Meet Willie Green

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Willie Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Willie, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Well frankly I’m always working on that, but one thing I learned is to believe people when they say nice things about you. If someone takes the time to compliment you, odd are they really mean it! If people don’t have anything nice to say, they’ll usually keep their mouth shut.

In the end all I really know is how to be myself, for whatever that’s worth. When I try to emulate what other people do, or what other music sounds like it never really works. My best tends to be when I just follow my own instincts.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a record producer and engineer, which means I basically do all the stuff to make an artists concept into a record. I make beats, record vocals and bands, mix and master. It’s a special thing to craft something into existence, like to take an emotion or a thought and translate that through the speakers.

I recently released a project with my longtime friend PremRock, called Through Lines. It’s six songs, but deep in it’s brevity. We’ve done a lot of work together, but I haven’t produced a full project for him in about 11 years so this one was a lot of fun to make.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Patience, organization and attention to detail are the most important parts of my job. That sounds cliche, but once you get to a certain level, the quality of work is expected. Like you call me because I’m gonna make your records sound good, but my interactions with my clients are why they come back.

Individuality is important as well, there are so many music makers out there, and so many incredible tools it’s hard to compete, but the one thing I can bring to the table that no one else can is myself.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

It’s ok to step away and get some space from an issue. Working a problem harder is not necessarily better, beating your head against the wall just hurts you, not the wall. If I’m chasing my tail in the studio, I’ll take a walk around a block. If I’m really burnt out on a problem I have to find something else to do. Go to a museum, eat a good lunch, or even work on a different project. if my head isn’t something, my work will suffer.

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Image Credits

Rolley Navarro

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