Name: Will Epstein

Nationality: American
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Will Epstein's Wendy is out February 3rd 2023 via Fat Possum.

If you enjoyed this interview with Will Epstein and would like to find out more about his music, visit him on Instagram, and Facebook.   



For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I mostly like to throw myself into situations where chance is the guiding principle. I think this probably comes from my musical roots as an improvisor as those kind of situations favor spontaneity and any kind of overthought gesture tends to feel pretty contrived.

Having said that I often do have images or fully fledged production ideas that come to mind as I’m writing a song which can be quite helpful as a starting point as long as they’re held sort of lightly.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Honestly, my studio is a complete mess. I have cables hanging out everywhere and I’m constantly yanking and twisting things around. It’s kind of fun in a way because it makes the whole thing feel like a living, breathing instrument - but I’m getting to a point where it just feels like too much and I’m curious to try something very tidy and to see if that inspires me.

Maybe by the time this is being read I’ll have manifested my grand vision.

Sometimes I make “early versions” although I would more describe them as failed attempts—they’re mostly instructions of what NOT to do going forward. I think from Wendy, both “Suddenly Rain” and “Moving” had at least 2 or 3 earlier (shittier) versions.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I drink a gallon of tea and stare out the window.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I love sitting down with my keyboard, preferably a small one I can keep in my lap or my Wurlitzer electric piano and just seeing what comes out, so that part isn’t difficult at all. Sometime I’m lucky and a few words with the right shape or feeling stumble out amidst the weeds of my mutterings and stick to a melody but often it can be quite painstaking to find the right lyrics.

The lyrics for “Will The Morning Come” came like that right alongside the music and the ones for “Oyster Bay” came quickly too once I decided to rewrite them—I had a previous set I had written four years before that I wasn’t fond of at all.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

Like I was saying, the best case scenario is that the lyrics come with the music but often, for me, a lot of the lyric writing comes later. The songs that get finished, though, are generally the ones that have at least a few words for a chorus or something pinned to them from the outset.

I have a couple of collaborators that I’ve worked with a bunch, Maggie Millner and Gryphon Rue, that I’ll go to if I’m stuck.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

A good lyric is primarily one that feels good to sing and connects you with the emotions that the song (music, etc.) came from. That’s the main thing, to allow them to summon a feeling. Obviously poetry and humor can be nice things too.

Recently, I’ve been striving for lyrics with a directness or specificity that make me feel vulnerable and slightly uncomfortable but I don’t think that’s the only way. There are also lyrics that can just take a backseat to the music and allow the song to happen—I don’t ever want things to feel too contrived or get in the way of the feeling of the music.

I started making instrumental music before I started using vocals so sometime lyrics can feel like a necessary evil to get a song across because I don’t really want to just be sputtering gibberish. But I also do have a deep love and appreciation of how words can really elevate the music. So that’s really the heart of the struggle.
 
Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

Mostly I try to just stay very open and follow those things when they come, which they always do, and see what happens.

That process can be especially present when collaborating with someone like an engineer or a co-producer. In those situations I like to have a very fluid atmosphere where everyone feels free to share their ideas and often the music ends up better for it.

It is helpful, though, to have a firm inner compass pointed in a certain direction, even if it’s a vague feeling, so you don’t get too swept away by someone else’s ideas.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

John Coltrane, who I think is the greatest saint of American music, is probably the reason I play music. He embodies a certain kind of devotion that approaches another plane.

I love most music that comes from that place like gospel music, cantorial music or other strains of modern devotional music like La Monte Young and Catherine Hennix.

That kind of devotion requires a certain kind of mono-focus that I’ve never totally given myself to for whatever reason so I can’t really claim to be operating exactly on that level. I have my own way with it though.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I like to do the main big push of a song in one sitting but then can spend quite a while tinkering with the final 25%—mostly because it’s fun.

My album Whims was an exercise in the extreme version of this where each song was written and a recorded in a single day.



In that process there was really no room for that sort of tinkering or anything remotely like it. I enjoy the spontaneous quality they have as a result.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Well, I’m extremely involved in the production—making sounds to color the songs is as much a part of the expression as anything else.

I don’t like to obscure a song but rather to find the elements that can exist in harmony to it and stretch open your brain to let it in.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Yes but I generally try to pivot to something completely different from whatever I was doing.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I don’t drink coffee.