It has been more than two years since loop aficionado and one-man jam band Keller Williams last visited Carbondale.

The date was April 28, 2012. Copper Dragon was packed and the atmosphere was alive within the venue as Williams danced around stage in an energized fury.

Williams makes his long-awaited return to Copper Dragon this Friday at 10 p.m.

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Williams continues to be one of the hardest working people in show business. Beyond his solo act, he leases his talents to several other projects of all different musical genres. His hard work makes him a must-have act on the bill for most jam-band music festivals.

He first got his start in the early 1990s with the release of his debut album “Freek,” coming in 1994. Since then, Williams has taken the music scene by storm, producing an album almost every year, predominately through SCI Fidelity Records – an independently owned record label out of Boulder, Colo., owned and operated by Williams’ close friends and nationally touring jam band The String Cheese Incident.

The two titans within the jam band community have built a lasting relationship over the years in Colorado, with their first collaboration, “Breathe,” coming in 1999 under the name Keller Williams Incident. Since, members of SCI have sat in on some of Williams’ side projects, such as Grateful Grass, which is an all-star collaboration of musicians who play bluegrass covers of Grateful Dead originals.

Some of his other projects include sit-ins with Larry and Jenny Keel, dubbed Keller and the Keels (bluegrass), The Travelin’ McCourys (bluegrass) and Keller Williams with More Than a Little (funk), just to name a few.

In a career spanning more than 20 years, Williams has crossed about every boundary there is in the music industry, even trying his hand at children’s music with the 2010 release of “Kids.”

His solo act redefines the meaning of a singer-songwriter. ADM or acoustic dance music is an interesting change from your average folk singer strumming along with only a guitar.

Williams spoke with the DAILY EGYPTIAN before his return to Carbondale to discuss ADM, his relationship with SCI, his beginnings in music and how his influences have changed over time.

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DAILY EGYPTIAN: What is ADM?

KELLER WILLIAMS: It’s a bit of joke really. Acoustic guitar mentality and then kind of looping drum beats with acoustic music on top. It’s just a bit of a fun little direction to go in mentally. What ADM is to me is a mental attitude with acoustic music.

DE: How have your influences changed over time?

KW: Opposites attract for me somehow. I find myself in a lot of situations of acoustic music, bluegrass, sit-ins, trading solos and harmonizing. And then when I go to actually listen to something, I find myself dialing up super electronica, kind of super funky dupstep. There’s a channel I really like on Rhapsody called Acid Jazz, which is kind of taking a jazz approach to electronica. Electronica has so many different sub-genres and there are so many different styles of dance music right now. I guess my influences have changed in the sense of technology and energy. The more energy involved in the delivery and attitude of the music, the more I’m attracted to it.

DE: When would you say you first got involved in music?

KW: My first recollection was “Hee Haw,” which was a show on television with Buck Owens and Roy Clark. I guess I was three and that came on once a week. I was always singing and dancing and pretending to direct from an early age. Even before I was playing music, I was pretending to play it.

DE: All of your album titles are one-syllable words. Is there a reason behind that?

KW: It started from the first record, you know of trying to come up with one-syllable description of the compilation of tunes that is this record. The idea is to describe with one-syllable a word that sticks out when listening to this entire compilation of tunes.

DE: What attracts you about the jam-band community?

KW: I think just the open-mindedness and the acceptance of improvisation and the way there is no singular genre. The jam-band fans like it all. They like country and western. They like bluegrass. They like punk rock. They like metal. They like hip-hop. They like trance and dubstep. Just little bits of each one mixed into everything is how they like it, and I like them for that.

DE: Could you describe your songwriting process?

KW: Well, it’s different. Different songs call for a different message. Some songs, believe it or not, just appear in the form of a chorus. Once I have that chorus, then I’ll start basing verses around that chorus. Other times, I’ll give myself a writing assignment where I would create a character and take that character on an adventure and write about the journeys and bring it back full circle…Then there’s the spur of the moment, stream of conscious. There is definitely a lot of that in my song writing and some of the songs it is straight out, burped out stream of conscious…But it usually starts with the hook or chorus.

DE: Could you explain your relationship with the guys from The String Cheese Incident?

KW: I saw them for the first time in 1995 in a small bar in Telluride, Colo. They were a four-piece [band] at the time, and they were all acoustic. Michael Travis was the one drummer and he was going back and forth playing percussion and drums at the same time. They were jumping around from salsa, to bluegrass, to jazz, to funk, to reggae, all just spinning around and I was really into it. Then I started to go see them in different mountain towns in 1995 and finally met them. I think I opened for them for the first time in the winter of 1996. Between 1997 and 2000, I probably opened up for them 100 times around the country. They, at that time, took me out of these little restaurants I was playing in and put me in front of wider audience. They definitely gave me the exposure I needed.

DE: So, when you were picking out the members for Grateful Grass, how did you decide on the musicians you wanted to play with?

KW: (In February 2006) I was playing The Fillmore in Denver, which is this huge cavernous place and I was like “Let’s do something different. Let’s try to bring some of my friends that live in that area, Jeff Austin (formerly of Yonder Mountain String Band) and Keith Moseley (SCI).” They were both living in that area at the time and were both off. I sent them a CD of my arrangements of like 14 Grateful Dead songs and they learned them and we ran them during the day. Then we played the show that night, recorded it and released it as the first Grateful Grass release called “Rex,” and that’s what the money goes to benefit. So that’s how it started. Real easy, real simple. We didn’t really revisit it again until this past year and got so much response from it that even when Jeff or Keith couldn’t make it, there were a lot of other folks, good friends of mine, that know the music that were willing to step in and fill in for those guys.