WE CATCH UP WITH SOUTH AFRICA'S RISING STAR WILL LINLEY
Before his debut single “miss me (when you’e gone)” hit number one and launched an international career, who was the guy behind it?
Born and raised in Cape Town, the 20-year-old musician and songwriter’s music journey began at a young age.
“I first started doing music and writing songs when I was about 16 years old but, I’ve always done music,” he explains, “I was raised in a very musical household [but] it really started to take form and become a serious love of mine in lockdown.”
“When we had that initial lockdown of 30 days, it was like ‘let’s write a bunch of music’ and I basically wrote a song a day, and that’s where I really fell in love with it.” The youngest, most carefree of four Linley brothers had found a focus and his writing clearly made the grade.
“After I’d written a bunch of these songs, I decided to put one of them out,” he explains, “a mutual friend of mine heard one of the songs, and he put me in touch with a friend of his called David Marshall, a producer who is based out in Cape Town.”
“We started writing a bunch of music together, we had some songs that we loved, and David urged me to start a TikTok account, to start putting music out there, to start just showing people what we were doing, and one of those songs started moving on social media, and it kind of changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
Will’s song gained traction on social media, accumulating over 4 million views. The ability to create so freely is one which Will attributes to the support of his parents and the fans.
“‘miss me (when you’re gone)’ was the first song we ever released and that did kick start this whole career, this whole thing…and that song was written in my bedroom,” he exclaims.
“The reaction to the first single…was such an incredible response, I felt incredibly supported, incredibly loved, and I felt so incredibly grateful in that first week after release ,” Will says, “it was such a surreal experience, and I seriously don’t take it for granted, it’s so awesome to see people that found me with that song are still listening to the music that I’m releasing now.”
This time last year Will was studying a degree he didn’t enjoy and now he was returning to Stellenbosch – on a national concert tour.
“Being back home is being so awesome, it’s like a little shot of espresso just being back with community, with friends, with family,” he says, “I think being away from home is awesome, it’s a little adventure, playing shows here in South Africa has been so cool, it’s been the first headlining tour that we’ve done right.”
“I think the concert tonight is going to be so much fun, it’s the last show of the miss me tour that we’ve done around South Africa and whenever I come to Stellenbosch, I’m always met with such love and support and it’s always so awesome coming back.”
For all the chart topping, national radio airplay and his recent filming of a handful of music videos in California, it’s a live gig at his favourite student haunt that takes the cake. He not only played but sold out the Daisy Jones Bar. So, what’s next?
“What I’m really trying to do is create music that connects with people. For me, that’s the most important thing. My dream is just to really create music and experiences that people love and feel connected to and feel heard and feel seen.”
