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All Music Guide:
Wesley Willis was a schizophrenic street singer who built up a small cult following with his bizarre, three-chord rants about trivial everyday items, music, and people he knew. Willis was discovered singing on the streets of Chicago in the early '90s. For the first part of the decade, several independently released tapes of his songs appeared, eventually followed by indie recordings of his albums. By 1995, he had gained the attention of several well-known musicians, including Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. Shortly before signing a major label contract with American Records in 1996, Willis was profiled on MTV, which resulted in increased recognition in certain alternative rock circles. However, it didn't result in good sales and both of his American Records of 1996 -- Fabian Roadwarrior (released in August) and Feel the Power (released in October) -- were flops. Black Light Diner appeared to little notice in 1997. And in mid-2000, Willis released Dr. Wax and Rush Hour. Shake Your Piggy Bank followed in early 2001. Willis was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002 and was recovering from surgery when he died at the age of 40 on August 21, 2003.
Wikipedia:
Wesley Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was a musician and artist from Chicago. A diagnosed chronic schizophrenic, he gained an enormous cult following in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of simple but unique music, with emphasis on his humorous, bizarre, and frequently obscene lyrics. In addition to his large body of solo musical work, Willis fronted the punk rock band the Wesley Willis Fiasco. He was also a visual artist long before his forays into music, and produced hundreds of intricate, unusual, colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of Chicago streetscapes and CTA buses.
Life
Willis was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 31, 1963. In 1989, Willis began hearing what he called "demons" and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was institutionalized for two months after his diagnosis. He often mentioned that his demons were named "Heartbreaker", "Nervewrecker", and "Meansucker". He called his psychotic episodes "hell rides", and alternatively, he declared rock and roll to be "the joy ride music".
Willis sold ink pen drawings of the Chicago cityscape on the street. In The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll, Steve Albini tells an anecdote about how Willis was in one train station drawing a detailed picture of a different train station from memory. These works of outsider art appear on the covers of his albums. Willis joined musicians from the city's alternative rock scene to form the hard rock band The Wesley Willis Fiasco. Willis created a fervor in the Chicago music scene and soon caught the attention of American Recordings, an independent label distributed by The Warner Group.
In early 1994, Willis recorded with the Canadian industrial-metal band Monster Voodoo Machine and appeared on their Juno Award winning debut album Suffersystem (RCA Records). In 1995, Willis was signed as a solo musician to American Recordings and went on to record two albums while producing dozens of other albums independently, becoming a minor novelty rock sensation. He toured frequently, was profiled on MTV and was a guest on The Howard Stern Show on September 26, 1996 where he played nearly identical songs about Baba Booey and Howard Stern.
Rock critic and Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff wrote that Willis' "[P]eriodic appearances for crowds of jeering white fratboys evoke an uncomfortable combination of minstrel act and traveling freak show." Conversely, guitarist Scott Anthony, who toured with Willis in 1998, said "It's not frat boys coming to his shows and making fun of him; it's punk rock kids who appreciate that he sings stuff people are thinking." Willis was known for greeting people with a friendly headbutt, resulting in the notable callus on his forehead.
On August 21, 2003, Willis died due to complications from chronic myelogenous leukemia in Skokie, Illinois. He was 40 years old. A memorial service for him was held on August 27, in Chicago.
Hellride
"Hellride" is the term used by Willis to describe his encounters with "demons", which occurred mainly on the CTA bus lines in Chicago. Willis, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, often claimed that demons were trying to ruin his "Harmony Joy Music" or "Joy Rides". Willis also used the term to describe general harassment: In one of his songs he says, "He gave me a yelldown warhellride." When asked about the demons or Hellrides, Willis would often comment that he was trying to "stay the hell out of prison" by "not hitting people in the street with bricks." In several songs, both terms are used openly. One of Willis' songs is entitled "I Deserve a Warhellride".
Song style and structure
The Wesley Willis Fiasco songs were essentially punk rock songs with Willis howling his obscene, absurd rants as lyrics. Some called it exploitation; others dubbed it "savant-garde." The Wesley Willis Fiasco recorded at least three cover songs: Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak", Pure Prairie League's "Amie", and Duran Duran's "Girls on Film", the last of which was recorded for a 1997 Duran Duran tribute album. Another song by the Wesley Willis Fiasco, "The Bar Is Closed", recreates a section of Rush's "Tom Sawyer"; the song "Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost" does the same with Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'".
After the Fiasco broke up, Willis' popularity increased markedly. As a solo artist, Willis created more than 50 albums, each with over 20 tracks, full of bizarre, tense, and often obscene rants about crime, fast food, cultural trends, bus routes, violent confrontations with superheroes, commands for his "demons" to engage in bestiality (in The Daddy of Rock 'N' Roll, Willis explained that these songs (e.g. "Drink a Camel's Cum, Suck a Cheetah's Dick") would "gross out" the demons enough to leave him alone), and praise for his favorite actors, friends (both platonic and romantic), politicians, and hip-hop and rock artists. Songs about rock artists were usually confined to describing a show performed by the band that Willis had attended or opened for, recycling key phrases such as "The crowd roared like a lion," "A lot of people met the band," "The band got down like a Magikist," and the opening couplet "This band played the [venue of appearance] / About [number] people were at the show," as well as uses of the phrases "rock show" and "jam session" in conjunction with "the (rock) show was..." or stating that the existence of one of these within the show "was awesome" or "whipped a(n) [random animal, generally a non-human mammal]'s ass". Many songs end with the phrase "Rock over London, rock on, Chicago," followed by a product slogan, such as "Polaroid. See what develops."
Willis' keyboard of choice was the Technics KN series. Willis would obsessively trade in one KN model for the newest ones on the market during the time when he was making the most money (after his break-up with The Wesley Willis Fiasco). The KN1200 was the keyboard he was currently using, according to a Howard Stern interview.
