He’s a loner, yet he’s never alone

PSEUDO-FOLKIE Keller Williams is an unlikely person to write a punk song, since his audience has a reputation for being jam-happy neo-hippies rather than angry young men (and women). So the opening track on his new, extremely eclectic album, “Dream,” comes as something of a surprise; it’s a bitter blast of raging guitars with lyrics that sound like an anti-corporate-rock bash. But, in this case, first impressions are wrong.

“Somebody, somewhere, said, ‘Why don’t you write a song that sounds like the songs on the radio in hopes of getting airplay?’ ” Williams says. “I listened to commercial rock radio and followed the formula of what I was hearing at the time. What I was hearing were fast, upbeat songs with distortion; phone-filtered vocals, as if someone was talking on the phone; and each song I heard had the [f-word] taken out, almost as if it were a prerequisite to be played on commercial alternative radio. That was obviously part of the formula.”

And Williams is obviously a musician with a great sense of humor. He almost has to be: He has toured almost exclusively as a solo act for the last 15 years, playing songs on his acoustic guitar that he loops through a series of pedals to create the impression that he’s playing with a full band, as he’ll do again this Friday at the Henry Fonda Theatre.

But the loner bent can make a musician long for collaboration, which is why Williams finds himself surrounded by guests on his new album. Each song features a collaborator, most of whom own the same jam-band, cult-hero status that Williams himself has. Eight-string guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter, for instance, noodles around Williams on the instrumental “Kiwi and the Apricot,” and hip-hop political pugilist Michael Franti sings through reggae-inspired “Ninja of Love.” But the biggest name was also the first to commit: Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, who plays “Cadillac.” Like many of the guests on the record, Williams first met Weir while touring.

“Once I got the yes from Bob Weir, who was the first person we asked, we kind of went from there,” Williams says. “It just kind of snowballed. It was a slow-rolling snowball. It wasn’t a fast snowball. It was a moist, slushy snowball.”

The hard-touring Williams won’t say who turned him down for the project -- he’s cool like that -- but he raves about the ability to put something like “Dream” together as if it were ... yes, a dream.

“I’ve been so fortunate to cross paths with so many wonderful musicians, and it seems like a real waste not to utilize the talent that I’ve come in contact with,” he says. “It’s a real joy for me to be able to hear these things that I’ve made up played by my heroes. It was a real goal of mine [with this record] to make that happen.”

Still, Williams is back on the road solo: There are some things you can achieve alone that just couldn’t happen with a backing band.

“At the Jerry Garcia Birthday Bash in West Virginia, there was a banner hanging in front of the audience lights -- the big lights that shine to show the audience. One of those lights was left on and caught the banner on fire,” Williams says. “Luckily, I had the loop set up and my guitar was on wireless. I simply walked off stage with the loop going as I was playing the solo. I was 20 feet away, watching them put the fire out -- and there was never a break in the song.”

weekend@latimes.com

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Keller Williams

Where: Fonda Theatre, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Price: $20

Info: (213) 480-3232 (Ticket-

master); www.goldenvoice.com/concerts.htm