Name: Shannon Busch aka WILSN
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: Australian
Current release: The WILSN debut album Those Days are Over is out via League.

If you enjoyed this interview with WILSN and would like to keep up to date with her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.



For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a “visualisation” of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

It really depends for me. Sometimes I’ll know exactly how I want the song to turn out, but other times I’ll go with the flow and see what happens!

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do research or create early versions?

My songs usually start as a demo recording - which just means a first draft. Sometimes this first draft is pretty rough, just piano with a vocal. Sometimes it’s a fully fledged song with other production. And sometimes there will be multiple different early versions made.

Then, after sitting with a demo we like for a little while, my producer and I will create the final version. Occasionally the first demo turns out to be the actual final recording we use and that might be because the magic in the original process of writing / recording it couldn’t be re-created.

An example of a song of mine completely changing in the process is “Never Happen Again” from my debut album.



The original demo we made was much faster with drums, bass, keys and electric guitar … but in the end we went with stripping it back to just acoustic guitar and vocal. I felt that this conveyed the meaning of the song better!

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I usually start by just playing some chords or listening to an instrumental idea and seeing what melodies come to me.

This part is usually fairly easy. If I’m feeling the music melodies will come.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

For me lyrics will usually come after the music. I use the chords and music as a guide for vibe and lyrical content.

But every now and then it’s the opposite and a song will come from a lyrical line I’ve jotted down previously.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

I really like lyrics that are what I call “twisty”, where there’s a double meaning or some sort of twist to them. I find it really hard to write like this though and find my lyrics are usually more literal or conversational.

Sometimes I wish I wrote more like the first way I described but I’m also learning to just embrace my own style of writing and not compare myself to others as much.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I think as far as melody goes, I try to let it just happen and come naturally without overthinking it. With lyrics I try to control it a little more and find a theme or idea to write about. I’m fairly literal most of the time.

My song “Those Days Are Over” had completely different lyrics to begin with, it was more of a love song.



But the music ended up feeling so powerful I wanted the lyrics to reflect that and it ended up being about overcoming doubt and fear. The days of me doubting myself and my musical choices are over.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I don’t mind when this happens! If this happens mid writing a song I’ll take the time to record both ideas just so they’re both documented and I can go back to one or the other if I like.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get two songs out of it instead of one!

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

Sometimes it is hard to know when a song you’re writing or recording is finished. You could keep finessing it and changing it forever. But at a certain point you just have to trust your instinct,

If there is nothing obviously wrong or feeling odd ... Then it’s probably done.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you’re satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

In this day and age, when making records, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll sit with things for a while as they get created and I rarely leave finishing things right up to a deadline.

So essentially I always sit with it at each stage and make changes / additions as they are needed.

What’s your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

For me I place a high value on production, but I am happy to let someone I trust do the things that I am not good at.

For example, when it comes to tracking my lead vocal or arranging backing vocal ideas, I rarely need any input on this and often prefer no input. (laughs) But with the band arrangement, instrumental ideas / tones / parts I’m happy to defer to the producer or session players playing on the song as it's not really my strength.

I will obviously speak up if I’m not digging a part or the tone of something.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Sometimes there is a feeling of a plateau after the excitement of releasing a record. The important thing I have to remind myself is to just keep going.

Getting creative again and finding time to write is one of the things that helps get over this feeling the most.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn’t or wouldn’t in more mundane tasks?

Music can share aspects with other things. To create latte art involves mastering a technical skill and so does learning an instrument. Practice a lot and you’ll probably get good at it.

But writing / creating a song seems to have this other aspect that is hard to explain. Quincy Jones has a saying about creating music, “let’s not get too full of ourselves. Let’s leave space for god to come into the room”.

I’m not religious but I do believe that creating music does sometimes feel like something is coming to you from somewhere else ... Call it god, the universe whatever.