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You could say that instrumental virtuoso Keller Williams is bringing some heavy-duty firepower to Thursday’s show at The Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville, but the WMDs he’s bringing with him aren’t the “weapons of mass destruction” that most people might associate with the acronym.

Instead, it’s a simple anagram built from the last names of each of the musicians who will share the stage — Williams, bassist Keith Moseley, guitarist Gibb Droll and drummer Jeff Sipe. It’s the latest project to be embraced by Williams, who’s collaborated with everyone from Larry Keel to the String Cheese Incident to others who perform within and on the fringes of the jam-band circuit.

“I’m playing with some guys that I really respect, and I’ve been enjoying their music for years,” Williams told The Daily Times during a recent phone interview. “Before we got together, I sent them my CDs prior to our first rehearsal, and then we went out and played a festival. We did one festival a week for a month, and then we all got to go home and spend time with our families, so it’s been more of a weekend thing.

“We have plans to do three different tours, and we’re hoping to multi-track every show, so that at the end of the three tours, there will be a plethora of songs to choose from to release on a live record. I’m hoping with this group to showcase the liveness of what we’re doing.”

As for the name, he said, “It’s just representing the first letter of each of our last names, and Sipe is kinda like the apostrophe-S. It’s a very topical type of name.”

If the name seems thrown together, casual fans needn’t worry — Williams’ music is anything but. His ability on the guitar can’t be overstated — in his hands, the instrument becomes a living, breathing thing that takes on a life of its own, and to hear the things he coaxes out of it, you’d swear he has more than 10 fingers. He’s built a grassroots following through ceaseless touring and the catchy, pop-heavy folk rock that meanders lazily into jam-band riffs and solos before tightening back up. On previous albums such as “Breathe,” “Laugh,” “Home” and “Dream” he pulled out the stops in the studio, experimenting with his artistry and crafting albums that are a wonder to behold.

On stage, he often performs with a guitar and a tape loop, playing back guitar beats and riffs recorded a few minutes earlier over whatever comes to mind at any given moment. His creativity is what causes other musicians to seek him out, and it’s the glue that holds together a collection of musicians like Moseley, Sipe and Droll, each of whom are phenoms themselves. It’s the energy of such performances, that heightens Williams’ senses, making them super-acute to everything going on around him.

“It’s really difficult to explain, because the whole stage show is wrapped around the energy given to me from the audience,” he said. “I take that and give it back, so it’s a circular thing, and then there’s a whole other thing going on once you get into a certain space. You’re feeling the energy, and your mind is free of outside thoughts — where you’re going the next day, what your grandmother is doing right now.

“You have that full focus to think about what’s happening in the space before you, and that’s when you start to sense things — little breezes that blow by when you’re not standing anywhere near a vent; things like that. It could be all in my very imaginative mind, but at the same time, it fascinates me.”

He’s hesitant to discuss such extra-sensory phenomenon at first, but once told that The Bijou Theatre is reputed to be haunted, he warms up to the subject quickly. He’s a believer in the supernatural, he said, and his endless tours have led him to certain old theaters around the country that seem to speak to him on that extra-sensory level.

“Old theaters fascinate me, and it really makes me appreciate that kind of space,” he said. “It makes you very sensitive to all the little energies of the room. A lot of those old movie houses that have become music venues are super-haunted, and I totally feel that on stage, too. The Alabama Theatre (in Birmingham) — man, that place is whack-haunted; just typical, weird things like different kinds of feedback that come out of nowhere. Second-set feedback, we call it, because once you’re dialed in, it’s very rare that something pops in.

“Then there’s the State Bridge Lodge in Colorado, where there are visual apparitions of this Old West cowboy who stayed around the place. Then there’s a place called the Blue Note in Columbia, Mo. There are all kinds of haunted theaters that I really enjoy going to because of the energy of that. There’s all kinds of things we like to blame on the place being haunted — different frequencies, feedback, things falling over and breaking — and it’s strange little things like that, that make you think.”