Wil Wright started piano lessons at seven years old. There was a family expectation that someone would play piano, and his grandmother had picked him. “My Granny bought me a piano when I was two years old. My grandfather had played in a kitschy Scottish TV show band, and it was decided that someone would follow in his footsteps. My grandmother declared ‘William will play piano,’ and so play it I did.”
“I taught myself to play the guitar at 11, and kept on with the piano. And I think that combination is part of why I make music the way I do now—I’m classically trained on the one instrument, and totally self-taught and play by ear on the other.”
Wil started composing when he was nine or ten, although he characterises this as “messing around” and “massively ripping off other people’s music.” The first song he wrote on guitar was at age twelve, which he says was a “horrible, horrible song.”
These early writing projects, and the dual nature of his musical training, has led Wil to take on multiple projects at one time, creating different kinds of music. “I always have too many different ideas, and I want to do it all seriously. For me music is never kind of tongue in cheek. Most of the music I write is difficult and honestly quite pretentious. It’s the type of music I tend to seek out.”
Two years ago, Wil left his hometown of Glasgow where he had been part of a progressive metal band that gigged regularly and had a genuine following. He says he believed deeply in the music they made together, but that the experience had gotten stagnant somehow—that the same people showed up to all the gigs, and the same music reviewer covered each show. He says “it was always the same people mumbling nice things.” So even while he and the rest of his band believed in their vision, he also felt claustrophobic and like it was time to go.
IRELAND
“It’s strange to say, but it really could have been anywhere that I ended up. When it got to feeling claustrophobic in Glasgow, I went to Paris for a year. My girlfriend is here, and that’s a big reason it ended up being Dublin. To a certain extent, this place was a means to an end—I chose to go away and I could choose to go back, but I needed to go somewhere and start again. A capitol city like Dublin has so much to offer musicians, plus Ireland has its own stamp in contemporary music. So it’s comfortable. It’s a good place to build up and to start again.”
GOALS
When it comes to goals, Wil says he has short-term, long-term, and “pie in the sky.” Since starting on his own, Wil says he has worked quite a lot on various writing projects and released albums on Bandcamp. “I’ve been timid about performing, and I tend to be apologetic about my music—that’s something that has to stop. I tend to say ‘I’ve made this, but you probably won’t like it.’ I want to be…not arrogant, but confident.”
Right now, he says, it’s about putting in the work and putting himself out there. “I want to write and finish music I’m happy with, and then perform it live. I want to be more than just a bedroom artist. I guess my goal is to get my ass in gear. There’s a constant reassessing, but that’s what the goal would be right now.”
“MAKING IT”
When asked what “making it” looks like, Wil said that the closer it gets, the further away it feels. What achievement looks like is always changing.
“Success isn’t the same thing as money. But it’s consistently putting in the time and effort and then getting something back—knowing that someone likes what you’ve done, or seeing someone sing along. Performing live and knowing that it’s going right—there’s such a euphoria that comes from performing well. It’s like sex but not like sex, quasi-religious but again not the same thing. There’s nothing like it.”
THE WORK
The amount of time spent working on music is a complicated thing to pin down. Wil says “It’s both a lot and not enough. I get something like “The Fear” if I don’t have music with me to listen to. On an 8 hour shift at the hostel I work at, I will make a playlist and just listen straight through. I pay attention to what I like, and how the music shapes emotion. I have a notepad full of ideas that’s with me all the time.”
But when it comes to actually getting the time to physically sit down and do the work, that’s a different kind of challenge. Wil recently moved to a new house, but before that was making a go of being a working musician by living for 11 months with his girlfriend’s family, which at times included various configurations of her mother, stepdad, 4 siblings between the age of 9 and 16, another sibling’s boyfriend, two dogs, four chickens, a hamster, and two fish.
“If I knew I had half an hour with no one home, there would be this kind of panic over how to use it. Do I practice something that needs fine-tuning? Do I work on vocals? Do I write something new?”
“If there was nothing external in the way, I would probably spend every day on music. I’d get up, make coffee, and then just wouldn’t even remember to stand up or eat anything, just music 10-4 or longer.”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE IT
For Wil, “what it takes” has everything to do with the work, and the unshakable belief that making it is possible. “You’ve got to put it out there—which is something I need to do quite a bit more of. You’ve got to believe, and just to know you can make it. Even if it means losing all your money and all your friends.”
Wil also pointed out the range of work a musician has to do at the beginning of a career is very different than the kind of work you do once you’ve had a degree of success and have people to help you make it happen. “When you’re making a start, you have to do all the jobs yourself. You have to make all the moves and all the decisions.”
“I guess for now it’s about moving things forward. It’s all about taking steps on an incline, even if trying some things doesn’t work out. Try and fail and fail again. And there’ve been some good successes as well—things that probably sound small to other people. A guy in the US recently found and bought one of my albums, and said he’d be interested in similar work in the future. That kind of thing is huge for me. It meant so much.”
Looking forward, Wil plans to push harder on writing and performing. He said, “It feels good to be working on something. It even feels good just talking about it. It’s not like anything else—not that other things aren’t good, but that making music is a particular kind of good. Without it I’d be a shell of a human being. No one is stopping me.”
- Words by Katie Dwyer. Find her on Twitter at @akatiedwyer
An early Rockus Maximus production. Filmed the same day as the 'Super Church' video... just off to the side of the green screen. And we used an old Star Wars trick to make the starry space behind Wil. Long live Senryu. I taught myself how to do special fx incorrectly on this video.
Today is a big day for Knoxville's one and only LiL iFFy.
Back in November, before the wizard rapper's debut album "Wandcore" was released, Wayne Bledsoe wrote that iFFy was "finding an audience around the country."
Well, today, that audience is a bit more solidified: the LiL iFFY Daytrotter session has been released.
(Daytrotter, for those who are unfamiliar, is a music site by recording studio Horseshack in Rock Island, Ill. Daytrotter sessions feature popular and upcoming musical acts recorded in studio as they pass through town.)
The session comprises five tracks — a welcome track and four original songs, 'Sorted Affair,' 'M Pomfrey,' 'Sorted for Greatness' and 'Untitled,' a travelogue immortalizing iFFy's February national tour.
The chances you may come across this link on social media is pretty great. Friends and fans have been sharing the session all over the Web since its release this afternoon.
Wil Wright, longtime Knoxville musician, is the man behind iFFy, with the help of his 'Dude Source' crew — local DJ/producer Tom Ato, Playboy Manbaby, Baylatrix and Mr. Nine and 3/4.
For more information on LiL iFFy, check out his Facebook page or visit wandcore.bandcamp.com.
And for more on Wil Wright, visit wmwright.bandcamp.com.
