Garret T. Willie: Bill’s Café Review

If you’re a fan of old school roadhouse blues rock, Garret T. Willie’s Bill’s Café needs to be on your radar. Bill’s Café is released on Mike Zito’s Gulf Coast Records label on February 27. Reminiscent of ZZ Top, with Billy Gibbons’ gravel-laden vocals and guitar-centric sounds, Willie’s songs transcend his mid-twenties age. Garret is from Alert Bay, off the northeastern coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. He is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation and grew up in this tiny coastal community listening to classic rock and blues that shaped his sound, mixing Texas blues grit with AC/DC-style high-octane guitar.

Bill’s Café, named after his grandfather’s pool hall café, is the follow-up to his debut album Same Pain. Recorded in Vancouver, Same Pain garnered international acclaim, with top 20 chart placements in the UK, U.S., and Canada, along with Canadian Music Award nominations. This early success helped elevate his profile, leading to opening gigs for Kenny Wayne Shepherd and John Fogerty. When Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping the Blues Alive at Sea cruise held its Alaska edition this past fall, Willie was invited on board, where he played alongside the likes of Jimmy Vivino and Bonamassa himself.

Garret ventured south of the border to the recording hub of Nashville for Bill’s Café. Producing the album was the multiple Grammy-winning powerhouse Tom Hambridge, who also provided drums and backing vocals. Nashville also provided proximity to an all-star group of session contributors: Tommy MacDonald on bass; guitarists Kenny Greenberg and Audley Freed, known for their work with Cry of Love, The Black Crowes, and Sheryl Crow; and keyboardists Kevin McKendree and Mike Rojas.

The recording sessions gained unexpected personal inspiration for Willie. “Before my first writing session for Bill’s Café, I walked through the Johnny Cash Museum in Nashville. The visit hit hard. My grandfather looked so much like Cash. They both served in their respective Air Force service, same quiet gravity, same way of carrying the room without having to say much,” he shared on social media, followed soon after by declaring the album was “about living life at full volume.”

This emphasis is clearly evident in the first pair of singles from the album. “Devils Doll” is a blues rock stomper with claws that Joe Bonamassa included on his Epic Guitar Solos playlist. “Hypnotist” was a longtime live show staple that followed a month later. This one adds fangs to grooves rife with AC/DC influences. Garrett posted that the song is “about an ex who tried to drag my name through the mud… but the truth is… she was throwing stones from a glass house,” a theme that gets blasted away by the nearly three-minute closing power jam. Garrett isn’t shy about his love for AC/DC, proudly posting that they were the top-streamed band on his 2025 playlist and sharing old Halloween pictures of himself dressed as Angus Young. The influences are present throughout the album but surface strongly on some tracks, like the solo on “Going to Toronto,” a catchy road song about chasing a lost love.

Life-on-the-road themes are also featured on “High Beam Blues” and the third single, “Golden Highway,” a slower country-style ballad where you can hear the Hambridge influence. “I’m Late” is a raucous song for the habitually tardy that Garrett shared was “a real snapshot of life on the road when the clock never cuts you any slack.” “I’m Late,” also the most recent single, was promoted with a full performance-driven video. Willie also pays homage to his rural roots with the bluesy “Young Country Boy” and the heavier “Small Town People.”

Though not a single, Garret teased “It Won’t Get Done” in a short clip on social media. This track offers a basic lesson in empowerment and taking action: approach that woman at the bar, buy that guitar, keep living life. It appears Garret T. Willie is taking that advice at full speed.

With Bill’s Café, Garret mixes the small-town kid, the bruised storyteller, and the bar-burning guitarist to bring to life tales about home, hustlers, and heartbreakers in a gritty blues rock album that demands more volume.

The Review: 8/10

Can’t Miss Tracks

– Hypnotist
– Devils Doll
– Going to Toronto
– I’m Late
– It Won’t Get Done
– Golden Highway

The Big Hit

– I’m Late