Old Crow Medicine Show co-founder Willie Watson to perform at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo

Willie Watson doesn’t know if he’s played a concert in Whatcom County before. But if he has, it was a good one.

“Is there a place that’s got a little back porch? It’s like a really tiny room, small stage and there’s like a back porch along some water. I think that’s where I met my friend John Larrivée for the first time, because I had already been playing Larrivée guitars and he showed up,” Watson said in a phone interview with The Herald. “Not positive that was Bellingham.”

Watson, an original member of 2000s folk-revival pioneers Old Crow Medicine Show, will put his Schrodinger’s concert out of its misery this week when he brings his solo act to downtown Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo on Thursday. Watson is coming off of the release of his first original album — his first two solo albums consisted only of covers — in September.

“I used to talk about how I was trying to get people to understand that a person didn’t have to write the song for them to like it,” Watson said. “I talked about that in interviews until I was blue in the face. And it never mattered, it didn’t change anybody’s mind.”

While Watson built a career on covering classic folk songs, he said that writing his own material has always been a dream of his.

“It was really like a lifetime of sort of stopping myself in my tracks. And you know what? Sometimes taking the easy way out, too,” Watson said.

But after his time in Old Crow, where he wasn’t the primary songwriter, he didn’t feel the need to write his own material when he left the band in 2011.

“I got in a band at a young age and didn’t need to be the kind of songwriter that wrote songs on my own and stood on top of a label as ‘songwriter.’ I was more of like ‘band member, creative collaborator,’” Watson said.

Eventually, Watson decided that playing other people’s material wasn’t enough for him.

“[I’d say,] ‘The songs are better than anything I’m going to do. So I’m just going to stick with this, and I’m scared and traumatized, and don’t want to know how to put one foot in front of the other, so this is going to be what I’m going to do, maybe it’ll sustain me for the rest of my life,’” Watson said. “But just after 10 years, it proved to not be the case. Also, creatively, it was not fulfilling.”

At that point, he decided to give writing his own songs another try.

“I had to stop trying to hide behind anything else,” Watson said. “It got to the point where I felt like, not even that I was tired of hiding behind anything, it’s just how everyone views it.”

Watson, who recently turned 45, said that his age played a role in the decision to write his own music as well.

“Part of the story is just being an official middle-aged man,” Watson said. “When I used to write songs, what I used to get stuck on was what I was writing about, and do I not even know what I’m trying to write about, because I wanted to write about deep, emotional things. I wanted to offer, in my younger days I would have said it was some kind of wisdom in songs, but now I know it’s just offering some kind of hope. … I guess I feel like I have some perspective now that might be worth putting on paper.”

Watson enlisted songwriting partner Morgan Nagler and got to work on what turned into a nine-track self-titled album. The result, Watson said, has changed how he sees himself.

“I’m into what I’m doing. I like my record, and I’m a fan of my music now, like for real. I’ve always liked my records I make, and I like something I do, but then a year later, I’m like, ‘I don’t like that guy, I’m not a fan of myself,’” Watson said. “But I still am with this. I still am, and it gives me energy to do it.”

According to Watson, the album has changed how audiences see him, too.

“This is the first time I’m seeing them in this magnitude. And the audiences are more excited than they’ve ever been, louder than they’ve ever cheered,” Watson said.

The album is being marketed as his first solo album, a partial truth, which has caused some confusion for his fans.

“They’re like, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t your first record.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, but it is — kind of. Like, I know it’s not, but it is,’” Watson said.

But while it comes with some confusion, releasing his first original album as a respected musician well into his career has let Watson experience something that most artists don’t get to.

“At the same time, it’s stupid, because it’s what everybody does when they just start. They’re like, ‘I’m a musician, I’m a songwriter, I’m 18. I’m going to this town, I’m going to make a record. There’s a bunch of songs I wrote, and I’m gonna sell it,’” Watson said. “It’s crazy to experience it. And, I mean, I’m glad that I’ve gotten to save this until I’m 45 years-old to experience all this joy.”

The show will take place at The Wild Buffalo at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7. Doors open at 7. You can find tickets on the venue’s website.