Will Whisson: The will shall not wane
Will Whisson would doubtless baulk at being described as a ‘novelty act’, writes Andy Gray. But he’s a rare creature nonetheless – a singer-songwriter that’s heroically committed to paying his dues in pursuit of success.
“What are you talking about you f**king idiot’? The X-Factor and shows like it are the antithesis of everything you stand for’”
“I appreciate people going online and streaming the album, but if someone buys a CD direct from me it’s the equivalent of something like 3,200 streams, which is what it takes for me to earn a tenner from Apple or Spotify”
Millennials, we’re often told by mealy-mouthed, middle-aged commentators, are infected by a sense of entitlement. According, not doubt, to the florid likes of Jeremy Clarkson/Piers Morgan/ Toby Young (delete as appropriate) our nation’s youth want everything without trying; they demand gain, without pain.
Although not a subscriber to this embittered view, a case for claiming the kids of today want it easy or not at all, can be made with a trawl through TV’s fabricated reality talent shows, which for a lucky few have proved a shortcut to success. It’s led to an increase in the number of fame-hungry saps believing that desire – rather than graft or being astonishingly gifted – is all it takes to become a pop star. This is borne out by the X-Factor moment when Emperor Cowell has a contestant dangling by a thread, begging to remain on the show. ‘Please Simon’, they whimper, ‘I’ve never wanted anything in life more than this’. A revelation that’s never – as far as I’m aware – led to the Cuban-heeled Prince of Darkness responding thus: ‘You want it, you say?’ Well that’s good enough for me. See you in the next round’.
Hardcore
Will Whisson ‘wants it’. But, unlike the aforementioned talent show hopefuls, this lavishly adroit singer/guitarist/songwriter from Canterbury wants success on his terms alone – and boy, is he prepared to work for it. He’s spent half his life learning and honing his musical craft, initially with his pals in a band called Electric River, and for the past four years as a solo artist. Will’s a hardcore troubadour in the spirit of Dylan et al. His ‘have guitar will travel’ attitude has seen him strum his way across Europe, where he busked it in every sense. In the UK, in order to keep his then one man show on the road and earn enough to make good his dream of recording and releasing an album bearing his name, he’s been playing anywhere that’ll have him for a few notes (green ones).
Although spirit-sapping, regular stints on the pub/working-men’s club circuit afforded the singer the ways and means to write and record Out of the Woods; a near-as-damn-it pop classic, which was released in November 2019. A serious artist with a seriously good record in the bag; Will reckons it’s time he stopped being a musical turn for hire. “I don’t regret anything I’ve done,” he said. “I needed those years on the road playing working men’s clubs and shit like that. But it’s now getting to the point, what with the record out and everything that it’s no good people still being able to see me in the corner of a pub in Shitsville somewhere – it just brings down the whole perception of what I’m about and what I want to achieve.”
Adventure
When the opportunity presented itself following his band’s split after a decade together, Will, 32, said the idea of fronting-up as a solo artist didn’t necessarily appeal. It left him with a quandary: fight or flight? He chose the latter, initially. “I’d been in the band a long time, they were my best friends. When we broke up, it acted as a kind of ultimatum. I was 27 or 28 at that point, so it was like, ‘this is probably the time to down tools and get a real job’. At that time, quite bizarrely, I was using a lot of the money from the band to train as a pilot. I’d done my solo navigation course and was pretty much ready to walk into it. But I just couldn’t put the music down. So in the end I thought, ‘fuck it’. I sold everything, bought a camper van and moved to London. I was thirsty for adventures and I wanted to know if I could stand on my own two feet as a musician and performer.”
As well as London, Will’s ‘fuck it’ adventures included a nonspecific tour of Europe, which he described as a ‘massive development exercise’ in discovering the type of musician and performer he wanted to be. “They were very formative but very hard years,” he said of his continental exertion. “For 18 months I was living in the camper van full-time and only one step away from being homeless. I’ve seen people doing heroin in Dublin next to my van, and a woman taking a shit right in front of it. The flip side is I’ve woken-up to seeing dolphins swimming, and some incredible mountain views.”
Will’s girlfriend was his some-time companion on the road, but their seven-year relationship had a sweet-bitter conclusion. She told him their romancing days were done upon his arrival in the UK from Ireland where he’d been completing Out of the Woods. “Twelve hours from me finishing in the studio to coming back home with the album in my hand saying ‘I did it’; she told me it was over.” No hard feelings though, eh? “I give her a lot of credit for having the balls to just pull the plug on something that she wasn’t truly happy with. Who would want to go out with a full-time musician who’s in the situation I’m in? It’s hard.”
The thought that freedom - particularly of the creative variety - comes at a price, will brook no argument with Mr Whisson. His parents (Will’s father lives in Canterbury, his mother in Bangladesh) remain steadfastly supportive of their son’s musical aspirations. “But they don’t really understand the real scope of what I’m going through, not that I’d expect them to. For a long time they were like, ‘It’ll pass’, but it hasn’t.”
‘Living the dream’
Will said friends have also made discreet enquiries as to what effect his continued hand-to-mouth existence as an artistically-rich/cash-poor musician might be having on his mental health. He currently house shares in Greenwich – his fifth residence in the past 12 months – and is often taken to reminding those that ask, that being outside of the nine-to-five ain’t such a great way to earn a living. “A lot of people say to me ‘You’re living the dream’ and sometimes sound quite envious of the situations I’ve been in. And I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t think you’d be cut out for this way of life’. I don’t say that cos I think I’m the bigger man or whatever. It’s more the fact that I’m a bit more fuckin’ mental. Because there have been times when I’ve been really depressed, really cold and really hungry.”
Out of the Woods is Will’s rich reward for his impoverished struggles: the days and nights spent singing for his supper in dark corners of dreary out of town pubs and clubs; the withered romance; the too close for comfort encounters with human flotsam using his camper van as cover to shoot-up or shit. Described by the creator himself as a ‘beautiful piece of art’, and his most complete work to date - he’s previously released two EPs: Nowhere Bound, and Age of Wonder - the 11-track long-player resulted from a kick-starter campaign, a process the singer admitted to being ‘nervous about’. “They say only 3% of your following will part with money to support a kick-starter project. So I thought the £4,500 I was asking for was a bit of a stretch. But loads of people came through and I got £7,500. It meant I didn’t have to go hungry making the album.”
With his leaner than lean frame, tousled hair and funky rocker garb, Will Whisson looks like a star; on Out of the Woods he sounds like one. It’s an album that (thankfully) outperforms its middle-of-the-road influences: Coldplay, David Gray and James Bay for example. For those who demand their pop music be served with thought, feeling and melody, this is your record.
Out of the Woods sounds like an album that its author was waiting half a lifetime to write, and that his heart and soul were wrung out in the process. Of the highlights aplenty, ‘Crystalline’ is a gorgeously-wispy, jingly-jangly gem redolent of arch 1980s pop romanticists, Prefab Sprout. It soars, it falls, and when Will’s sweet, vulnerable vocal informs us: ‘All your running, will count for nothing, so find yourself the time, and stay crystalline’, its beauty might just render you a little faint.
Like a number of tracks on the album – Blind Faith, South of the River, Everything, One in a Million – Crystalline would slot-in seamlessly to a playlist at the credible end of the mainstream radio dial (are you listening R2? R6?). But as the singer is currently without management or PR, the chances of it catching the nation’s eminent airwaves would appear less than slim. The album’s availability on major streaming sites can’t hurt its trajectory towards the public consciousness. Alas for the artist, downloads don’t equate to pounds in the bank. According to Will, for a small independent artist, the internet is an enemy, rather than a friend. “It couldn’t hinder you any more if it tried,” he moaned. “I appreciate people going online and streaming the album, but if someone buys a CD direct from me it’s the equivalent of something like 3,200 streams, which is what it takes for me to earn a tenner from Apple or Spotify.”
Happy now?
Spiritually, Will said he’s in a ‘happy-ish’ place as the dawn breaks on a new decade. Plans for a new album are already being hatched, as is a sortie into freelance music teaching in order to ‘keep the wheels turning’ on his premier passion. A tour of ‘proper’ music venues (no pubs, no working men’s clubs) is in the process of being plotted, which will see him perform with the talented band he’s recruited: Stevie Lawrence (guitar); Joe Southwell (bass); Jacob Evans (drums).
The new line-up debuted at Out of the Woods’ official launch in November. The was gig held on a boat moored at Tamesis Dock on the Thames Embankment where Will and the boys whipped-up a swell on London’s grand-old river with a stirring set of top-notch pop ‘toons’, whilst around 100 fans ignored the vessel’s lurching-and-a-listing to match the band’s fervent singer word-for-word. If ever a performer needed affirmation of his decision not to take-up flying planes, that night provided it.
Sensing that Will, being an old-skool, self-respecting artist type, would rather drown in a vat of freshly-expunged faecal matter than chance his musical charms on a TV talent show, as an interrogator of negligible repute, it would've been remiss of me to not at least pop the question. So come on, Will. Why not give your career the shot in the arm it craves, and join the line-up for the next X-Factor audition? Rather than let fly a trail of indignant infective or worse, put the phone down, nice guy Will let it slip that someone a little higher-up the media food chain had made a similar enquiry only recently. "I got contacted the other day by Britain’s Got Talent," he said. "When the guy started talking I was thinking, ‘Oh, interesting. Maybe here’s a chance of a break’. But then my heart immediately went, ‘What are you talking about you fucking idiot'? The X-Factor and shows like it are the antithesis of everything you stand for’. Had I taken up the option I don’t think I’d have done too badly, but it would’ve devalued all the hard work I'd put into my record."
Will Whisson ‘wants it’ alright, and if God truly loves a trier, the good Lord will ensure he gets it.