Withered Hand

Withered Hand
Withered Hand performing at the Lexington in London on 25 September 2011.
Background information
Birth name	Dan Willson
Born	London
Origin	Edinburgh
Genres	Indie rock, folk rock
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	2009-present
Labels	Absolutely Kosher Records, Slumberland Records, Fortuna Pop!
Associated acts	Meursault, King Creosote, Enfant Bastard
Website	witheredhand.com

Dan Willson, better known by his stage name Withered Hand, is a Scottish indie rock musician. His first studio album, Good News, was released in 2009 in Scotland, and was re-released on 15 March 2011 on Absolutely Kosher Records in the United States. His new album, entitled New Gods, was released in March 2014 through Fortuna Pop Records in the UK and Slumberland Records in the USA. He performed at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas in 2014, as part of the Scottish Showcase.

He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness in Scotland, as well as in Bishop's Stortford. As a kid, he was not permitted to attend school assemblies, birthday parties or Christmas celebrations. He was worried throughout his childhood that his voice was too high, so he didn't begin singing until his late twenties, and he originally wanted to be a visual artist.

He began his solo musical career at age 30, after one of his close friends died and his wife bought him a guitar for his 30th birthday. As Withered Hand, the first song he wrote was Cornflake. Willson studied at Art College in London, and moved to Edinburgh with his then-girlfriend, to whom he is now married, in 1996. Shortly thereafter, Willson tried his hand at being a visual artist, but eventually abandoned his work in the field. He attributes this in part to his "lack of success in expressing myself visually." He was guitarist in Edinburgh band Barrichello, which he joined in 1999. This band broke up amicably in 2002. His second band was known as "Squits," and later became a short-lived art rock group named "Peanut." He was also a member of the short lived anti-folk group The Love Gestures alongside Cammy Watt of Enfant Bastard and Neil Pennycook of Meursault.

His wife gave him an acoustic guitar for his 30th birthday; Willson says when this happened it "stripped away lots of baggage." He has said that his upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness "gave [his] fledgling artistic temperament a lot to think about," and that since he was taught that the world would end very soon, he began to "read everything as a sign." The first song he ever wrote as Withered Hand was "Cornflake." He has cited Teenage Fanclub and Eugenius as two of the bands he listened to most often growing up, and as the reason why he was so glad that Eugenius' frontman Eugene Kelly appeared on New Gods. Willson, in fact, named his son after Kelly.