Growing up, William Clarke Green had heard stories about the Baker Hotel in the little Texas town of Mineral Wells. a couple hundred miles away from his home in tiny Flint.

Going to college at Texas Tech in the far larger Lubbock, Green encountered more and more tales of the mysterious hotel, stories that triggered him to get out a pen and guitar.

“I’ve lived in that area for so many years, you kind of hear of all that stuff, all the rumors, all the stuff about it being haunted,” he said. “All my buddies jumped off the hotel. I thought it would be cool to write a Norman Rockwell type All American story where these kids break into this hotel. It took years and years, but last year I got it done.”

Not only did Green write and record the song. He created a treatment for a video that’s become an online attention-grabber.

“The video’s just following the song, doing our best to visualize it,” Green said. “We wrote a template, then our video guy put it together…We were able to shoot the video in the hotel….The lead contractor for the remodel ended up being a huge fan of ours. It just kind of worked out. We weren’t expecting any access. There’s all kinds of liability with all the construction and everything. But they let us in and we got to do everything we wanted.”

That video has had thousands of views and hundreds of comments, which came as something of a surprise to Green.

“It’s definitely off the beaten path,” he said of the hotel. “It’s not on the way to anywhere. But we’ve gotten so many comments from people about how they broke in when they were kids or how they’ve heard those stories, so it’s gotten some attention.”

“Baker Hotel” is title cut of Green’s sixth album that’s another showcase for Green’s hard-to-pigeonhole Americana, with styles that run from country and singer/songwriter folk to rock ‘n’ roll.

““I’m just trying to be as creative as possible,” Green said. “The same-feeling song after the same-feeling song is dull to me. That’s what we’ve always done is just try to be different than what everyone else is doing…I want it to be different, so that’s a (commercial) sacrifice. As a fan, I understand. When I hear a Chris Knight record, I want to hear a Chris Knight record. But as an artist, I can’t do that.”

But Green’s drive to be different and his determined independence that has him releasing music on his Bill Grease Records and running his career has put him in a position to succeed – by constant touring for 15 years, spreading out from Texas to the Midwest and then the rest of the country.

“When record sales went to s***, record labels started doing 360 degree deals, taking some of the touring and merch,” Green said. “We’ve always had the model where you go tour and sell merch. Our business model is set up perfectly…

“Now all the songwriters in Nashville, if you want to work with them, you have to give points on the record. The money’s dried up. It’s all touring. It’s all merch. What’s amazing is it puts all the power in the fan. For guys like me, it’s amazing. We used to worry about labels and radio. Now we’ve got as much playing field as the big guys do.”

Being independent, Green said, suits him just fine – even if his musical and business choices alienate some fans and the industry.

“I don’t want anybody telling me what to do and how to do it,” he said. “That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

The playing field that Green talks about is, of course, is the road, to which Green and his band returned as quickly as possible after being sidelined by the pandemic.

“We were in New York City the day that COVID hit and the roof came down. We just haven’t been back since 2020. Now we’re actually able to get back to it…You’ve got to work. You can’t sit home. You’ve got to work.”

William Clark Green plays District Live at Plant Riverside District on Thu., Nov. 3, 8 p.m. ticketmaster.com

This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2022.