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A conversation with the artist about music, tech, and the value of practice.
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"When people listen to my music or they come to my show, I want it to feel like they're literally being healed from the inside out, like it's a spiritual, shamanic experience."
This is what 25-year-old WILLOW says when she envisions her end goal as an artist, singer, songwriter, instrumentalist (and the list goes on). For her, delivering a spiritual experience goes hand-in-hand with achieving peak physical performance, sharpening her skills as an artist to the point where her ability and performance can become tangible enough to move a person. "It almost reminds me of what I imagine ancient Greek people used to feel like in the old Olympics. This is what humanity can do!"
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For the past decade and a half, WILLOW has been diligently chipping away at this mission: publicly, through the release of nine studio albums, but also privately, through the nurturing of a widely varied and disciplined artistic practice that's included taking up the bass, drums, piano, and cello, and following every esoteric music theory rabbit hole that crosses her path. Since breaking out in 2010 with "Whip My Hair," WILLOW's musical sound has moved through R&B, neo-soul, pop-punk, and rock, all of which served as training for the ambitious sonic palette she's mining now: one rooted in progressive jazz and that embraces a dense musicality.
Her latest album, The Thread, is a culmination of this heads-down practice, a 10-song record of nimble instrumentation, rich stacked harmonies, and insane runs and riffs. There's a masterfulness to the music, where you can notice the complexity of the arrangements but listening still feels effortless.
WILLOW came into The FADER office to discuss the evolution of her music practice and her thoughts on the state of the world, tech, and her hope for the future. Watch the conversation and read a transcript of the interview below.
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The FADER: How are you feeling, WILLOW?
WILLOW: Oof! That's so crazy just hearing you say that. Ninth studio album.
What a journey it’s been.
Wow. I am just so grateful to be able to put two records out this year, which is something I've never done before in my entire career. Very daunting, but I don't know, I have a lot to say, and I feel like it just feels right, right now.
Yeah. I feel like both records — and we'll get into this a little bit — but they complement each other really well, I think. Like two sides of you growing into yourself as an artist.
Yes. 100%. Petal Rock Black came from a place of like me challenging myself and being like, “Okay, like, you've been practicing, you've been studying. So now let's see what you can do when you put yourself in a room with the piano, the bass, the drums, and the guitar, and let's just see what comes out.” Many a days recording that album, I was like, I feel like I'm scratching the bottom of the barrel here in terms of my creative ideas, but also my technical abilities. I feel like when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, the bottom of the barrel gets bigger in terms of what you have to draw from creatively.
And then The Thread, on the other hand—shout out to my good homie Chris Greatti, this is our third album that we've made together. Our first project was COPINGMECHANISM, second one was Empathogen, and now this one, The Thread. It's so interesting going from having so much pressure on myself every single day walking into the studio and being like, almost a little bit afraid and anxious, like, "Here we go. Like, what's going to come out today? I hope it's something I can use!" But then walking into the studio with, you know, my really good friend and collaborator, the sense of ease with our support of one another, and me knowing his strengths and weaknesses, and him knowing my strengths and weaknesses, and us being able to…
Work together.
Exactly. And it felt just like a breath of fresh air after really scraping the bottom of the barrel for like two and a half years.
I do want to rewind a little bit and talk about Petal Rock Black because I think a lot of people don't know the challenge you put yourself through. You played almost every instrument on that record. You wrote and recorded alone, except for an engineer.
My engineer, good friend, shout out to Adam Schoeller. Love you, bro.
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