Canadian singer-songwriter WiL is heavy with the metal when performing.
Playing in Powell River at Evergreen Theatre, Tuesday, March 17, as the opening act for Burton Cummings, WiL will be pounding on his guitar’s strings to project his own unique brand of music.
There’s a reason why his website is called ibreakstrings.com. “I’m notorious for being a bit of a ferocious guitar player,” he said. “I break strings.”
When asked about his musical style, WiL said if he had to offer the Coles Notes version, he would describe himself as the “typical kind of singer-songwriter folk-rock.”
“It’s always tough to describe,” he said. “I play guitar and I sing songs. I play live with a drummer. It’s a pretty passionate show, for sure. Dynamically, we’re all over the map, from a church mouse wearing slippers to a gorilla throwing thunder.”
WiL said he loves playing live. He’s toured and worked with a “massively musically diverse” list of people throughout the years, describing it as soup to nuts.
“If we had an opportunity put in front of us we never really cared to be analytical or whether or not it would work,” WiL said. “Throughout the years of doing so many shows that are so diverse, you end up becoming more who you are.”
WiL has played in Powell River a couple of times. He was the opening act for Colin James in 2001, he recalls. It was his first tour ever going out with a name artist.
“I remember the Powell River show being really awesome in the Evergreen Theatre,” he said.
He’s also played Sunshine Music Festival, held every Labour Day weekend at Palm Beach. “We ended up playing the evening and I had everyone howling like coyotes,” he said. “That was really fun. It was such a full moon.”
WiL said he is scheduled to play the festival again this year.
In terms of his songwriting, WiL said he’s 44 now and has lived a “crazy, diverse and big” life and draws from those experiences. He said he loves being in his home, a “little box in the woods” near Qualicum Beach, and draws inspiration. In addition to being a musician, he felled trees for a few years, he was a bike mechanic and even delivered a pig once to a dock to be transported to Hornby Island.
“I’ve had just crazy amounts of living and that’s just fuel for good songs.”
WiL said he wishes that he could have been doing what he’s doing in 1976, before everything recorded was “being taken.”
“I’m really a fan of: be there, see the show, talk about it the next day and it’s forever to be filed under a happening,” he said. It wasn’t recorded on someone’s phone, immediately posted and then commented on globally.
“I hope that the individual standing up in front of people communicating something powerful would always be there.”
He said the need to have a video library of live performances starts to make things less special.
WiL has released a new album called el Paseo. His single, Make Make, has received play on CBC and has a hilarious animated video that is posted on his website. The new album will be the underpinning of his Powell River performance but he’ll be sure to play some older material for fans of his previous records.
“We’ve road tested it and it’s going pretty good,” he said.
Anyone available from 1 to 2 pm on Tuesday, can have a pre-concert treat by attending Base Camp, 4548 Marine Avenue, and listening, by donation, to WiL perform.
