Young Will Sexton Making It With His Roots Intact

The Sexton brothers, Will and Charlie, used to be quite a sight around Austin barrooms, wrapping their fingers around guitar necks on stage before their ages were even into double digits. Among the local talent with whom they sat in as mere children were the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble.

Now, of course, the Sextons are 17 (Will) and 19 (Charlie), matured and making highly noticed records of their own. No longer young enough to win Brownie points for precociousness, they’re being stacked up and rated against their elders--and sometimes judged harshly for their creative decisions.

Charlie in particular, who released his own debut at 17, took a lot of grief. His album “Pictures for Pleasure” was slick, English-sounding, Bowie-esque--and though it had its merits, some critics and some Austinites charged that he’d been turned into something he wasn’t, a sellout before he was old enough to vote.

But the younger brother’s group, Will and the Kill--which plays tonight at the Roxy and Saturday at Bogart’s--has escaped a lot of heavy criticism from at home or abroad. That’s due in large part to the perception that the band’s recently released debut album, produced by Austin roots-rocker Joe Ely, stays largely true to the raunchy, straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll spirit of the brothers’ Texas origins.

(In fact, the album also flirts with ‘80s hard rock flavorings, not surprising given Will’s predilection toward L.A.-based bands like Guns N’ Roses. Toward that end, metal maestro Michael Wagener was brought in to produce the opening song, “No Sleep,” for a heavier guitar touch.)

Even if Will is usually the favored one when purists bring up such comparisons, he’s quick to defend the different, more commercial course his older brother has taken.

“The way I look at it is, when people slag other people, it’s either petty jealousy or stupidness,” the younger Sexton said by phone from a Santa Rosa tour stop this week.

“(Charlie) did what he wanted to do. As far as I’m concerned, with any band, whether or not it’s personally my favorite kind of music, whatever kind of music makes somebody happy to play is what they should be playing, because that’s what it’s all about.

“Charlie by no means is doing something that he didn’t want to do. And he’s doing what makes him happy, and I think he’s doing a hell of a job doing it, too.”

Both Sextons share the same record company, MCA, which Will says made no attempt at molding either brother, contrary to popular rumor.

“You know, (people) try to say that about Charlie, but the fact of it is, (record companies) really more or less let you do whatever you want to do,” said Will.

“And if it doesn’t work, then it’s nobody’s fault but your own. I mean, they sign you because they believe in you. At least in my case, they let me do whatever I want.”

Can he really be mature enough to know exactly what that is yet?

“I know what I want to do,” Sexton said. “So I’m doing it. . . . I think it’s everything I wanted a debut album to be.”

Cynical older rockers might dispute Sexton’s rosy portrait of record company non-interference--but the guy is only 17, and still fairly new to Los Angeles.

One record industry lesson he has obviously learned--though he doesn’t refer to it directly--was how the enormous hype surrounding brother Charlie may ultimately have hurt his first album as much as it helped it.

Will was determined not to be party to a similar scenario.

“This album wasn’t crammed down everyone’s throat,” he said. “It was just kind of put out there, and people are picking it up and listening to it (on its own merit). That’s the most important thing that I was happy with about this record.”