Willis: Both Disturbed, Disturbing

I’m doing great. Just been busy and working hard. I’m doing my damn to keep out of trouble. Sometimes that demon give me trouble. That demon give me a hellride by cussing me out with profanity. I ward it off on the bus I used to go in from now on. It used to pick me up in the year 1985 and 1986 and shot down. The demon shot rock music down. The demon sabotage against my music. The demon got me on a treacherous hellride I don’t want to be on. I’m keeping busy, I’m just doing well. I’m not gonna be warded off the joy music bus. I want to go on the trail ride instead of the hellride. I’m keeping busy. I think we have a hellride. Praise the Lord, I’m doing great. The demon make my life terrible. He shoot the whole rock set down.

In 1993 I demolished three portable CD players. And in 1994 I demolished more portable CD players. And in 1995 and now I haven’t demolished a CD player. I try to keep my music on. I’m doing great. Just been busy.

--Wesley Willis, in a recent phone interview

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Wesley Willis is a diagnosed chronic schizophrenic. Wesley Willis is a rock singer. Wesley Willis, some would say, is a sensation.

Numbering among his biggest fans are such trendy company as Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra and various members of the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers . . . you get the picture.

There have been precedents: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Wild Man Fischer, David Peel and the Lower East Side, Hasil Adkins and Jonathan Richman all come to mind. These artists are rock ‘n’ roll novelties whose acts were presented with varying degrees of eccentricity, all the way to outright mental illness. But Willis, who performs Sunday at the Lava Room in Costa Mesa, is in a league all his own when it come to certifiable insanity.

The demon that Willis speaks of is a voice in his head he calls “Nervewrecker.” In conversation, the 33-year-old is largely unresponsive to questions, going off into a stream-of-consciousness monologue that can be deeply disturbing and is at times indecipherable. He stutters and sputters, repeating himself endlessly as he delivers non sequiturs like a mad street person; in fact, Willis spent many years homeless, living on the streets of Chicago.

Therein lies the justification recited like a mantra by his fans, band members and publicists to rationalize what could be seen as a prime example of old-fashioned show-biz exploitation: Willis is happy, Willis is making money, Willis is well-taken care of; so what if his act draws gawkers coming out to laugh at the expense of the weirdo--he’s better off onstage than on the streets.

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Willis’ “songs,” all nearly identical in structure and named after rock groups ranging from the Jefferson Airplane to Nirvana, consist of insane rantings that shout the praises of his favorite artists. He will scream the name of the group repeatedly, tell you how many people he saw at their show and how much he enjoyed it, varying the pace by either enthusing they “whipped a camel’s ass” or they “whipped the police’s ass.” All this over a preprogrammed, cheezoid Casio keyboard program. And Willis hasn’t the amazing voice of a Hawkins or Brown, the fascinating vision of a Richman or Adkins or the skewed social statement of a Peel to legitimize the freak show.

This is the Willis one hears on his latest solo CD, “Rock ‘N’ Roll Will Never Die,” purportedly a “Greatest Hits” collection released by the small Oglio Records. On tour, he appears with his group, the Wesley Willis Fiasco. According to Fiasco drummer Brendon Murphy, the group live is a whole different ballgame than the Willis solo product.

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Murphy is also quick to convey Willis’ belief that he is exploiting the group rather than the other way around. And the drummer insisted--rather unconvincingly, it sounded to his listener--that he is 100% morally and ethically comfortable with being a member of the Fiasco.

The most odious aspect of the Willis phenomenon is the coterie of alternative rock elite that flocks to his side. There seems to be status involved with having your band immortalized in song by Willis, and the rockers curry his favor like so many termites tending to the queen.

Willis is a 6-foot-4, 320-pound giant of a man who eschews hugs and handshakes in favor of a mighty head-butt to demonstrate his affection, accounting for the large, purplish-black lump that permanently adorns his forehead like some twisted crown jewel. Embracing that jewel until one is knocked senseless is reportedly an act deeply coveted by rock’s self-conscious bad boys. It brings to mind the wretched trend that some Seattle bands indulged in a few years ago: imbibing a vomit-beer mixture pumped from the stomach of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow’s Matt “The Tube” Crowley.

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In drinking puke, the rock stars made fools of none but themselves, confusing bad judgment and poor hygiene with freak chic. In trumpeting Willis, they seem to be laughing not so much with him as at him, in a “let’s hang out with the retard and have a giggle” display of rank insensitivity, mindless pack mentality and rampant egotism. But then, rock musicians have seldom been noted for their keen sense of morality, so it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect them to examine the motives behind their actions.

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The rest of us are left to ask ourselves what all of this really means. Is Willis genuinely better off onstage making a spectacle of himself than he would be left to his own devices? Doesn’t he have the same right as everyone else to earn a living as he sees fit? If performing brings Willis joy and a temporary respite from the torments of “The Demon,” can his rock ‘n’ roll sideshow be anything but good?

Perhaps Sunday’s performance at the Lava Room will shed some light.

* The Wesley Willis Fiasco, with the Ziggens and South Bay Surfers opening, performs Sunday at the Lava Room, 1945 Placentia Drive, Costa Mesa. 9 p.m. $5. (714) 631-0526.