William Fitzsimmons

Photo by Tim Gaylord.

Fitzsimmons describes his upbringing in Pennsylvania, with his blind mum and dad, as "normal in some ways, and extremely unusual in others." He is quick to acknowledge the profound impact it had on his development. Music was, he admits, "never a dream so much as an absolute necessity in order to get along in our household. I don't like to label my parents as disabled but it was definitely different, not being able to look into their eyes, or they into mine. There was a gap, and it was felt very early on. Music was the way my parents communicated. That was the language in our household, and how we spoke on an emotional level."

William began writing songs, he says, "Quite late in life", and self-released his debut album, Until When We Are Ghosts, in 2005, when he was 27. The 11 songs on that collection were a way of clearing his brain before he could embark on his career as a counsellor for the mentally ill. "The most important part of training to be a counsellor is learning to expunge your own demons so that you can effectively address those of another," he explains. Following this purgative experience, he intended to become a good counsellor, no more, no less: "Music has always been a part of who I am, but it was never my goal or thought for that to be my occupation."

And yet, the Ghosts album didn't really deal with his parents' divorce when he was 12 and he still felt as though there was unfinished business, and issues that needed resolving. So he began working on the material that would comprise his second long-player, Goodnight. It was recorded as he completed the studies that would enable him to become a therapist in a psychiatric unit, a gruelling period that saw him burning the candle at both ends, doing both jobs at once.

The resulting songs, delivered in a breathy voice that conveyed intimacy and adorned with piano, guitar, some strings and electronics, were hushed reveries and quiet ruminations on sorrow and separation and the pain of parting, about a period in William's life that really took it out of him. Ironically but not surprisingly, the making of the album also took a heavy toll.

Quite apart from his parents, who on hearing the finished album finally understood how great an effect the divorce had had on their son, there was the impact that the tortuous recording had on his own marriage, to his childhood sweetheart.

"It was easily the darkest time I've been through," he reveals. "My marriage hadn't been good for some time and that was the final straw, recording that album. To this day I still don't know whether the process I went through to make those songs was a symptom or a cause of a larger issue, but I do know that I regret it. I don't know if it would have changed anything, but I regret it."

Either way, by the time Goodnight - recorded in a studio in the middle of nowhere with boarded-up windows - was finished, so was the marriage.

"It's not that I'm ashamed of those songs per se, but from them I will always be reminded of the worst mistakes I've made: losing my house and my wife, being broke and homeless. I'm of the mindset that suffering can be a curative experience, but I wouldn't have wished those days on anyone."

He cites as an example of this murky methodology Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks; an example of a musician committing to the task at hand - communicating authentically the turmoil that results from a broken relationship or marriage. "To convey heartbreak you have to experience loneliness," he says. "I wanted it to be a dark experience. It just went too far."

So far, in fact, that William couldn't turn back. After Goodnight, he left therapy behind and became a full-time musician, the demand being so great for him to do so. The first people in thrall to his rousing ballads were not only fans, but also highly influential TV programmers. Within only a couple months after being found on his Myspace page, he was being featured on programs such as "Grey's Anatomy."

At this point, Fitzsimmons had no manager or label, just a small TV and film agency who "believed in the music and truly thought it was something others should hear." He was also homeless and jobless, however, having given up therapy. So he crashed on friends' couches, sold what little musical equipment he had left, and even moved back in with his mum for a time. "It certainly wasn't the happiest time, but it was important. I needed to learn from my poor choices and I was grateful to have to figure things out on my own. I was never forced to do that and I needed to be." There was also a "pathetic irony", he says, in that making a record about the collapse of his parents' marriage led to the collapse of his own. Returning to the language he knew best, William slowly began writing songs that would become his next work: The Sparrow And The Crow.

"It was never my intention to be so engrossed in these things: heartbreak, divorce, darkness, and so forth, but I suppose it's what needed to come out at the time. I don't believe we get to where we need to be until we deal with the past. I saw no other way." Over the course of several months, Fitzsimmons wrote several songs which were meant "to communicate the things to my former wife that I never got the chance to say." Conceived as a letter of unspoken thoughts, confessions, and apologies, the songs "were the final words I needed to say before the matter was put to rest for good."

The Sparrow And The Crow is bathed in similar autumnal hues as Goodnight. It even starts with a version of the song that closed its predecessor - Afterall was the final track on Goodnight; After Afterall opens The Sparrow...

"I intentionally connected the two records," he explains, "because they're different chapters of a similar book. In hindsight I began to see the unfortunately obvious connection between what happened to my family growing up, and what happened to us in our own relationship."

The differences lay in the "surface-level stuff" - The Sparrow... was the first record he'd made in a proper studio. With regard to the songwriting, William says he'd "learned how to write songs which could communicate things I couldn't even suggest with words. I tried to be as honest as possible with The Sparrow... On Goodnight I was still hiding behind metaphors and clever analogies which is fine and can be entertaining. But I wanted The Sparrow... to be as plainly communicative as possible. All the way down to the bone."

The titles - I Don't Feel It Anymore (Song Of The Sparrow), We Feel Alone, If You Would Come Back Home, Please Forgive Me (Song Of The Crow), Further From You, Just Not Each Other, You Still Hurt Me - leave no doubt as to how he was feeling when he wrote the songs. "I felt like going for poeticism for its own sake would have been a waste of time."

The Sparrow...was recorded mostly with friends - Priscilla Ahn and Caitlin Crosby - and a few musicians brought in by the producer. "We recorded it piecemeal and wanted to keep it small," he says. "It was meant to be quiet and sombre."

There has been nothing sombre about the way it was received on its release in the States. ITunes called it "The best singer-songwriter album of 2008." He's also delighted with the comparisons made between The Sparrow... and the Bon Iver record For Emma, Forever Ago. "I have a huge amount of respect for Justin [Vernon], so it's really an honour. I always think people need to be careful with comparisons, however, because both of these stories are very real and extremely personal and idiosyncratic. But as long as people realise that going in, the comparison is a brilliant compliment."

As for the future, William isn't sure, although he doesn't see himself writing perky pop ditties any time soon. "I only ever write about what's going on for and in me. Now, unless a meteor falls on my house I'm in a much better place than when I wrote all those songs. But I don't have the ability to write about sunshine and rainbows, at least not yet. Not that I can't write about beautiful and happy things, but we're all made very differently. Someone wrote of Mark Kozelek [of Red House Painters] that his songs were always melancholic, but that's who he is and what he does well and there should be no shame in that. There's no reason why he should write a different record than what he is meant to write; it would be like Einstein deciding he wanted to be a swimming coach because he'd had enough of Physics. You do what you're good at. I don't intend to write anymore about divorce, I'm over that - two records is plenty - but I'll only write about what is true experience for me at the time. It's only fair of me to stay as honest as I can."

In the meantime, he'll be touring with a band for two months this winter, where he'll be performing his songs - effectively showing his diary entries - to audiences across Europe.

"Yes, it is a bit weird, and a bit painful" he concedes of having to open up in front of strangers. But then, when you've been a counsellor for the mentally ill, you're pretty much prepared for anything. "It taught me to be comfortable with what is utterly uncomfortable for most people. The first time somebody cut their wrists on my unit and showed me how they were bleeding all over the floor I was a little bit shocked. But I learned quickly that if I wanted to help people out I had to be comfortable with people's darkness, so very quickly it became routine to hear people tell me how much they'd want to end their lives or how difficult it was to cope with the voices in their heads. So it didn't feel too awkward anymore for me. If my clients could do it, then I could open up to strangers, too. And as long as it's helping me, and I believe it's helping others, it's exactly what I'm going to do."