Wil On New Single ‘What Are We Waiting For,’ Working With Randy Jackson [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO]

I was born and raised in Singapore, and I discovered my love for music at 13 years old. Then I taught myself how to play the guitar and the piano, and then... I love music so much that I started to learn how to write songs, and I lived all over the world. I lived in Melbourne, I lived in Spain, and then I came to Los Angeles where I met Randy Jackson, who is now my manager, and we just wrote this single called “What Are We Waiting For?”

I was in a studio in downtown L.A. recording a new music video of mine, and he was on the other side of the studio with his band North of Nine, and he walked in and I got a shock. I was thinking, 'Oh my god, is that, is that who he is?' Of course, better looking in person, and I was like, 'Oh, hi.' And he was like, 'Hi, I'm Randy Jackson,' and I was thinking 'Oh my god.' And then he said, 'So, what are you doing?' and I said, 'Oh, I'm just recording my new music video,' and he said, 'Ok, what do you think about sending me some songs?' I said, 'Of course,' and afterwards, two weeks later, I got a phone call from him: 'Hi, this is Randy Jackson. Would you like a coffee?' you know, 'Let's have a coffee. I want to talk about music.' I was like, 'Yeah!' and I got so excited, and we met up for coffee, and he says, 'What do you think about me managing you?' Yes! (snaps fingers and laughs).

The song “What Are We Waiting For” is about being in the moment, and also, don't wait for things to happen. If you believe in something, reach out for it and grab it. The opportunity, I'm saying. And you know, working with Randy, it's incredible because he's really, really genuine in person. He's very friendly, very approachable. The first time when I had a song idea, I was thinking, 'How am I going to speak to Randy about that?' And I was wondering if he would be, you know, very strict about it. But when, when I said, when I first met him at a studio, I said, 'Randy, I have an idea about this song,' and then he was like, 'Hahaha, yeah, yeah, what do you think about this?' He's just always laughing, and we're like kids in the studio. We play all the time, we enjoy ourselves, and that's where creativity thrives. When you're able to have fun and enjoy the moment, you know, so working with Randy is just, we're like kids playing toys all the time [laughs].

Growing up in Singapore, I was exposed to a lot of Eastern music, and I noticed that the music is a lot of expression, a lot of imageries, a lot of... It's very dramatic, and having to meet Randy who has been in the pop and rock culture for so many years, it's like, he teaches me the importance of Western music. So my music is like a fair mix of Eastern, dramatic lyrics with Western music. And having to live in Spain for two years, my music has a lot of rhythm in there, you know, flamenco culture. So, it's synth-pop, EDM at the same time with the East and West mixture of the, you know, feel.