At only nineteen, Will Stratton is already an amazing song writer and getting ready to release an album on Stunning Models On Display. Not to mention, homeboy likes Chrono Cross and Golden Delicious apples with peanut butter.
Kyle Wallace: Okay, so first I'll start with some cliche quintessential questions.
Will: k
Kyle Wallace: Favorite food?
Will: golden delicious apples with peanut butter
Kyle Wallace: Oh that is pretty tasty. So what's your favorite color?
Will: burgundy or maroon, i can't really tell the difference
Kyle Wallace: Oh. Nice. Yeah me neither. Alright here's the last quintessential question: What's your favorite video game?
Will: chrono cross, if we're excluding computer games. but if we're not my favorite is this old british computer game called circle of blood
Kyle Wallace: I haven't heard of Circle of Blood. Chrono Cross was the sequel to Chrono Trigger right?
Will: right. very cool game
Will: i've actually never played chrono trigger
Kyle Wallace: It's a very fun romp, I definitely think you should check out an emulator and a rom sometime with it.
Will: ooh, good idea
Kyle Wallace: Alright, on to the juicy stuff. When exactly did you start having an interest in playing music?
Will: i started playing an old piano that we had at our house when i was three or four, and my parents signed me up for lessons when i was four. i never liked practicing, unless it was a really interesting piece i was working on, but my parents made me stick with it, thank goodness, and i learned to love it. i just stopped taking lessons last year when i left for college.
Will: i got an electric guitar, a squire, for my 12th birthday, and started playing right away. that instrument came a lot easier to me, probably because of piano lessons. i started doing fingerpicking and other folk music when i was 15 or so, so about four years ago.
Kyle Wallace: What influenced you to pick up folk music? Most guys with a musical skill at your age, definitely aren't trying the whole "folk" thing, they are looking for an almost easy way out with punk and other genres.
Will: that was where i headed originally. i've lost count of how many punk/ska/hardcore/"emo"/noise bands i've been in, and while i still have an interest in some of that music, folk music has kind of taken me over creatively. i think the turning point was when i heard nick drake for the first time. my brother, who is eight years older than me, turned me onto nick drake. i've never looked back since. but another big influence on me has been minimalist classical music, especially the work of steve reich, and i think in subsequent albums i am going to try and find a middle ground between the two genres.
Kyle Wallace: Wow, that'll be extremely interesting. So how and when exactly did you get the hook up with Stunning Models On Display?
Will: it happened a little more than a year ago, just as i was graduating from high school. we lived in new jersey at the time, and kieran kelly, the co-owner of stunning models, e-mailed me out of the blue one day. over that summer i commuted to queens every once in a while, to kieran's buddy project recording studio, where sufjan stevens records, and we made an album based on some recordings that i had done over the past couple years in my bedroom.
Kyle Wallace: That has to be pretty pimp to record at the same place as Sufjan.
Will: it was very pimp! and everyone i met was very friendly and had their hands in all sorts of different projects. it seemed like i had stepped into this secret place that i would never have known about.
Kyle Wallace: That's a pretty cool feeling. So speaking of recording there, when is your debut coming out?
Will: well, that's a good question. the final hurdle we must pass before it gets manufactured (not released, mind you) is we need to get a cover design that everyone agrees on. this has proved more difficult than i would have thought, but we're making progress. as far as a formal release date, the real burden lies with me right now to get a car so that i can play shows regularly. the way i understand it, the record will get released as soon as i am capable of promoting it actively, which is pretty fair, because playing in public frequently is the only way to effectively spread the word about the record and get it to actually sell.
Will: i already have another record in the works, actually, and have started recording it on my laptop in seattle. hopefully i don't get too ahead of schedule.
Kyle Wallace: Wow that's a lot of work. Yeah, about the tour. I saw your mini-tour had been cancelled.
Will: yeah, that was tough, but there would have been periods of four, five days where i would have just been languishing in ohio, waiting for the next show, because quite a few dates had been cancelled. things are looking up now, though, as stunning models now has an affiliate booking company, little birdy. hopefully i get to meet some of those guys tomorrow.
"Most of the songs on the album were originally written and recorded at two or three in the morning, while the rest of my family was asleep, and so many of the songs are about or involve night in some way."
Kyle Wallace: Nice. Yeah I reside in Ohio.
Will: i've never been there. the other band on the tour, the receiver, are from columbus. they're also a stunning models signing.
Kyle Wallace: Yeah, I saw that. I definitely want to check into them more. So still speaking of the album, the name of it is "What The Night Said". Any particular reason for naming it that? Especially since most debut albums are self-titled.
Will: most of the songs on the album were originally written and recorded at two or three in the morning, while the rest of my family was asleep, and so many of the songs are about or involve night in some way. i'm a huge fan of the band big star, and their song "night time," off of third/sister lovers, became kind of a subconscious model for the lyrical feel of the album.
Will: and i just like night in general. it's when i am most creative, and living in the suburbs, i liked how it bathed everything in darkness.
Kyle Wallace: Wow... I can see how that would definitely affect your creativity. The lyrics of the songs that I've heard seem very personal at times, is some of it a reflection of you?
Will: i think all of it is. i try not to name names in my songs, and a lot of the time, the songs become irrelevant to anything actually happening in my life very quickly, but everything on that album was written without some sort of emotional pretense. that said, a lot less of the songs are about unrequited love than it sounds! and the songs that i have been working on more recently for the second album have much less traditional subject matter. there's a song about henri de toulouse-lautrec, the painter, there's an allegory about bob dylan mixed with the gospel of judas, there's a song about robin hood and maid marian recast as american socialists in the 1890's, and an ode to yosemite national park. i think i'm becoming a little more ambitious, lyrically, especially since i'm writing at a much faster pace. sometimes i look at my new songs and they just seem gaudy and outrageous to me, but i'm hoping that's just my old songwriter self speaking.
Kyle Wallace: Dude, I'm so excited for your stuff. Especially how you are totally changing your writing style, I could imagine how that would be hard.
Will: well, i'm flattered. i hope this first album works out okay, and i hope i can make a bunch more.
Kyle Wallace: Well I wish you the best of luck. Want me to send you the Chrono Trigger rom?
Will: yessssss!