.  So, I will embarrass you on the internet or sing a song about fucking your mom, if you try to embarrass me. […] Sort of like, Cure-ish vibes to it. […] It’s going on the album (As of now, 6/23/23, “They’re not mastered, or anything like, that, and they’re half-mixed, but, yeah,” says Dylan).

Stephanie, sarcastically: Yeah. I love a good song about suicide.

It is.  I’ll let you listen to the recorded version of it.  Sort of like, Cure-ish vibes to it. […] It’s going on the album (As of now, 6/23/23, “They’re not mastered, or anything like, that, and they’re half-mixed, but, yeah,” says Dylan).

Live shows?

Live shows, I’m just doing solo, right now.

You getting nervous, or anything?  -You can tell me to shut up if I’m asking these are you nervous questions because sometimes that pisses people off.

No. No.  I don’t get pissed off.  

No. I don’t get nervous.

Once you get going, man.  People are going to probably be asking you a lot, like, ‘hey what’re you doing this weekend?’ and it’s going to become like a full time job.

It almost already is.

Stephanie: I’m gonna tell you what I told him when I first time I met him is, my roommate is a musician and a lot of his friends are musicians, and they come over and play music, and I have to be polite, and I was really thankful I didn’t have to be polite. I actually liked his music. […] It was nice to hear the music that I like to hear in my house being played in the house instead of that weird jam band shit.

Dylan Wilson, a.k.a. King Lazy Eye, with all his stories, comedy, music, fandom banter and clap-backs, can be found across his social media pages on Tik Tok, @kinglazyeye; Facebook, /kinglazyeyemusic; YouTube, @KingLazyEye; and Instagram, @kinglazyeye (under Dylan Wilson name), as well as his homepage, kinglazyeye.com.  King Lazy Eye’s music is streaming across the icons at Spotify, YouTube, and Tidal.

King Lazy Eye Team be reached through these avenues, as well as through Megan at info@kinglazyeye.com. (“She’s from Iowa, and she lived here in Nashville.  I met her through her husband, [Pulaski’s Jon Holt] -probably one of my best friends. He recorded all my, -like, the first two songs.”)

Back Alley Chat, hosted by Allie Severino, “a person who lived with homelessness, addiction, mental illness, incarceration and foster care [with] a goal for this season […] to dive deep into these systems which oversee our most vulnerable populations.” Back Alley Chat can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever your podcasts are found.

Murfreesboro beer bar and smoke lounge, Liquid Smoke, is located at 2 N. Public Sq., Murfreesboro, TN.  Liquid Smoke can be reached at liquidsmoke.biz, or by phone (615) 217-7822.