There are moments when you’re having a conversation with someone and their eyes light up, their body language changes and their tone shifts. When given the opportunity to add any comments at the end of our interview, Tristan M. Williams didn’t hesitate to talk about what music means to him.
“For me, when someone makes music, they’re creating the sound of their soul. That’s why I don’t like creating type beats, because I’m creating the sound of someone else,” Williams said, referencing the trend of creating hip-hop beats in the style of other hip-hop artists
All of Williams’s brothers played basketball, so he started playing at 7 years old, but he wasn’t drawn to it, “I played it too naturally, but it wasn’t really my thing that much.” He installed the app Garage Band during one of his brother’s tournaments out of boredom. This was the unlikely start to what would become his passion.
For the next three years he would only use the basic loops and twists to develop beats but by the time he was 14, he grew out of it. It wasn’t until he was 15 that he learned about scales and how to implement them. One of the challenges of learning music.
Eventually, he got his first job, the money from which he would invest into equipment and software. “Around the time I was thinking to myself, you know, I want to kind of elevate myself. This is when I said I got to that point I was starting to get a bit more serious about actually producing.”
One of Williams biggest milestones was his lo-fi album and how he had to go through the process of creating accounts for services such as Spotify. “At this time, I still wasn’t getting too serious … but I had so much music that I was just, ‘Why not put it out somewhere?’”
After starting at Brookhaven in the fall, Williams struggled finding the time to work on his music. However, through that struggle he emerged all the better.
“I think during this period, I would say that my creativity actually got higher, because the only time I found myself having space to make music was on my lunch break at work,” he said. “I only had 30 minutes to make it … But I got to a point where I started getting good and it forced me to trust myself and not focus on being perfect.”
“I don’t want it [music production] to be my primary source of income,” he said. “The only reason is because I would hate to be in a situation where I’m short on money and I need to sell now. … I don’t just make music for anyone. They have to have a certain level of passion.”
Williams recognizes that, to make a living from producing, he would need to sacrifice quality for quantity – that is a price he is reluctant to pay. His plan is to finish college and find another career to continue music production.
He plans to release a new album this summer, which tackles the issue of love. “Not so much so in a sense of ‘oh I love you,’ ‘I love this,’ or ‘you broke my heart,’ but the absence of love in people’s hearts,” Williams said.
It’s clear that Williams intends to inject his passion into the beats and lyrics he creates. This summarizes his journey and future perfectly: “I love music.
