Today, William Beckmann shares his mesmerizing cover of “I’m On Fire,” transporting all the lust and despair of the Bruce Springsteen original into a haunting, desert-noir landscape. Beckmann recently spoke about his journey to Nashville and shared the new single with Country Now.
Listen to “I’m On Fire” via YouTube HERE.
“One of my all time favorite albums is Bruce Springsteens’s Born in the U.S.A. It was one the first records I ever bought on vinyl,” says Beckmann. “I remember living in Austin my sophomore year of college and having it on repeat. When it came time to record new music, I decided I wanted to try and put a cool spin on ‘I’m on Fire.’ I’ve always loved that song.” He continues, “My producer, Oran Thornton, and I played all the instruments on the track. I played most of the guitars and the keys and he played bass and drums. He suggested we end the song with dueling guitar solos so we both plugged in our guitars and played to each other. The final outcome was a spooky somewhat Western sound.”
William Beckmann delivers a blend of vintage country, Americana and Latin music with a timeless baritone and an old soul maturity that belies his youth. Born and raised in the small border town of Del Rio, TX, Beckmann comes from a long line of cattle ranchers, but he always found himself more drawn to singing about cowboys than becoming one. After a few years spent in Austin, he relocated to Nashville, where he recorded his 2018 debut Outskirts of Town.
“I remember buying a record player my freshman year and going around to all the great record shops in Austin looking for cheap, used vinyl,” says Beckmann. “I’d stumble onto boxes and boxes of Kenny Rogers, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and George Jones, and the more I listened to that stuff, the more I realized that my voice could do a lot of the same things those guys were doing.”
After capturing the attention of elder statesmen like Randy Rogers and fellow Del Rio native Radney Foster, Beckmann has continued his rise this year while touring with Rogers, Parker McCollum and Wade Bowen. He recently released the slow-burn single “Bourbon Whiskey,” and his latest single “In The Dark” was hailed by CMT, who praised the way he “delves into the anguish, confusion and mystery left in the wake of a fizzled romance.”
William Beckmann is set to release even more new music in 2021. Stay tuned for details.