Atom Willard is a musical nomad. The 44-year-old drummer has lent his talents to myriad bands, from punk cult icons like Rocket from the Crypt to household names like The Offspring. His current gig finds him behind the kit for Against Me!, the anarcho-punk legends who on Friday night will headline a Live on King Street season finale that also doubles as a celebration of the “new” Majestic’s 10th anniversary.
And though the stage will be aimed directly toward the office of a political polar opposite, Gov. Scott Walker, Willard jokes that the Florida four-piece won’t have any trouble expressing their distaste.
“The band is so outspoken and so overt in their political leanings and feelings anyway that it’s like, are you going to play this song about the color yellow or that song about the color yellow? They’re all kind of aimed in the same direction of oppression and bullshit from the powers that be.”
Ahead of the Sept. 29 show, Willard walked The Bozho through some of the highlights of his colorful, eclectic career.
Atom is born Adam David Willard on Aug. 15, 1973 in San Diego, California.
My parents got me a drum set when I was 4. I guess I had been knocking around on stuff at home, just doing whatever with pots and pans. I would take a few weeks of lessons here or there but I never really stuck with it, so mostly I learned by playing along with records.
At 16, Willard joins seminal soul-punks and San Diego natives Rocket from the Crypt.
My first job that I ever had was at a shop. The guys there were like, “We should get together and jam” and we kinda ended up with a band that we would play around San Diego with. The guys in Rocket saw me and were like, “Hey, do you want to come play with us?” I ended up with Rocket for about 10 years.
[By the end] I was like 26 and trying to figure out what I was doing because we would go on tours and come home with very little or no money. And I’m like, “Man, this is not a way to buy the hot rod that I want to buy. I can’t do any of the things I want to do. I want to have a little bit of a life here and not just be on the road.”I thought we were doing a pretty good job. It’s just the way that we were dividing up the money and the way that we were organizing things. I thought we could do it differently and better.
After leaving RFTC, Williard moves gig-to-gig with several bands, including tour drum technician for Weezer. In 2003, Willard gets a full-time job as drummer for another massively successful band: the pretty fly white guys The Offspring.
[Those Offspring tours] were all pretty big shows, especially overseas. Everywhere we went besides America, it was these huge soccer stadiums and arenas. I think there was a little bit of some nerves and that kind of stuff, but for years and years I played without my glasses or contacts and that really helped me have a detachment from everything because I can’t see shit. I could be in my living room or the practice room. It didn’t feel like there were 100,000 people out there.In 2005, Willard and former Blink-182 singer Tom DeLonge form Angels and Airwaves, leading to his (amicable) departure from The Offspring.
Tom was a fan of Rocket from San Diego back in the day. We had a mutual friend who knew that Tom was looking for a drummer and ostensibly he called and was like, “What’s your deal with The Offspring?” I’m like, “Well, I’m an employee.” Tom says, “I want to start a band that’s a family. I want to do something where we’re all involved and benefit equally.” For me it was pretty easy to make that decision, to go and work with people as opposed to for people.
We were writing music and recording it with iconic movies playing in the background. There was always imagery and a visual accompaniment to everything that we were doing. That was a fun time, and it was exciting because it did feel like we were doing something a bit different.
At the Warped Tour in Milwaukee in 2008, Willard meets the teenaged version of this piece’s writer.
I didn’t know if you were going to bring it up or not. I was a little nervous.
In 2013, Willard fills in on an Australian tour for Against Me!, one year after singer Laura Jane Grace came out as transgender in Rolling Stone.
I had read about Laura’s coming out and that kind of thing. And I was like, “Huh, OK” and then I just didn’t really think another thing about it. You know, as a fan does — maybe I wasn’t the most active Against Me! fan, but I was definitely a fan. I was consistently listening to their records and just enjoying the music for what [seems like] forever. And then it was like, “Oh yeah, they probably should have a new record coming out at some point. Wait a minute; what’s this? They need a drummer to go to Australia? I’ve got that month off. I can do that.” And so it just kind of happened in the most organic way.
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