AVANT-GARDE meets Experimental ART: Will Wood & his latest release "You liked this (Ok, Computer!)"

Will Wood

... is an American singer-songwriter, known for his ever-changing style and difficult-to-decipher public persona. Wood has released numerous singles and three studio albums: Everything Is A Lot, in 2015; Self-Ish (stylized as SELF-iSH), in 2016, The Normal Album in 2020, and the forthcoming In Case I Make It to be released in the summer of 2022.

Little is known about the real Will Wood, and his public image has often been the subject of strange myths, misinformation, and misconceptions. Wood has a disdain both personal and ideological for all platforms of social media and its culture, and does not shy away from making these views public. Unlike many artists in this era, Wood makes the fact that he doesn’t operate any social media accounts clear, openly resisting the way artists are expected to self-promote. 

Despite his borderline reclusive and private nature, Wood has consistently been open about his past struggles with addiction and mental illness, having entered recovery early in his career and later being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Wood donates portions of his income to various mental health charities, including the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, saying, "I’ve gotten a lot better. I want to try and do something to help others get there.”

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Who is the "the human" behind the extraordinary artist "Will Wood"?

I’m not sure I know how to answer that! Just sort of a guy. People sometimes seem to think I’m some recluse who lives in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no phone, completely separated from normal society like some kind of angsty hippie hermit. 

But like, I spend most of my nights on the couch eating dumplings and watching goosebumps or commentary YouTubers with my girlfriend. I keep pet rats and I talk to them in a silly voice. I passively collect Stranger Things memorabilia and am a big fan of knick knacks. I hate my printer. My house is in a pretty wooded area so I get into staring matches with deer all the time and run into all kinds of weird bugs. 

I used to smoke but I quit again. I used to be a real gym rat now I’m just a regular rat. I don’t know, is that an answer? Haha one of the downsides to not really using social media is that the rumor mill goes crazy in my absence, and I’m not there to correct the record or show people that the guy in my promo photos or people’s stories is not my day-to-day personality, so I think people really have this idea that I’m somehow different from literally any other dude wearing pajamas on a weekday. But I’m not. I’m a spectacularly unremarkable person day-to-day.

If I take a listen to "Cicada Days" and your latest release "You liked this (Ok, Computer!)" then I have to say that your influences are very broad, isn't it?

I guess so! I don’t know, I guess because I’m so close to the process I can see connective tissue between things that others might not see. Both of them are definitely heavily influenced by my love of Radiohead. 

“Cicada Days” features that softness and occasional spaceyness, as well as that sort of early Johnny Greenwood inspired guitar breakdown at the end. And of course YLT is directly a tribute to their track “Fitter, Happier” from their record OK Computer.

Do you see "You liked this (Ok, Computer!)" as a mirror or as a result of our social life/behaviour or is it simply "the walk of time" how things are changing?

I wouldn’t say it’s a mirror or anything, just me making fun of something I don’t see criticized anywhere enough considering how important the subject is. Just a bummer little satire of how social media programs are designed to emotionally manipulate, and of how well it seems to work. 

I find the whole thing terrifying, especially when it comes to how it is affecting the psychological development of children and altering people’s personalities. 

Obviously it’s a necessary evil quite often, especially for people in creative work, but we shouldn’t need to pay such immense social, political, and emotional consequences for it - and we wouldn’t if people would start truly recognizing ad internalizing that the ruling class is behind the whole thing.

Could we expect more songs like "You liked this (Ok, Computer!)" in the future?

Probably not in this precise vein, but it’s not the first time I’ve put out a single that wasn’t a “song” in the traditional sense, and it might not be the last.

When or how do you decide that a song is ready for a release?

It depends on the song! But I guess ultimately it’s just when I think it sounds ready. You can kind of just feeling it, I think, depending on where you are in the process. In the recording process, it’s usually like “okay, that’s what it’s supposed to sound like, it’s done!” But in the writing process I can sometimes be re-tooling things until the day I record them.

Who would you most like to collaborate with?

I’d love to do something with Andrew Bird or Tom Waits. Both such stunningly unique artists; some of my all-time favorites.

What was in your opinion the last big surprise in music history/industry?

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the industry or its history, or what I should find surprising. Radiohead’s “pay what you want” model for In Rainbows comes to mind. It was revolutionary, totally unheard of at the time, and I don’t think the industry went back to normal after that. 

In many ways for the better, in others for the worse. Not that I think it was a bad idea - I think it was a really cool idea that helped encourage smaller artists to try new business models. But I don’t know, I bet more interesting things than that have happened since then. What about Gangnam Style? That was a pretty big deal.

Right now, in this second, what are your "All time top 3 Songs"?

Oh that’s tough! I’m thinking 

Pure Comedy by Father John Misty, 

Haute Tropique by Man Man, and 

Because by The Beatles.

...and last but not least what's next for you?

I’m putting out my next single, “White Noise” on 7/8 (Right?), then the new album “In case I make it,” comes out 7/29. After which I’ll be going on a national tour and then taking a long break from all this stuff. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today :)