At the end of his UK tour, with his latest single Sweet Dreamer out just a week before, Will Joseph Cook talks about the start of his musical career, writing songs and getting people to vibe at festivals.
When did you start playing music and what made you start writing your own songs?
I started playing when I was 13. I found the guitar lessons really, really dull so after about six months of doing that I just kind of ditched it and started learning poor covers of songs. I just wanted to learn songs that I wanted, whereas the book tells you what you have to do. And then I guess once I knew a few chords I just started writing as soon as I could after that.
What kind of music did you listen to growing up?
I had the music that my dad was playing, so all sorts of post punk stuff like The Cure and The Smiths, and all the kind of 90s indie pop like Supergrass, Blur and Coldplay. And then I guess I first started buying my own record when I was like 12, so it was records around 2007-2011 indie pop like Vampire Weekend and MGMT.
Would you say they are some of the influences for your own music?
Yeah, massively, they’ve been a constant from when I started finding my own music and I still love them the same as I did then.
So obviously you play guitar and you recently uploaded a piano cover of Sweet Dreamer, do you play any other instruments or is there any that you would like to learn?
No, I’ve kind of been teaching myself piano recently, but it’s just the one song for now. I think if I was going to pursue another instrument it would probably be a string instrument, I’d have lots of use for that I think, I always put string arrangements in tracks but I just play them on a keyboard.
You’re a solo artist and you just have a band supporting you live, does that mean you write the parts for all the instruments yourself?
Yeah, I think it’s nice to be in the studio on my own, writing all the parts and not having to argue with anyone about what sounds better. I’ll write a demo of a song and I’ll put all the parts in and just like, play a beat with my fingers and then I’ll take it in with the producer and we’ll get players in to replay the parts so it sounds like actual drums and such. So I’ll do all the guitars and vocals and then I just kind of play everything else in badly and find the right player for each track and get them in to play it better.
You started doing a lot of festivals this year.
Yeah, we did a proper run, this last summer we did Reading and Leeds and everything. Reading was way more people than we expected. It’s funny to compare it to Leeds which we played on Friday and that was a very lively, drunk crowd and people were crowd surfing and stuff and then the people on Sunday (at Reading), they just felt like enjoying themselves and you could see everyone all the way to the back.
Which festival was the most special, was there any that you used to go to when you were younger and always wanted to play?
I think Reading was really cool. When I went in 2013 I saw Half Moon Run playing the same stage and we played around the same time, I really loved that performance that they did so it’s nice that there’s a bit of symmetry in what we’re doing.
How do you feel about playing festivals as a relatively small artist compared to shows like this (at The Hope And Ruin, Brighton) where most people actually know your music and sing along?
It’s definitely better when people know the tunes. I think when it’s a new music festival, people are usually up for something they’ve never heard, but when you’re playing somewhere like Reading and you have a crowd that doesn’t really know you, it’s quite difficult to win people over. It can be really fun sometimes, I see it as a challenge to see if by the end of the set you can get people really vibing and enjoying themselves.
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