After slick and provocative tracks like “Crossfire”, Billy Winn is back, and this time, “Crash” is bringing him in with a different sound and perspective. With some behind the scenes changes, Winn is able to spread his wings and experiment with some truly amazing new sounds. We sat down to talk about his new single “Crash”, his latest career trajectory, and what it feels like to be going through such growth as an artist.
Your new single ‘Crash” has just dropped and it’s definitely a new sound for you. It is! It all sort of came out of nowhere and the response has been really great. I have been recording new music this summer also and working with a new production team. We have been working on new records and preparing for my first proper EP to come out early next year!
“Crash” has a very ethereal and trance-like vibe, which is definitely a departure from what you have done before. It is a different sound for sure. After the last few records and the fall out of my record label, I parted ways with the producer I was working with at the time and I started to grow and have some definite thoughts as to where I wanted to go with my career. That’s when I wanted to evolve the sound; I knew I still wanted it to be electronic though. I went through so many tracks and so many different sounds, so many different producers for quite awhile. I was reviewing track after track and thinking that they were wrong and not what I wanted to do. The track for “Crash” came my way and it came from a producer that I have been friends with for a long time. We were doing a lot of remixes together already. He sent me the track for “Crash”, I wrote the lyrics, and then I recorded it this past May. I sat down with my manager in August and we had a conversation about the possibility of doing an exclusive on Apple Music with the video. If we were going to do that exclusive, we had to do something that really resonates with people. There was a record on the table from my former producer, but it’s like this; relationships with producers are very much like romantic relationships. All of the things that you do together that brought you joy are the very same things that make you frown and that bring you heartache. I have felt all of those things in the record that were on the table during that meeting. We were trying to figure out what to do since people had been asking where I had been and were asking for another dance record. My manager wanted me to do a a dance record, and I wanted to do one as well, it just was not the right song. I mentioned having another song and we tried it, and he really loved it also. We ran with it and here we are with “Crash”!
It has a much deeper vibe for you and definitely demonstrates some growth as an artist. Thank you! That’s really what I wanted to do, I think. As a artist, I wanted to stretch my abilities and to show people that I am a dynamic songwriter. I can do the dance pop and it’s fun, but I can also talk about things that are substantial and not just provocative.
Do you think this may be the type of sound you may be sticking with for a while? I think it is what I am going to be sticking with right now. Since “Crash”, I have been recording other music and even with the dance records, it’s all still dark and sexy and more synth pop than dance pop. I think that is just more where I am right now. One thing I love about the recording and production process is going into it and not having a clue about what is about to be created. “Crash” is one of those records. The producer who actually worked on “Crash” with me is one of the two sides of my production team. I played it for the other side of the team and they also loved it. They have been trying to match the music with that sound in both the feel and the concept. Its awesome to play around with something that I have never done before and see how far I can stretch it. What I can definitely tell you is that the subject matter of “Crash” and what I am writing a lot of and what I want to share with the world is more of the kinds of subjects that I talk about with “Crash”. The perpetuation of what I released when I was with my former label was that it was all about sex, boys and parties, there was nothing else. Now after those three things is the crash. That is a part of Billy Winn that I didn’t get to show people I think, during that era of my music. It perpetuated for many people, a very sexy image, which I am fine with. As an artist though, I wanted to be able to work for the next one hundred and fifty years and say I loved every step of it. In order to be able to do that, I had to write things that were a little bit more than sex, parties and boys. I still can write like that, don’t get me wrong, but I wanted to do more right now.
Your ability to be more expressive with your music could be because you are not tied to the demands of a label either now, correct? You know, I never got to talk about it at the time, because I was trying to make the best of a situation. The label came to me and then I came to them with the record. It wasn’t the kind of idea that they discovered me and I came to them with the songs. The ideas in my music and in the image of me was pretty much fully formed before I signed any record deals. The image that was so prevalent with me at that time was that those were the kinds of records they liked at that time. I was also building a following with the LGBT community, so it was easy to perpetuate all of those things also. One of the things I did not get to say was that I came to the table with the record and the vision of my music. Changing it has not really been that difficult. The hardest thing about it has been trying to articulate it to my collaborators where I wanted to go, but I think we are on to it now. In the past it was harder to tell them where I wanted to go musically, and we were trying different sounds to see what worked, and then finding out what did work and where I feel centered and what I want to be synonymous with.
So what comes after the “Crash”? Well then we go back to the dance floor! (laughs). There are a couple of songs that I am working on that I am teetering with. In a perfect world, I would love to do one more single, and have that single come right before the EP. This is the first time that I am putting out a proper collection of songs that can tell a story that will show that I can do this, this, and end it like that. Finally going back to dance records is really what I am feeling right now. There are a lot of other stories like “Crash” that I am telling in my music right now. The next thing that will happen may very well take us back to the dance floor though.
On a daily basis, what is inspiring Billy Winn? I think my biggest inspiration is my desire to get people to see what it is that I do and who I am as an artist. The idea of looking for, not necessarily a perfect sound, but a sound that represents who I am. I can hear a song or hear a track, I can see a video, I can see the tour, those are the kinds of things I look for when I am making music and inspire me to keep going and get to the place. Daily, it;s trying to find a perfect balance to share with people.
https://www.billywinn.com/