The Concert Chronicles met Will Linley, a very talented young man from South Africa, at his concert in Paris at La Maroquinerie. His music is a treat, combining love and tenderness with sensitive lyrics. He has just released his very first album, Don’t Cry Because It’s Over.
TCC: Your song often has a very sunny energy, but lyrics is full of vulnerability. Is it important for you to express both at the same time?
Will: I think I have learned how to become more vulnerable in the music that I make and in the songs that I write. And I think it was something that I was quite scared to do at the beginning. But as I have grown comfortable in writing songs and growing comfortable in music, I’ve realised that vulnerability is something that I owe to myself and to the people that listen to my music. And so, at the end of the day, I know that I want to dance and I know that I want to put on a show that people, yeah, can move out and have a good time.
But at the same time, I know that I want to write music that says something rather than just saying sunflower things or whatever. You know, write music that has substance and means something to people is really important to me.
TCC: Do you find it hard to put that much emotion on a song or like the album in general? Did I find it hard to put emotion?
Will: No, I think. Well, I think it was a challenge. I think it was a challenge to put emotion into the songs because, you know, I think someone can very easily just sit down and write 12 songs that don’t mean something. But I think that for me, there was hard to continue to put myself in positions where I had to force myself to be vulnerable with the songs that I wrote. And so, ultimately, it was something that was taken in.
TCC: And can you walk us through your songwriting process and how does a song usually start? Do you have a melody first? Do you have an image?
Will: Well, it’s a little bit different every single song. Some songs, I start with the lyric. Sometimes I start with just the music and sometimes there’s just some type of melody that I’m singing in the shower and then that ends up being a song. But I think that at the end of the day, there’s no correct way of writing a song.
It’s just the way that comes naturally to you and the way that, you know, I think that there’s no one way to write a song and it’s always different no matter how I write it. Because sometimes it can be hard, especially for artists. I know that some people told me that it can be sometimes too much, especially when you have, like, especially when you talk about real life.
TCC: And so, you’ve actually been writing and making music for quite a while now. Do you feel like your creative process has evolved over time?
Will: For sure. I think that my creative process has definitely changed. I think that now I can be a little bit more, like, lyric focused from the jump. Like, I’ll first try and write the chorus, whereas I think in the past I just write the verses first and then the pre and then write the chorus.
Whereas now I think it very much is situated to, okay, let’s first get the chorus. What are we trying to say? And then we write everything else. So that’s definitely changed for me.
TCC: How do you start thinking about music? Do you remember when you were talking to your parents or you were like, okay, I want to do music?
Will: I grew up in a musical family. So I was like, I was very much singing and dancing and doing all sorts of things from an early age.
And then I think that music naturally was something that just was a part of my makeup and a part of life. And I think that when it came to trying to write songs or whatever, it was just a natural form of expression for me. But then it was around the time of COVID that I really decided that I want to try and do this seriously and do music.
TCC: And if you have to describe your music to someone who never heard about you, never heard about your music, what would you say?
Will: I’d say that it’s like sad boy pop music.
TCC: What advice would you give to your younger self staring out music?
Will: I think the one thing that I’d say is don’t take it too seriously. Enjoy yourself. And I think I still have to tell myself that today. And I think another one is to not be afraid to make a bad song. I think oftentimes I can get to my head and want to just create the perfect song, but the perfect song doesn’t exist. I think that sometimes I’ve just got to allow myself to create something that is potentially going to be bad.
TCC: And so the title suggests a sense of hope rather than sadness. What does this sentence mean to you personally? And why did you choose that as a title?
Will: I think that love is a universal language and everyone has experienced love in various forms, both falling in love and falling out of love. And I think that at the end of the day, that is a theme that I write a lot about and I write a lot of songs about love.
And when I started thinking about it, I think that sometimes, particularly I was writing from a space of like breakup and falling in love and then falling out of love. And I think that oftentimes someone can think of a breakup or think of loss in love as a bad thing, but actually that it can sometimes mould us and shape us and teach us lessons that can help us be better people for those around us in the future. And there’s that common saying that is, you know, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
I think like Pooh Bear says it or something. I might be wrong, but that phrase was just so on my mind and so on my heart for the whole album process that it just felt right for that phrase to be the title of the album.
TCC: And I heard that you say about the album that it’s explored what you describe as a full circle of first love from the excitement to the heartbreak. How ready were you open to open up that
I don’t think it was. But I think that once I did it, I realised that it’s not something to be feared, but rather to be something that is embraced. And I enjoyed it.
TCC: Can you tell me about the writing process of the album and how you create it? Because I know you have a lot of singles and it was like mostly singles. And how did you put everything together?
Will: It took three years. It took three years to get it right. You know, it wasn’t something that we made overnight. And I love that about the album. I think that that is so special.
And I think that slowly but surely, we would write certain songs that we knew would be like pillars on the album. You know, like we knew, OK, if we’re going to have a slow song, it’s going to be this. OK, cool.
Now we need to try and write a song that people are going to like dance and sing to. OK, let’s try and find that song. OK, we’ve written that now.
I think that slowly but surely, this album started to come together and formulate. And so it just took time and it just took being patient and waiting until we wrote the songs that felt like the right things. And that was really fun. So, it’s keep trying and trying, like putting like a puzzle.
Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, cover
TCC: Lets’s talk about the cover : I see a photo like American high school classes a little bit, a little bit like the Breakfast Club or Grease, a kind of vintage, you know. But I think we can see a real emotion on it. And so can you tell me how you came up with this?
Will: I think that the we fell in love with that particular photo because there’s like such a look of longing in the eyes.
And so like the facial expression is not of pure joy and it’s not of pure sadness, but it’s like looking past the camera. It’s not looking it’s not looking straight down the lens, but rather looking past the camera. And so for me and my creative director, we were drawn to that image because it felt like it looked it was looking at the person that was taking the photo.
And ultimately it felt it gave us a very like real reaction to the image of someone who’s looking with a longing look at love and looking at this person that’s taking the photo with neither pure joy neither or pure sadness, but looking at love for what it is. And that is beauty.
TCC: Is there one of your songs that feels like it’s too honest for you? And how did you decide what to share?
Will: First Love was a scary one to write, I think, just because it was about my first heartbreak. And I know that she was going to hear it at some point. And that is always weird, you know, but that was a that was a song that I loved. And I really enjoyed it. And I felt like it needed to be on the album.
TCC: And so what is your favourite song on the album?
Will: It changes every day. But right now it’s Kiss Me Like You Mean It. I love Kiss Me Like You Mean It right now.
TCC : If your music were a colour, what would it be?
I think right now it’s that dark blue and pink. It’s like the difference between the like super bubbly and cute vibe and then the darker, more like emotional feel. I think that that would be it would be that mixture of like blue and then pink on the other side.
TCC: If you can be if your music can be a nice pink colour, what would it be?
Probably Stracciatella. I love Stracciatella. I’d be stoked if my music was Stracciatella.
TCC: What is the most unexpected song on your personal playlist right now?
Will: I have to look at my phone.
TCC: It can be something cringy. It can be something fun. It can be whatever you want.
Will: Wait, are you saying most unexpected song that people wouldn’t expect me to have?
TCC : I think it’s like whatever you want, but it can be something fun.
Will: I have been listening to… What’s the song that I’ve been loving right now? There’s this song called Heartbeat by a band called Borderline, which is really cool. They’re from New Zealand.
TCC: And if you could design your own festival lineup, which three artists would you put alongside you?
Will: I would put Ed Sheeran because I love Ed Sheeran.
TCC: He’s coming to France soon.
Will: Maybe I need to stay. Maybe I need to stay in France.
I’d say Ed Sheeran I would say… I’ve got to have my boy Knox playing with me. 100%. And I would put in… Gracie Abrams.
TCC: And the last question, do you have something to say to your French audience?
Will: J’adore Paris. J’adore La Maroquinerie. And I cannot wait for tonight. It’s going to be so much fun.
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