Will And The People
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Will And The People

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Friends, their second album, has garnered them much more praise and a growing army of fans but some critics are still asking whether they’re guilty of style over substance. It seems that to play reggae some media outlets, like The Guardian, think you need to be a fully immersed member of the subculture, not simply a fan, colouring by numbers and fulfilling stylistic requirements.

“I believe music is universal and potent and we feel it like all mankind does, we have accessed that in ourselves.” singer Will Rendle responds when asked about the recent criticism from The Guardian. “I think that cultural immersion is null and void if you are really free, and I wasn’t when they wrote that article. I was signed to Sony being told what not to do by people I had never met. Good review, but he missed the core though; the stone that the builders refuse will always be the head-corner stone. Our music is real and extends beyond the realms of genre – like Bob Marley.”

When you’re a touring musician, the line between work and play is easily blurred but that’s often half the fun. “We like to maintain the ethos that we’re always on holiday and when it comes to playing the music, we share the holiday with people – especially when we’re travelling in Australia and Asia,” he says. “None of us have ever done any travelling before so waking up knowing we’re doing it all the time is a great feeling. If you have grafted in cold places like England and Scotland for four years, Australia is nirvana. Back home we just party hard and work harder, like most people. But we are free and that makes anything easy to deal with.”

Recorded in just a week in a 17th century barn filled with borrowed and bought equipment, Friends is seemingly as spontaneous as Rendle maintains his band is. “We tackle writing and recording as it comes, well, at least up until this point,” he says. “We are always writing together, jamming our latest cottage trend, and hoping we can organise that into a song. It’s a melting pot I suppose, there are loads of songs I’ve written which we’re arranging and vibing as we go. Friends is really our debut album and although largely made up of songs I have written, it actually has the sound. We have a sound now, which we made ourselves. That’s something I have strived for a long time. But there are so many songs about that will undoubtedly change.”

Any criticisms aimed at Will & The People suggesting they’re guilty of style over substance or image over honesty, are floored when they perform live. Energetic, impulsive, and most importantly damned fun, Will & The People put industry pressures aside to simply do what they love. “We never write a set list and we enjoy ourselves; we are in fucking Australia playing to a new crowd of people!” he explodes. “It’s very therapeutic, kind of a meditative vibe, oh and being stoned is good too.” Maybe a little of that image creeps in ever so slightly, but who can blame him?

BY KRISSI WEISS