“My professional career began when I left home, which was Albury in New South Wales” she begins from her home in Melbourne’s inner-North, “I’d been obsessed with music all through High School, and learned to play the piano by ear. I was obsessed with Tori Amos and Jeff Buckley.
“I decided to keep on going with music,” she continues. “I studied music at the Victoria College of the Arts in 2003, and I suppose that really opened my eyes and ears to new compositional techniques: to be able to ‘paint,’ and create a song through harmony and melody rather than just the lyrical content. So that was a real eye-opener.”
As is often the case, learning the theory in a classroom gave her an excellent grounding for writing her own music, but it wasn’t until she met and bonded with other like-minded musicians at the school did she have true musical and songwriting awakening.
“That led to knowing and playing with a whole bunch of really amazing musicians,” she explains. “One of which was Lawrence Folvig, who I now create and play music with live. So I was doing voice as my principle instrument, and he did guitar. Over that time we did a lot of improvisation, and performed a lot of jazz music, and after we left uni we decided to keep playing together.
“That just kept growing and growing, and we then started playing with a drummer as a trio.”
That three-piece recorded an EP in 2010, however, the dreaded lineup changes started to kick in at that point. “We released the EP, but then our drummer pissed off to Berlin to play with The Dukes of Windsor,” she recalls, “so that started the process of building up to a five piece.”
Much gigging and touring ensued, and 2013 saw the release of her debut album, entitled You Go Your Way, I’ll Go Mine. Doing a full album, as opposed to opting for the quicker, easier EP format was a gutsy decision, and went against some of the advice they’d received.
“Releasing a debut album was quite a big deal at that time,” Wills states, “because a lot of people had said, ‘Just do an EP, don’t worry about doing a full length, because no one will hear it, you’re still accruing followers.’
“But we kinda’ just stuck to our guns, because that’s what we’d set our mind to. And although we didn’t sell thousands of copies of the album, it still did something, and I think it’s a very good beginning of what’s going to come next.”
Exactly what that is will become clear in the next year or so. In the meantime, Wills and her band have one final show for the year coming up in Melbourne, which she and her players are very much looking forward to. It happens on Friday December 5at The Kew Courthouse, which has recently been transformed into a music and arts venue by the Kew Historical Society.
“I’m feeling really good,” she enthuses. “I’ve just done a show last week with a string quartet, and I had a flu leading up to that show, so I was wondering whether I was actually going to be able to sing or not. Luckily it all came together.
“But this show coming up at The Kew is an opportunity for me to play piano, which is my first instrument. I rarely get to play piano live anymore, because my keyboard player/singer takes care of that side of things live, which is great, but there’s still something I just feel connected to, since I learnt music on the piano.”
This final performance for the year will give Wills the opportunity to do something a little interesting and different with this show.
“I’ll be doing one set of solo piano and voice songs,” she reveals. “Playing stuff from my 2010 EP through to the album, plus some new material that hasn’t been released or recorded yet.
“And then the second set will be a duo set with Lawrence,” she goes on. “We’ll try to create some kind of contrast between the sets, and just to deliver some interest. So when he comes on for the second set, there’s a little bit more of that rocky element, and a little bit more texture. So I’m really looking forward to it, and also, I’ve never been there but it’s [the Kew Courthouse] supposed to be a very intimate venue, theatre-type venue, so it might require people to listen in a little bit more. Plus there’s a baby-grand piano there, so I jumped at the chance.”
That’s to be it for 2014 for Wills, and she and her band are off to record their next album in Brisbane early next year, so 2015 looks to be just as busy, if not more so for this talented Melbourne artist.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
