Garret T. Willie Is Right On Cue

From a burned-down pool hall in Alert Bay to Nashville studios, the 25-year-old bluesman turns whiskey, small towns and hard truths into Bill’s Cafe.

By Aidan Morris

Photos by Sydney Woodward

Published on February 26, 2026

There’s an empty room in Alert Bay, British Columbia (population 449), where Garret T. Willie’s guitar once echoed. His grandfather’s pool hall café, Bill’s Cafe, was where most days he had the place to himself — just him, the guitar and whatever ghosts lingered on the small island. A logging town where everyone knows everyone; where leaving feels both impossible and inevitable. The café burned down years ago. Willie named his new album after it anyway.

Growing up, Willie had a photo of Johnny Cash on his wall. Same stare as his grandfather. Same Air Force service. Same quiet gravity. For years, Willie thought it was his grandfather. Even after his mother told him otherwise, he didn’t buy it. It wasn’t until he stood in the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville that it sent him back — to the burned-down pool hall café. To the photo on the wall. To his grandfather.

At 25, Willie plays the blues like someone who’s lived three lifetimes already. His voice is gravel-soaked, his guitar work is raw and unrelenting, and his stage presence is towering. When asked where that intensity comes from, he just grins, “I’ve been through it.”

His upcoming album, Bill’s Cafe, traces that journey. Long nights, complicated relationships and the constant pull between staying and running. The closing track and lead single, “I’m Late,” touches on this. It’s self-aware without being self-pitying. He laughs about it though with the kind of laugh that suggests he recognizes himself in the story.

The women in Willie’s songs are a rogue’s gallery: manipulative, dangerous, broke but acting like royalty. “Hypnotist” is particularly vicious; Lacks character, knife in her purse, brown recluse. When pressed on who she is, “Glass houses—different people would claim it’s about them.” They are a collection, not a single muse. The chaos, it seems, is cumulative.

But there’s another side to Willie’s work, one that surfaces in “It Won’t Get Done,” a song about taking action and pulling yourself up. It’s motivational, almost optimistic — a stark contrast to the guy who can’t show up on time. Which one is the real Garret T. Willie? “Both,” he insists without hesitation, unbothered by the contradiction.

That honesty extends to the harder truths in his music. In “High Beam Blues,” someone has a problem with Willie — doesn’t like his driving, doesn’t like “his kind.” The line stands out, sharp and specific. Willie doesn’t dance around the meaning. He’s dealt with Indigenous racism. “Less so nowadays,” relieved, “but it’s very real, it’s happened to me.” It’s a rare moment of directness in a genre that often traffics in metaphor.

Previously nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award for Blues and Indigenous Artist of the Year, Willie doesn’t feel pressure to represent in any particular way. “My culture and music are separate,” he explains. The point, it seems, is that he’s a blues player. No qualifiers, no expectations.

When it comes to the blues itself, Willie is unapologetic. Devil women, whiskey, lonesome highways: it’s Blues 101. Though for Willie, it’s not an act. “I’m living it,” he insists. “The most manufactured parts might be the riffs, but otherwise it’s all real.” He shouts out Buddy Guy in “High Beam Blues,” a nod to a legend who’s been playing longer than Willie’s been alive, but he doesn’t feel the weight of that lineage. He just plays. Willie spent years trying to sound like his heroes; now he’s come into his own.

Bill’s Cafe was recorded in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Tom Hambridge. The pair built songs from the ground up, swapping lyrics, recording demos on their phones, working with Nashville’s best session players. It’s a far cry from that empty room in Alert Bay, the one that burned down, but the connection is still there — tethering Willie to his roots, whether he’s staying or running.

When asked what he’d want someone to know before pressing play on his music, Willie pauses, “I want them to listen, then make up their mind.” A fitting answer from a man who’s never waited for permission — or forgiveness.