The beginnings’ of, The Pirate Album, were unusual. Whilst working on his film compositions, Will Bates rented a fifteen foot long balafon (gourd-resonated xylophone) without consulting the director. His close friend and renowned percussionist Mathias Kunzli jumped to lend his hand to some of Will‘s sketches, along with six other balafons, for a blossoming film project. All was going well. However, when the director and Will then met at the studio, he was neither impressed nor amused.
Unfortunately, the project quickly went south. Will and the director amicably parted ways, leaving the beautiful balafon tones behind. However, Will was sure he could get these sketches back. Once in his ownership, the seeds of an album were sewn. Whilst having a background in bands – delving in dance music, indie-rock, and jazz – Will had spent the past decade or so focusing entirely on scoring to motion picture. So, with these sketches in hand, it was high time for Will to release something that was not a soundtrack album, but instead, something entirely his own.
Swiftly recruiting some of his closest collaborators from the realms of TV and film, Will worked with a wonderful assortment of talented musicians. The first recruit was a childhood friend of Wills, Quentin Collins; a London-based jazz musician, best known for his work as Kyle Eastwood’s trumpet player. Next, Will‘s drummer and percussionist of fifteen years came on board, New York-based Spencer Cohen.
Setting out to re-mould the existing sketches and turning them into songs, Will envisioned the genre realms of The Pirate Album sonically sitting between Eden Ahbez and Talking Heads. However, just like all best laid plans, The Pirate Album, was put on hold once more whilst Will worked on a film composition. Over the span of eighteen months, The Pirate Album would be dusted off the shelf, nurtured and revived, to be set back and gather dust once more. Slowly tinkering, never fully satisfied, Will‘s composition commissions took priority.
It wasn’t until Lucy Alper, a music supervisor of Will‘s own production company Fall On Your Sword landed a sync for one of The Pirate Album’s tracks. This moment became a catalyst for one final creative push on the album. And finally, The Pirate Album, is being offered into the world. A project born out of rejection, that became an excuse to have fun with friends in the studio, is being proudly released as a testament to Will‘s unwavering creative spirit. Whilst Will describes The Pirate Album as the outcome of “making music for the sake of making music”, the outcome is nine, beautifully diverse, sonically striking, and captivating tracks, ensuring Will Bates‘ status as an important artist releasing right now.
About Will Bates
The son of two Hammer Horror actors, London born Will Bates started his eclectic musical career as a jazz saxophonist. He spent his teens closing down bars in London, playing alto sax in a BBC1 game show and earning a degree in music at Westminster University. He quickly leaned towards composition and production, and worked alongside artists as diverse as Roy Ayers and Steve Hackett. Bates released several singles in London on house music label Milk n’2 Sugars and drum’n’bass label Federation Records. As a singer-songwriter, he led his own band sharing the stage with Morcheeba.
In 2002 he caught the attention of Mike Rutherford, who hired Will for his programming and production skills on the Mike and The Mechanics album ‘Rewired‘. Will also wrote two tracks for the album.
In 2003, Will Bates relocated to New York and began composing for commercial music company Amber Music. As a composer at Amber he won jobs for clients including Beck’s, Wendy’s, Phillips, Toyota, Wrigleys and Chase. A year later, he wrote the Coca Cola Olympic anthem for the Turin winter Olympics and in 2008 he won a Gold Lion at Cannes for Best Use Of Music In A Commercial.
Once settled in Brooklyn, he started The Rinse, a pop-punk band of which Will was the lead singer, composer and producer. They toured the US and released an album in Japan. In 2009, Will left Amber Music and started Fall On Your Sword with producer Lucy Alper, the company is named after his video art project which had become something of a sensation on YouTube. Fall On Your Sword was based in Brooklyn for 10 years, until making the move to Los Angeles in 2018.
