Luca x Will: Making it Happen

Interview by Nia Blankson

Photography and Photo Editing by Nia Blankson

Luca X Will Interview

General backgrounds in music, like from day 1, how you started getting into creating?
Will: It’s been with me my whole life, there are pictures of me at 3 years old on the piano. I started lessons at 3 years old, I started with classical, and when I got to 10 years old, I wanted to try songwriting, so I started doing composition classes, doing very classic songs and then yeah, I started to perform the m at my recitals, and I got into jazz when I was 13. Jazz was like the door for me, that opened everything and I’ve been applying that in all the music that I make. And so, I think that starting with piano was definitely, growing up with my house with my dad playing music all the time like very timeless music from the 70s, 80s, and yeah I went to meet Luca – on instagram we set up a little jam session with another artist, and we had just been, we just started learning since then in 2020 how to produce, what the industry was like, performing, and yeah, I picked up guitar, started to learn how to produce, and yeah I think it's been a long time coming. The ride. It’s been a great ride. It's my life.

Colorful chords - it's jazz! There's so much fit into the progressions and everything like that.
Luca: Same for me honestly, I honestly, who knows if I ever thought I'd be a music [person. But my mom, when I was 3, said “you need some extra curriculars” so she pushed me right into piano classes at 3, like Will. I did like 8 years of piano classes, I despised it! It was like classical bullshit, you know like every kid does the classical thing.
Will: She’s incredible!
Luca: Awwwww, really! Keys! Alright, alright.
Luca: But yeah, so I got pushed into the classical stuff, and it was the greatest lesson of my life because it helped me train my ear. I didn’t really pursue piano, but I got into the choir at church, so I grew up in and out of the choir at church, and in school I was always doing choir. And sometime in high school I was like, my dad was about to sell his guitar for some extra money, and I was like oh, that guitar is too beautiful for me or just let it be sold, so I said “dad I’ll learn the guitar if you give me the guitar.” and that's how i got into garageband like 2018 in high school, and it just kinda grew into a love for trying to make music and, I remember being on garageband and all of it sounded absolutely terrible! I was so confused, I could never understand something like, “how do you turn something from a computer to like a full track” like it just didn't click with me. But once i met weill after the jam session we started working with this artist and had the opportunity to watch from some people who were already in the industry so we kind of took our time learning how to perform, learning how to produce, and just brewing in rooms and staying humble, and you know staying quiet and picking up as much as possible, asking as many questions as we could. And integrating it later. We’d go to a session with the other person and then later we’d get inspired, we wanna gland make something and we’d use the same tools that we were learning from other sessions. So one of the greatest blessings was just running into will at the jam session, and being in the band together, we have real chemistry having traveled together, having played on the road, so it's a brotherhood that I have with wi;ll. The relationship we have is a real partnership. We share the same vision! We want to go in the same direction. Thbats hard to find in someone for real, especially in art. Someone that really sees the same thing that you do out of a song. That's all you can ask for.

Sometimes two people can be very very talented but…
Luca: yeah! Then you don't want to say anything, it's like oh will if I don't like something it's like alright... take that shit out! U know what I'm saying, and he's like alright, bet. And he plays something ten times better, you know what I'm saying? We bounce off of each other.

So you guys were part of the band for Araya, so was that the jam session that you guys met at?
Will: Yeah, so I posted on my story during covid saying something like, “I'm sick of this. I wanna go play some music, who wants to jam” so my other friend forwarded it to Araya, so Araya was like, he said yes. And we went and he came, we were all in masks, like it was that time. It was, yeah, we stepped right in and we didn't say anything to each other, we just said hey from a far, then we just started playing and it sounded really, really great. So we were like ok, let's do this again, let's go again! So he invited us to his studio at the time that he’d be going to for his album, and yeah, we joined his album, his first album, and helped produce that. And that was kinda where we were like, ok, this is what we want to do. We want to have, we have creative input, we have an idea of what we want, so let's learn and lets apply it later on.

I remember when you were posting about it and I checked it out like “whats this?” and then I was like holy shit this is real! And then it blew up and everything.
Will: It felt very real, and it was! And we were traveling, and we were playing live shows, and it was a really, really important stepping stone for us. And yeah, it opened the doors for everything, just in the industry, we were like ok this is how the industry works, this is how you network with people, so yeah, we were kind of just flung right into it! [To Luca] How old were you at the time?
Luca: Seventeen.
Will: Yeah, we were just like woah, it was crazy!
Luca: Yeah, the parties, the people! Like you know, you're meeting people that you like a lot! But so influential, so important.

So are you guys still a part of that band, or are you more so doing stuff just together?
Will: Um... if he needs guitars, I’ll play with him! But we don't really work together anymore...
Luca: *laughs*

So you [Will] are kind of like Luca’s executive producer now?
Will: Yeah, and so I mean, I produce for luca and I'm in the band as well, and I feel like the band we have now is very special, and it feels like a second family, you know? And these guys, like no matter how annoying it gets, they're like family! And it's just like, let's ride with these guys. We are so blessed to have each other. I feel like there is a very strong connection for what we have.

So, can you tell me a little bit about how you guys work together from both the writing process, the musical standpoint, and also, the production process? Like what roles you take in that, and how you bounce off of each other?
Luca: Yeah, I’d say we just.. It's so 50-50, we just, sometimes, one person will come up with an entire idea for a whole song, and just that will be a whole song. Will will come up with something and have an idea, or sometimes I’ll come in with something, but I think my favorite way that we make music is just jumping in the room and starting from scratch. It just tends to be, me and Will, Will will play some chords, guitar, you know, keys, whatever! And we just kind of build, I'll hop on the guitar and we just start to build. We find some melodies that we really like, and we just start to get it down on the computer and we just build it from the little idea of just us just hanging and jamming. So we love to jam. Always jamming.
Will: Jamming, it's the best way to just, however you’re feeling too. We come into the studio and if we’re having a bad day, this is where we unload. Then we have something to write about. So, if we are having a good day, the same thing goes for that too. So whatever mood we’re in, we just try to put the pen to the paper and express it.

Both of you have gotten a lot of major opportunities over the past few years, from being flown out to LA to record, to performing at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, and more recently, playing on the Red Couch Show. Can you tell me about these endeavors along with other opportunities you’ve gotten, as well as how you got these opportunities?
Luca: I think a lot of them come out of nowhere. It’s really funny how life works, and who you’ll run into. I got contacted through instagram about a really awesome opportunity to work with the best producers in the industry. All of this came from him coming across my reel, and he wanted to just reach out, and he was like “I love this stuff.” I think that you know, like we were talking about earlier, it's a funny age we live in, a lot of the opportunities have really been jumping out from social media. And just through the strength of the music. I rethink people have just naturally been tapping into it, the algorithm has been showing us a lot of love. People kind of fall in love with the music and I think the music does a lot of speaking for itself

So like seeing yourselves go from kind of like producing in your room to now, getting to do it at a professional level, like how has that been climb up through the ranks and sort of looking back and boeing like shoot, I would have dreamed of being here a few years ago, how has that been feeling for you guys?
Luca: So emotional! For me it's like , everything I've wanted and more, tio be doing music, as a career, you know what I'm saying? I think this is what we both want. Emotional! It’s just incredible, you know, we’ve worked so hard, so to finally be rewarded for what we’re doing, I think it's really fantastic. We’re artists, and I think we all understand that a big part of doing art is validation, whether we like it or not. So, yeah, being validated by the people who make the music in the industry, or who are at the top, it's the most incredible thing in the world.
Will: Every time we walk in here [the studio] we’re like “wow!” This is so cool, we’re really doing it! So making music, there's nothing wrong with just making music in your bedroom, you can come up with the best song ever in your bedroom, but now it feels like we have an office. We have something that’s so much more real. I don't know, to me it feels like when I step in here I have a goal, and it's possible because we have the space, so we can work with artists, we can make our own stuff for free. And so it just feels like we are on the right path when we walk in here.

Like yeah, stepping into an office makes a big difference. Like even though you can make things in your room at some point you're like ugh I just want to have able to compartmentalize.
Will: Yeah, and our studio is fantastic, it's great! It’s not top quality by any means, but it is a place where yeah, it is an office. It's a small little office that we have where we can do really good work and so it's just, yeah, it's the right path.

Tell me about that when Alter came out, did it start off as a single and then develop into an EP? Can you tell me about that?
Luca: Yeah, that's a really great question! I mean, I think yeah I'd say it started with just like one project. Our first project was Serotonin, our first single ever, that didn't end up being on the actual EP, but I feel like that was the catalyst for us deciding that we should be working towards something greater. We had released a song, it did super well on the blogosphere! I started with serotonin, and yeah I think that was the real catalyst for us realizing that we wanted to put it towards something a little bit greater. And it was just doing super well, and I kind of met some team members, I met my manager through the first single. And I think that once you start to get someone that's business minded it kind of changes the way you think about things. I think that we kind of saw it at first as like, maybe not for fun, but we didn't know how far it could go. But once we had a team- once we began to have a manager, there was a direction, a team, we were like ok, so what do we work in? So naturally it's like, first EP. So we kind of just started with Altar, and it was a super long process-
Will: So alter, would you say altar was like a genre defining... it kind of.. Cause serotonin was more of a “New R&B sound”
Luca: Yeah...
Will: but then Altar, it gave us a lot of inspiration towards our next work.
Luca: Yeah 100%! It was genre defining, I think it was like, we walked out of that studio thinking, that is exactly what we need to be capturing.
Will: yeah
Luca: We walked out at like 7am, you know it was like light out in the middle of midtown, we were both like walking next to each other, he [will] probably had work or something in the morning, we just had it [the song] just walking side by side, just bumpin’ it, just l;ike this is the shit. But the EP was just a learning curve. Just learning what the business is, we had to deal with our first business partner with the project, and it just taught us so much about what comes with having a career in music for real. It has nothing to do with making the music

Yeah no, that's insane! No literally the next question was about your sound and stuff, like yeah it's kinda this r&b, neo-soul... like yeah again, i know that genre, and musicology, all of that is like ugh, but if you even wanted to define it, how would you describe it?
Luca: That's a good question. Like, it's so hard for me- you know this is a hard question. For anybody to define, like I'd love for it to have a good name, but I think we make soul music. Purely, that is the word that embodies it all. It has a mix of southern tones, Spanish tones, so much of Will's influence has bled into the music, has bled into this project. So everything that comes from him, his jazz influences, all the Stevie Wonder stuff you know what I'm saying? The Michael Jackson stuff.

I mean it really sounds like it comes from the soul and comes from the heart. It sounds like it has a lot of substance.
Luca: Like what Will said before, we take what's going on in our real lives into our music, and that's the most important thing i think for us. When you've lived it someone else has lived it as well, and that's the type of music that's truly relatable.

Yeah! There was one of the songs, I think it was Halfway, those guitar silos in the middle of end, over the R&B track, it was just such a nice mesh
Will: Yeah! It's just like, soul music is definitely what we make. And yeah I think if you were to hear us live, you'd definitely say soul. Hearing us live you’d definitely say that. Nia: yeah, 100%

I want to talk about the studio now. You [Will] were telling me all about it when I came in, but just walk me through when the idea was conceived to jumping into it.
Will: the idea was conceived after spending a lot of money in one session. We had a really good idea for a song, and we were super inspired but we were in my bedroom, and we were making it as best as we could, but there was no drum kit there, the mic, you know, I had my shirt over the microphone and like, yeah, we were just like alright, let's get out of here. Lets go book a session at a really nice studio, and so we did that, but we felt really limited in the time that we paid for. And after that, we had a phone call and we were just like, you know what? Why don't we have a studio? And why don't we make it a place where we can come, and we can make it a place for ourselves, and for other people as well. So the idea kept flourishing, and it turned into this idea of timeless studios, and so we have been booking people in here, we make some of our stuff here, we lay some ideas down here, and yeah it was a very quick process, maybe like 3 weeks from the time we had the idea to having the space set up ready to go. So it was very quick but it was a no brainer.
Luca: he just spit it out, that was perfect! Yeah, exactly. We spent too much, luke we just know the feeling of being on the timeline like being on a budget, benign on a timeline, we were just like ok lets just create a space where that doesn't have to be the case for us, and for other people as well.

And when it came to life because you’re still in school!
WIll: I'm doing sociology! I'm still in school, I'm taking a few gap years, but yeah school, I tried music in school, but it just wasn't for me. And so this has kind of been like my passion. This is what keeps me, you know... after working a 9 hour shift, I come here, and I’m tired but I don't feel it. I could be here the whole night if duty calls, I’m here, this is what I want. So this is my passion.

And with the audio engineering side, was it self taught for both of you guys?
Luca: Absolutely, it was all learning, and asking questions. Just every producer that you come across. Instead of being like, you know, just chilling at the back sitting at the back of the studio knocked out or whatever, Will and I are the type that we’d be behind our producer like this, like “what plugin was it?” you what was that? Just all the time. Taking pictures, we just wanted to learn. We just spent a lot of time grinding, just textbook stuff
Will: Yeah, we had this one guy who really just like, he was a little bit older than us and he had been doing it for a while and he was just like, we’d go to his place and just watch and watch and watch... and you know, we went from watching, to taking the seat, and then he’d be out in the other room, cause we were watching and we were able to do it. Just hands on, It wasn’t really, we didnt take a class for it, i mean i took an intro to ableton, you know *all laugh* So yeah, it was all hands on.

So you’re balancing school and you[Luca] are balancing modeling and stuff?
Will: He’s in school
Luca: Yeah I'm also at Hunter with will as well! Going for psychology, getting my ass kicked, and we just, we’re troopers! Cause it can be some long days, especially when we were just opening the studio, it was just a lot of like, we’d wake up, go to school at 8am, you were in the studio all night just trying to get everything together, but yeah it's a blessing. We think, it's a thing that we choose to balance for any day of the week you know what I’m saying? Art is kind of freeform, so you kind of have to expect that it's gonna be a lot more hours, and we’re just loving the journey, and loving this part of it.

This is super inspiring to see too, cause that's what me and a bunch of my friends, that's kind of teh grind.. And for other people too, they're like I feel like I don't know anyone or have these big connections, how do you even... but you just gotta make things work and grind it out, and just put yourself in those …
Luca: people always say “how did you do it?” or like, you have to have the right mindset, you have to know how to market, you have to master what you’re doing first, and research and study, and you know, it just takes a lot of research and stuff, and time. And a lot of it is time! It could take 8 years to break an artist, you know what I'm saying, 10 years to break an artist to be a mainstream artist. So you kind of have to wait and pray and just keep your head down.

Kind of with the EP coming out and everything, so tell me what you guys have coming up, like I feel like after the red couch show, like when is the tiny desk concert, you know what i mean?
Luca: That's what I'm saying! I love that! I love that!

When is that happening! What's coming up next?
Luca: Yeah, I mean you know, as for you know, the tape, I can only say you know, so much... but we’ve got some really really incredible opportunities on the horizon, will and I are working on an album now with a new partner, and so just i think this year we just released the debut album, and we are gonna play a lot of shows, and hopefully things will correct, hopefully we’ll do some touring next year as well. The plan is to just get out there, play as much as possible, and start working on the album. Just take the summer to get inspired, recharge, and get ready for the work year that's ahead