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#41 Wilson Charles — Always Be 10x Better Than Anyone in the Room

May 25, 2020

My guest on this episode is the keyboardist, composer and creative Wilson Charles.

Charles spent ten years helping to realise the creative vision of artists such as Justin Timberlake and Rhianna, touring the world with them and others before running away with the Cirque de Soleil show Michael Jackson Immortal.

Now he’s finding his own voice and returning to his classical music roots. Charles just completed a 100 day cycle composing original solo piano works which he plans to record, release and tour in the near future.

Learn about what it’s like to tour with pop superstars and hear Charles’ advice for musicians who want to play in those arenas.

Find and follow Wilson Charles online:
Instagram | Patreon

Links and show notes from this episode:

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

 

Matthew Carey

Hi Charles and welcome to Studio Time.

 

Wilson Charles

Thank you. It's great to be here.

 

Matthew Carey

Let's start at the beginning. Tell me about your first experience with music.

 

Wilson Charles

Wow. I come from a musical family. My grandfather was very well known on the jazz and blues scene in Memphis. But my first experience was a recital I played when I was five. This is the moment when I realized that music was the only thing there was for me. I was playing Mozart and I was on stage and I was performing. When I got done, I took my bow and as I was walking off stage I let out a very loud sigh. I guess everyone in the audience heard it and they laughed. Yeah. From that moment, I was like, this is it. This is exactly what needs to be done. That moment has always stuck with me and it's always been that moment that's driven me in my career.

 

Matthew Carey

What was it about the sigh and the laugh? Was it the connection?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, it allowed me to understand that everybody knew that me playing Mozart as a young kid was difficult, and being able to get through it the way I did...i t was the connection. Everyone understood. In that moment when everyone laughed, they understood exactly what I had been through. That was it. That was everything to me.

 

Matthew Carey

Who was teaching you, or how were you learning when you were that young?

 

Wilson Charles

I had a very brilliant piano teacher, his name was Thomas Schwartz. He was like a father to me almost. Very, very, very, very strict. He would know if you didn't practice, and he would let you know that he knew that you didn't practice. It was an amazing experience as a child to grow up with someone who's able to instruct you in a way that would affect the rest of your career. There are moments when I hear his voice in my head, telling me how to get through, how to practise things, how to work things out, where to breathe or exactly what technique to use to work out a difficult passage. So yeah, I had very, very good instruction as a kid all the way up until about the age of 18.

 

Matthew Carey

With the same teacher right through?

 

Wilson Charles

With the same teacher, yes.

 

Matthew Carey

Wow. It's a journey for both the teacher and the student to spend that long working together, isn't it?

 

Wilson Charles

Yes, it actually is. Like I said, it's a family thing. When he and my mother met, they had an understanding that her children were going to be great at playing the piano and performing. We competed. My sister also was a concert pianist. She's a year older than me and we both studied with him. We competed and we did recitals. We did competitions and we did everything that could be done as a child, growing up playing music. We learned the idea of being exceptional. My father's rule was always be 10 times better than anyone in the room. So we always approached performing and playing with that mentality.

 

Matthew Carey

What was your father's experience that was behind that instruction to you?

 

Wilson Charles

My father is a black man growing up in Detroit inner city. He just knew that in order for his children to be exceptional, they had to have the mentality of exceptional people. One of the things he instilled in us was "You can't be average." You can't be even an A student. You have to be an A++ student in order to be heard and understood in this world. It's good that he had that.

 

Matthew Carey

Yeah. As long as it's delivered in the right way, the sort of discipline that comes from your father, and that also came from Thomas your piano teacher, is really helpful. Sometimes we need somebody to kick our butt, right?

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's such a necessary thing, especially for children. I grew up on the west side of Detroit in what I was doing, playing classical music, was not a thing. My friends were playing basketball and hanging out in parks and I would do some of it but they I would have to say, you know, "Hey guys, I gotta go and practise for an hour or two." That discipline was definitely something that influenced me not only as a child but as an adult.

 

Matthew Carey

The discipline to be a musician, especially one that's working on classical music requires a lot of time, a lot of focus. How did you feel about balancing that with the social aspect and all the things that your friends were doing?

 

Wilson Charles

Oh, man, it was hard. My sister and I thought we were strange kids. Our complaint as children was, "Mom, we're not normal." We wanted to be like the normal kids. We wanted to be like everyone else around us. But the thing that she insisted was being normal was not the wave. That wasn't what you were supposed to be. You're supposed to be abnormal. That's what creates greatness. I have great parents and they instilled great values in my sister and I and as an adult, more than ever, I use these tools from my childhood in my adult life.

 

Matthew Carey

At what point did you reconcile that idea of not being normal? When did you come to be at peace with that?

 

Wilson Charles

I would say somewhere in my early 20s, when I first started touring. That was the breaking point for me and I realized that being normal was not cool anymore. Being abnormal was really, really cool. I began to develop my own personal identity and I will say that that development of my personal identity within music has been one of the driving forces in my career. It's allowed me to stay on tour with some of the best artists in the world. That personal identity, personal touch, that one thing that makes you stand out from everyone else, is very strong. It's helped me in my professional career.

 

Matthew Carey

So there's a jump there between the boy that was studying classical piano and the man that goes on tour playing contemporary music. How did you make that shift? What was it that shift like for you?

 

Wilson Charles

It was bloody and difficult and, I don't know, it was really bad! I realized it somewhere around high school or my early college days. Classical music was great. It had served me, but I wanted more. So first thing I sought was jazz, which is all interpretation. Creating as you go. I really got deep into jazz and studied and learned from professionals. Detroit has a beautiful community of jazz musicians, who are the original Motown musicians. So they're able to teach you things not just in music, but in life. From college, I started doing hip hop and production and pop music. In college I also played with a blues band and that jumped me into contemporary music and pop music. So it was the combination of all these genre that pushed me into this new part of my life, which was actually really cool because I was able to search back and reach back and grab things from my classical days. Like how to work out certain passages. I would say, "Oh, I know the technique to fix that." I would use that stuff playing pop music.

 

Matthew Carey

Yeah. There's lots to dig into there. When you went to college were you majoring as a musician?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, I was. I went to regular college for two and a half years and then I transferred and went to full sail, which is a media arts school. I studied recording engineering and MIDI and all those things. I realized that at some point, the technology was a very important part of what my future was going to be so I needed to really dive into it, even though I did not have my mother's approval. I left regular college and went to technical school and got a degree there and really, really learned not only the technique of music, but I also had to learn the technology of music.

 

Matthew Carey

Yeah. Was there friction between you and your parents at that point as you moved away from classical music? I guess they could certainly see the discipline involved in classical music, and then as you move into contemporary styles - into jazz and pop and hip hop - to a parent, they might look like you've let go of the discipline altogether. What was that like and was there any friction there?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, there was definitely friction. In the beginning, my mother's role was "You can do anything, but you have to play classical piano. Then at 18, you can decide whether you want to continue or not." I say around 15 or 16 I found that interest in jazz. That was a little hard for them. They didn't exactly understand why I wanted to move into something different. But of course, they supported it. As they supported it, they realized how gifted I was, and "Wow, this kid really picks up on this jazz stuff. He really loves it and he's growing in it really fast." That was the first time where they kind of loosened the knot a little bit. My leaving regular college and going to Full Sail was very hard in on my mother. She wanted me to finish college. She thought always I should have a plan B and my plan B should be to be a music teacher. That was never a goal of mine. I do believe that teaching is important, that you have to give back what you've learned. But I wanted to do it in my own way, and not in a way that was being a college or high school music teacher.

 

Matthew Carey

You mentioned already that developing your personal identity and the personal touch has become something that has been a really primary driver for you. I can see that, as you're going through your middle teenage years where you're discovering your identity and really learning to assert it more, that it would feel easier to do that in jazz and contemporary music than it does in classical. Classical music is all on the page and the amount of interpretation you're allowed is really very limited compared to in those other styles.

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely, absolutely. That was my driving force as well. I wanted to get off the page. I really, really felt the need to begin to, you know, express my own voice. Beethoven wrote what he... that was his voice. All I can do is interpret his voice, but I needed to understand my own voice. My parents, they finally got it. It took them years, but they got it.

 

Matthew Carey

I guess they've seen you do work that they can look at and say, "Well, that's successful." That allays their fears, doesn't it?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, very much.

 

Matthew Carey

You don't need the plan B just yet?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, not yet. Thank God.

 

Matthew Carey

One more question about that time in your life. You mentioned that your grandfather was well known as a jazz and blues player. Wiith his background in that style of music, why do you think you or your parents leaned towards the classical music to begin with?

 

Wilson Charles

I don't know, honestly. Like I said, my mother's family - which is my grandfather - they're musical. Very musical, and they're all entertainers. It may be that she knew that I needed a strong foundation to build upon. I think for her classical music was that foundation. Being in classical music and playing the way I did, it was difficult for her to kind of see where I could transition. S he was more keen to letting me try other things that my father was. So when I finally was able to get into different genre, I was able to rally the troops.

 

Wilson Charles

It's difficult question.

 

Matthew Carey

It's an interesting question. I've got a son of my own and I think that for a parent, you want to give your children opportunities. Ideally you want to give them what feel like better opportunities than you had. Then as you spend the time and maybe the money in helping them develop their skills, the things that your kids do become part of you and your family's personality. So I can imagine for a while there, your parents were the parents of two concert pianists. That became part of their identity. Getting you to lessons, making sure you practised, helping you go to competitions. E verything that was involved in that became part of the fabric of the family. Then when one of you threatened to move away from it in a sense, it kind of destabilizes what they knew.

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, absolutely. I have to thank my sister as well because she decided completely to go the other direction. So now she's decided, "I don't want to play piano anymore. I want to do science." So for me still wanting to do music, it was a little bit of an easier blow.

 

Matthew Carey

Wow. That must have been a massive decision for her, after having made that incredible investment. But how exciting to know that you want to do something else and to branch off and move into that field.

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, very exciting.

 

Matthew Carey

What was your first experience of touring, Charles?

 

Wilson Charles

My first experience of touring was Justin Timberlake'a Justified tour. That was around 2002 to 2003. I was fresh out of college and just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But I said to myself that I wanted to play keyboards for the largest tour that was going out that year, not knowing that six months later, I would be with Justin Timberlake. Once again, I was able to really, really focus my energy and manifest something. I did not see it coming. But when it arrived, I was ready. I was prepared.

 

Matthew Carey

That's incredible. Tell me about the steps that happened, that got you the gig, got you on that stage.

 

Wilson Charles

Well, I lived in Orlando, Florida at the time. I was playing with a band and we were doing rehearsal at the Epcot Center on Disney property. It just so happens, the band for the group NSYNC was next door in the next rehearsal hall. I just decided to go next door and introduce myself meet the guys. I'm very social that way, especially with musicians. I love to meet new musicians and talk and see what they're into and what they're not into. I met a musical director, his name is Kevin Antunes. It just so happened that our band went on lunch. I decided to stay back and just really work on some tunes. So I played some classical tunes and some jazz tunes and gospel tunes. It just so happens, Kevin walks by, and he says, "Hey, you're playing all that different stuff? Those different genres of music? Let me get your number." So we exchanged numbers. I stayed in contact with him throughout the next year or so. And the opportunity came. He called and said, "Hey, man. Do you want to come by my house, hang out, listen to some songs and play and jam?" We programmed for about an hour. He wanted to see if I knew how to use MIDI tools and if I had the tolerance - if I could sit there and tweak a sound for an hour. After we tweaked it, he says, "You know, what? Would you like to go on tour with Justin Timberlake?" I mean, that's a no brainer. Of course. Yes. And then a week later, I was on Jay Leno, with Justin Timberlake, and the rest, you know, is history.

 

Matthew Carey

Was Kevin putting the band together at that point, or did he had to replace somebody?

 

Wilson Charles

I think what was happening was that Justin was looking for a different vibe and I fit that vibe that he was looking for. Once again, getting back into personal identity and you're look - I always telling musicians, if you want a tour, you have to make sure you focus on your appearance, your energy, how people perceive you. When you're on tour, you're onstage with a group of musicians for two hours, but then you're offstage for 22 hours, which is really important. You have to know how to be a good friend, a good part of a family. Within all that a personal identity stuff was the vibe that he was looking for.

 

Matthew Carey

I have just been doing a bit of a deep dive into some Prince material. He was really insistent that the band members needed to really play but they needed to be out of move on stage. They talked about how they created the identities for the different band members on stage. So that's really interesting and that's not something you're taught as a piano player. It's something you need to discover and work out on your own.

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. It's one of those things where if I speak at colleges, that's the first thing I talk about. Personal identity. You have to establish a look, a feel, a groove. You have to be able to move on stage. One of the things I did in my early career was I figured I was with Justin Timberlake. I'm with some of the best dancers in the world. Why not take their classes when they teach them? Why not dance with these people when they dance? Why not learn from them? So I took dance classes, and I sat in front of a mirror and I took my keyboard and put it in front of a mirror and I realized, "Oh, wow, I have a whole lower body that can move. Wow, why not use that in a way?" So it took that discovery. I've always been in that frame of mind where discovery is key. You have to discover - what's the next thing? What's the next look? What's the next way to move? How does this make you feel when you perform this song? How does it make you feel? How does your body want to react? What's natural? What's not natural? What's not natural that can become natural? I can agree with that completely. Your Look, the way you move. It's all very, very, very important for being a musician, especially in a modern age. You have to take the time to develop those skills as well as your piano skills.

 

Matthew Carey

When you're rehearsing for performance with that sort of band, with that sort of artist, do you have a director or a choreographer that talks to the band members about how to move? Or is that something you really are left on your own to devise?

 

Wilson Charles

In some cases you are. and in some cases you aren't. For Justin's second tour, the FutureSex/Love tour, we did have choreographers that would teach us certain things because the band moved, we actually danced. It was good that I had taken dance classes four years prior to coming into this situation where now I have to dance and I'm like, "Oh, this is easy." As opposed to many other musicians were struggling. Sometimes you do have choreography and direction, other times you don't. A nd if you don't, it's still kind of on you to develop your thing.

 

Matthew Carey

Alright, so paint a picture for me, Charles. We're on a podcast. Anyone that's listening can get a sense of you from the sound of your voice, but they haven't seen you on stage. If someone was watching you perform on stage, what would they see? What would you be trying to give to them?

 

Wilson Charles

One of the things that I always do is try to let my body and my emotions interpret the song that we're playing. For instance, there's a Rihanna song called S&M. It's a very sexy kind of driven rock thing. So we get low and we dance and we have expressions. There's also another song she has called Rude Boy, which is Jamaican, so we go into our Jamaican dances. Every song has its own mood and I try to express that mood beyond just the notes - in my movement and the way my arms move and the way my hands move. I want to be infectious. My job is to touch the person in the back of the room, and let them know that I'm feeling this in a way that's beyond just the music. I'm feeling this with my whole body, with my whole being. That's the idea behind everything is make sure that people can understand what you're trying to convey. Even with my nails, my nails are painted, they always painted some kind of crazy colors or crazy graphics or words or something like that. And that's one of the things that Rihanna loved about me. She would always ask me "What your nails doing today?" And I just show her and she says, "Oh, you could you're the only person that can pull that off. And very much so - it's part of my personal identity now. I don't go anywhere without my nails done. It's crazy. My dad says, "What are you painting your nails for?" and I'm like "Dad, it's part of the performance. It's part of the show." It's another layer to the show. Right now I take my keyboards and I tilt them forward so you can actually see what I'm playing on the keys. It's more of a performance. The performance is the overall body. What you're playing in the notes is a small piece of the performance.

 

Matthew Carey

Tell me about angling the keyboard forwards. You're the first person I observed doing that and since I've seen footage of you doing it, I've only ever seen one other person doing it. So tell me about how you came to do that and what do you have to do logistically to make sure the keyboard doesn't fall off your stand?

 

Wilson Charles

The craziest thing is that logistically, all you have to do is take the keyboard stand, angle the arms, and then turn it backwards. Turn it around the other way, so the arms are leaning downward. So when you place the keyboard on it, it just kind of gives you that perfect tilt. They're actually making stands like that now, because more keyboard players have been playing with tilts. The first time I did it, a friend of mine, who's also on tour with Rianna, we kind of came up with the idea and he did it first. I saw him do it and I said, "Wow, that's really cool. Let me try it." And when I tried it, I loved it. I felt like this is another part of the identity. This is another thing that says Wilson Charles is on stage. Oh, I can tell. Look at the keyboards. They're tilting.

 

Matthew Carey

It's really cool. Was there a transition for you from the self identity of the guy that have been just a piano player to the guy that got on stage? Was it it transition in terms of your mindset and in terms of the way you thought about your appearance, or did that come pretty naturally already?

 

Wilson Charles

There was a transition. I think, throughout my teenage years...we're all teenagers, we're all rebels. I think in my rebellion, there was this form of creating that identity. Going back into it as a musician was "Okay, what are these rebel ideas that I had?" I had painted my nails when I was a teenager. Nobody really knew about it, but it was part of the rebel in me. It was very much a revisit to these parts of me that existed, and just kind of letting these things grow and be what they are. At this point, I'm an adult. No one can tell me what to do or what not to do. I have to make these choices and decisions for myself. It was easier to make the transition as a musician on tour, because I just had the freedom and that's what it really was about. "Okay, now I have the artistic freedom. Not only just in music - from being a classical musician and not having the freedom, to being a pop musician and having all the freedom - but just the freedom of expression as a whole. I started to see art that way as well. The art that I create is just an expression of freedom. More and more, I began to express that, and even now, it's still developing. There are still things that are becoming a part of me that were very early on, but now beginning to manifest themselves.

 

Matthew Carey

It's interesting. I studied jazz at college or university as well. I can't imagine anybody in my jazz class even beginning to adopt a different look. There's something about musicians sometimes that want to keep everybody at the same level. They don't really respond very well to somebody sticking out too much. I think it's perhaps threatening in various ways. Having said that, as soon as we saw somebody have some success because they did something differently I'm sure it becomes undeniable at a certain point. I think about the nails...you don't always see painted nails on a man. But apart from being part of your self expression, they're also a good conversation starter. If that opens up a conversation with Rianna that then leads to a conversation about something that is much more interesting, ultimately than your nails, then that's wonderful.

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, absolutely. And I look for those things now. That uniqueness has always been conversation starters. At one point, I wore rings that were pointy. They were armor rings, so they were really long and went over my whole finger. And then never seen. Guys don't wear stuff like that. So it's always like, "Whoah, what is that?" I've always searched for those things, conversation starters, those little things that make you different.

 

Matthew Carey

Tell me a little bit more about working with Kevin. So Kevin had been the musical director for NSYNC and was he the MD for that first Justin Timberlake tour that you went out on?

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, he's an amazing human being. He and I have developed a relationship. We're like big brother, little brother. We've worked so many gigs together. Justin was the first. We also did Backstreet Boys together. We did the second Justin tour, FutureSex/Love. We did a couple of one offs together with Ciara. He didn't go on tour with Rihanna, but he was the musical director for the Loud tour. He also was the person who put me on the Michael Jackson Immortal gig with Cirque du Soleil, which was absolutely life changing. Absolutely life changing. He is an amazing musical director and musical designer. He has a talent and a skill level that is so amazing. But not only that, he's a great human. He's a great person. And that's what I've loved about him for years. And that's what's been able to keep us glued to each other.

 

Matthew Carey

Yeah. There is something about being able to learn specific skills from somebody, and the fact that they have those skills that they're able to share. But even moreso, it's who they are as a person, how they model themselves as a person that can really make the difference, can't it?

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. In Kevin's case, one of the things that I can say I've learned from him is discipline, and how to work with an artist. There is a skill behind working with a pop artist. There's a certain ebb and flow that has to be learned. There's a certain amount of research that goes into what they do and what they love and their likes and their dislikes. Creating shows and creating their vision. So that was one of the things that I really, really paid attention as I was coming up around him. How he worked and how he moved - on the music end and as well as on the business end. As a musical director, you have to be the direct contact between the artists, the musicians, you know, the audio world, the management, you're the center point in everything and you have to know how to work these angles. I think Kevin was a great example of the perfect conductor. He knew exactly what and when and how to communicate and relay messages to each part of a production.

 

Matthew Carey

You've worked as a musical director as well. I've had some experience in that field, but certainly not at the same level. One of the things that I find interesting is working out who I am in each situation. Working with different artists, there are different requirements, there are different levels of engagement that are expected or allowed. How do you think about that when you show up for a new gig? How do you find your place within the system?

 

Wilson Charles

Research. First thing you have to do is research who you're working with. Find out as much information as you can about this person. You're going to be dealing with them on a very personal level, so the more you're informed about what's going on personally for them, the better it makes it for you to work together. Then it's very much being present, understanding and being a great listener. A lot of times, the artists that I've worked with, I have to listen a lot. Because what we're essentially doing is creating their vision in order to create their vision and actually have creative input that helps with that vision. You have to listen first, when I deal with an artist, the first thing I do is just sit down and have great conversations. I want to talk first, I want to understand this person first. When I understand them, it allows me to understand their music, their vision, their creativity, what the production is that they're trying to create and how I can be best of service.

 

Matthew Carey

I'm interested - when you start out on a new tour and the band's getting together for their first rehearsals or the first playthroughs together - what sort of preparation do you do together as a group, and what sort of preparation are you expected to do before you come to the rehearsal?

 

Wilson Charles

Oh - before we come to rehearsal there is a lot of prep work for the musical director. A lot of prep work. I'm working with this artist now, his name is Jessame Berry. For Jessame's last tour, I usually clock my hours as I work, and it took about 38 hours to get his show ready for tour. So there's a lot of time spent in front of a computer, doing a lot of programming, figuring out what goes where. Learning the songs, so you can teach the songs. Figuring out who's going to do what, who's gonna play what, who's not gonna play what. It's a lot of prep time, a lot of prep time. Then when you get in rehearsal, which is my favorite part because it allows everyone to kind of put themselves into it. One of the things I do when I first get into rehearsal with guys, I say, you know, what we're creating is ours. It's not mine. What I've created up to this point is just my interpretation. What I want to know is, "What is your interpretation, and how do your ideas fit into the scheme of what we're doing?" So putting a show together with a group of musicians is a collaborative effort. I don't ever want to be just the guy with all the ideas. I want to be the guy that's able to hear the ideas and then convey the ideas, put them into a way that works. So the prep time for a musical director is very extreme. But once we get into rehearsals that week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or whatever it may be... it's just a real fun time hearing everyone else's perspective and creating something great with a group of people. Which is, to me, the thrill of it all.

 

Matthew Carey

Well, that's something that I think moved me from being somebody that wanted to be a solo pianist, to somebody that really enjoyed working with other artists. As a solo pianist, it's very solitary, you spend hours at the piano, playing by yourself. If you were a concert pianist, you're often going out on tour by yourself. You're either performing solo or you spend a couple of days with the orchestra and then you're off on your own again. Whereas when you're working with a group of any description, you get a chance to build that relationship and like you said, you spend two hours a night on stage with these guys and then 22 hours between the hotel, the bus, the airports and all that sort of stuff. You touched on the Michael Jackson Immortal show that you did with Cirque du Soleil. Clearly, that had a lot of impact for you, so tell me a bit about what was different about that.

 

Wilson Charles

Wow. Michael Jackson Immortal. The first thing is that I was hired to replace the second pianist. The first pianist on the gig was if anyone knows, the famous Greg Phillinganes. Greg Phillinganes was the original guy. He le ft the tour and he was replaced by a good friend of mine, Darrell Smith, who is absolutely phenomenal, same level. I was brought in to replace Darrell Smith. The real tricky thing was that I had these two absolutely phenomenal pianists before me, so I had to step into these humongous shoes. It took me about a month to learn the entire show, but once I got it, it was one of the thrills of my life. One of the craziest moments of my career. There is a reason why Michael Jackson is Michael Jackson. There is an energy. There is a love that surrounds that legacy. To be a part of that legacy is an unreal experience. The band consisted of some of Michael's original musicians like Jonathan "Sugarfoot" Moffett, Don Boyette and Jon Clark. People that were key throughout his career in touring. The multi tracks that we played to were the original multi tracks from Michael's sessions. It was amazing to be able to listen to these original recordings, and play along with these recordings. I would always say in my in-ears, I was always tell the monitor engineer "Turn Michael up. He's doing something! I can hear it something in there." It was Pop 101 Class was in session every day. I learned something new every time I stepped on stage and played along with these musicians. You add the element of Cirque du Soleil, you add acrobats and contortionists and dancers and so many other things. It just becomes this ultimate crazy, multi sensory experience. To be a part of this experience from the stage was life changing. I learned so many things, not just about music, but about love, about connection, about people and about relationships. It definitely changed my life. It changed who I am and how I view the world.

 

Matthew Carey

Wow, what an incredible gig to be playing music that we all grew up with in some way or another, to be playing it with a great band there in the room, but also with some of the best musicians that have come before you. You've literally run away with the circus. It doesn't get better than that.

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, it doesn't get better than that.

 

Matthew Carey

When you finished on that gig, I've read you say "My professional career has way surpassed my dreams." That's something that's really interesting to me. What do you do when you've overshot the dreams you had originally? How do you think about recalibrating your dreams?

 

Wilson Charles

That happened. That definitely happened after Michael Immortal. I took some time off to decompress. And I had to refocus. I had just been through a 10 year cycle twice on tour with Justin Timberlake, twice on tour with Rihanna, John Mayer, Michael's Cirque du Soleil, Demi Lovato. I had been in this bubble, this bubble for all these years and when I reached Michael Jackson, after, I didn't know where to go. Where's up from Michael? I had to recalibrate like you said. You get into a place where you realize that, Okay, the next step is myself and looking into myself. What do I have to say? What is my voice? I've helped all these people express their voice, but what is my voice? It took some years and a lot of experimentation to find that. That's where I am now, especially with this newest project. You just mentioned being on stage with a bunch of musicians. Now at my publishers request, I'm back alone. I'm back by myself, just me and the piano, which was terrifying at first. In a way it still is terrifying. But it's allowed me to find a deeper sense of my voice. My voice always existed in classical music, but it's been around the world just to come back home.

 

Matthew Carey

Yeah. I've had the chance to listen to a bunch of these pieces that you've been composing for this new solo piano project. To think back on what I've been listening to, having had this conversation, I can hear elements of all those steps of your journey right back from the classical music through all the contemporary flavors as well. They're all in that. What's it been like to rediscover that, or find how those styles and those moments work together?

 

Wilson Charles

The hardest thing was to figure out where I existed in the world. My publisher's name is Billy Mann, he's an absolutely amazing human being. He called me and he said, "Hey, I want you to do a solo piano album." My first question to him was, "What is that? What does that sound like? Is it pop music or pop piano or jazz piano? What is it? It took me a while to figure out that the only way I could write something was to return to my roots. That was once again classical music. The writing is classical music, and then all these other things that have been experienced throughout my career are injected into this root system. That's the thing that I discovered is that my root system is classical music. All these other branches and other things also exist as well. It's been a whole experience of discovery, this journey has been a journey of discovery. I'm just really happy to be at this place. This is a wonderful time in my life in my career, where I'm beginning to see who I am.

 

Matthew Carey

You and I have met through a course called the creatives workshop. And one of the fundamental aspects of the course put together by Seth Godin is the idea of a daily practice. He makes it very easy for us to share with the rest of the people in the course what we're working on day to day. Being a pianist, practising can be a solitary experience, and being a composer can be a solitary experience. But what I've witnessed you doing in this course is basically practicing in public. You've been sharing what you've been writing each day, whether it's completed pieces, whether it's the fragment that you've worked on that day. What's it been like to do that?

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely terrifying. Absolutely the scariest thing I've ever done in my entire career. One of the things that we do as musicians is that we present and we ship when it's good, when it's perfected, when it's in a great place. You don't see a tour when it's being put together, you see it when it's completed. To give people the view into what you're doing, as you're doing it, is absolutely horrifying. It scares the crap out of me! But through this workshop, I've learned that *that* is a powerful tool. To be able to be that vulnerable and that open to letting people see where you've had good days and where you've had bad days. Where you've made great strides and those days where nothing happened. It's that human factor that people can relate to. I believe that's what draws people in. The ability to see you as a human and then see something manifested. That's beautiful, and it's creative, and it's lovely but to also see the steps that it took to get to that beauty has been one of the greatest lessons I've learned throughout my entire career. To actually open the doors and let people see your practice.

 

Matthew Carey

There's something that we shy away from as creatives, the idea of showing the work before it's polished. You talked about 'we don't see a tour when it's being created,' but I know that you will have seen the "This Is It" movie that they put together where they were still in rehearsal for Michael's final tour, which unfortunately never happened. I n some ways, those two hours are more interesting than going back and watching him play live in Bucharest.

 

Wilson Charles

Exactly

 

Matthew Carey

We're seeing the person behind the polished artist. We're seeing the human behind the polished veneer. I think we respond even more to the art when we have a connection to the person, or the people that are making it and where it's come from.

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely.

 

Matthew Carey

As a human, what does it feel like to be able to present it each day and to have people respond? I mean, you get a lot of positive response. Even within that workshop, you've created an audience that are really excited to see and purchase the final product when it's available. To be able to hear the fruits of your labor. What has it meant for you? If we had two hats, the artist and the business man or the the marketer - what has it meant for you in those two senses to be able to do this in public?

 

Wilson Charles

I don't know. They've been very much tied together. I haven't thought of them separately. Right now, I'm in the mentality of, 'let me just keep showing.' The business part of me is making sure that I show up. Making sure that I'm there for my audience. It's very ironic story. I never go to sleep before midnight. This day, I went to sleep around nine o'clock. But then I woke up at three in the morning because I needed to write. I said, "I can't let my audience down." I have to get up and I have to write because they are expecting something. I've been told throughout the workshop, some people start their day by listening to what I've posted for the day. So I can't let them down. The businessman and the artists are in the same mentality of "I can't let my audience down. These people who are depending on this music to be there - I can't let them down." I have to make sure that what they need is there for them to have. I guess that ties into marketing, the commitment to actually make sure you service an audience. I'm making sure that if it's good, bad or indifferent, I have to be bold enough to go ahead and post it and share it. It's been a crazy balancing act between being an artist and being a businessman or a marketer. More and more I'm finding the balance.

 

Matthew Carey

Do you feel like you've written these pieces faster than you would have if you were on your own doing them, by having made the commitment to show up and present fragments each day?

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. Before the workshop, it took me about two months to really start sitting down and writing. I had this conversation with my publisher - he introduced me to the workshop maybe the second day of my writing, but it was perfectly timed. This workshop has allowed me to learn that process that pattern, and build that muscle in order to ship all the time. The workshop has definitely done wonders for me as a musician and as a creative. I did not have a process at one point, and now I do. Two weeks ago, I had to work on a film project and I was able to turn the music around within hours. I'm seeing the benefits of the workshop, not just in the workshop, but in my professional life as well. So everything has kind of changed since my understanding of my process. So I'm very, very, very, very grateful for the workshop for that alone.

 

Matthew Carey

That's incredible. I mean, that's exciting. When you've wrapped up this solo piano project, and it's time to think about what's next, do you think you would repeat this process? Would you find a way to continue to share your work in progress in public? And how would you talk about this with the other artists you work with? Would you recommend it to them?

 

Wilson Charles

Absolutely.

 

Wilson Charles

I've just started my Patreon page. I keep saying that after this 100 days, I want to take three days off and then start another 50 days. This is a cycle for me. This is a new way of life and I'm keen to continue making large commitments, stepping up to the plate and making sure I fulfill those commitments and stay committed. But I know that after the piano project is done, I have to actually sit down and study it. I have to thank you for being so helpful with transcribing one of the pieces, Matthew. That was amazing, what you've done. That definitely helps in my process after - which is studying. I have to take these 9 or 10 songs that I've written, study them, so hopefully when the world is back to its regular way I can tour these and perform these for people. There actually is going to be a process of studying and then a process of perfecting for performance. I definitely want to use my Patreon page to continue to show people that this is not something that ended after 100 days, but the 100 days was the beginning of a larger process. And keep them in tune with actually what's going on. I find a certain amount of fulfillment in sharing now. Even the bad stuff. It means a lot to continue to share everything that's going on. How this is built and how my career develops from this point.

 

Matthew Carey

The process of sharing it during the workshop is in a safe space. It's inside a website that's set up just for the people that are doing the workshop. Have you thought about how you would share your work with the wider community in a similar fashion?

 

Wilson Charles

One of the things I have been doing is I have been on my Instagram, sharing every day. I'm doing a count on my Instagram since day 1. Occasionally, I get people who ask me, "What are you counting?" and then I get it to share with them exactly what's going on. It's gonna be amazing to me to be able to share after 100 days and say, "Okay, that 100 days manifested this. This is the product that came from it." I feel like I want a larger audience. I wish there was a way that the workshop could actually expand and open up to the world, because I wish that could be a gateway for me to expand into a larger audience. But the next couple weeks, a lot of energy is being spent looking into how to share these things with a wider audience. Patreon is one way. Instagram is another way. I definitely want to shoot some video content for YouTube and such. But that's where I am right now is just figuring out the best ways to stay connected with the workshop audience but to also expand that fan base.

 

Matthew Carey

Moving forward. What's next for you after the solo piano project? Having spent three months or so working on creating this music of your own, how do you feel about how you want to move forward as an artist? Are you itching to get back in the room and onstage helping other people make their music or have you shifted focus on how you'd like to spend your energies as an artist?

 

Wilson Charles

I've definitely shifted my energies. Right now. I do have a couple of artists that I still music direct and tour with. But they're more independent artists, so it leaves me more time to focus on myself, my own craft and my own career. One of the things I definitely look forward to is getting on stage with my own music. That is the dream. The dream is to be able to sit in front of an audience, and play my songs, and play my pieces. Touring and being on stage is my happy place. So this is all for that. This process was so I can get on stage. I love being on stage.

 

Matthew Carey

Well I look forward to hearing that! I look forward to the day when you can bring your music to Australia so I can see you on stage with my own eyes. But for the people that have been listening and want to connect with you want to hear the work you make, want to see your fingernails and want to learn more about you - where's the best place for them to find you online?

 

Wilson Charles

Right now the best place to find me is either by Instagram, @wilsoncharlesofficial, or my patreon just started which is patreon.com/wilsoncharles. I definitely will be posting more content after this workshop is completed. I want to tour. I want to come to a town near you and meet these people and hug these people and thank them for being with me during this journey. That's the thing that's most important is for me to connect with the people who are with me on this journey. They are the fuel for my fire and that's one of the things that just drives me. It makes me keep going, it makes me keep pushing.

 

Matthew Carey

Well, as much as it's been helpful and fueling for you, it's been wonderful to watch the people within that workshop that have really found peace, healing and engagement with the music you've been creating. What you give to that community is so amazing that I can't wait for you to share it with the rest of the world.

 

Wilson Charles

Yeah, me too. Thank you so much.

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Matthew Carey

Hi Charles and welcome to Studio Time.

Wilson Charles

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Matthew Carey

Let's start at the beginning. Tell me about your first experience with music.

Wilson Charles

Wow. I come from a musical family. My grandfather was very well known on the jazz and blues scene in Memphis. But my first experience was a recital I played when I was five. This is the moment when I realized that music was the only thing there was for me. I was playing Mozart and I was on stage and I was performing. When I got done, I took my bow and as I was walking off stage I let out a very loud sigh. I guess everyone in the audience heard it and they laughed. Yeah. From that moment, I was like, this is it. This is exactly what needs to be done. That moment has always stuck with me and it's always been that moment that's driven me in my career.

Matthew Carey

What was it about the sigh and the laugh? Was it the connection?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, it allowed me to understand that everybody knew that me playing Mozart as a young kid was difficult, and being able to get through it the way I did...i t was the connection. Everyone understood. In that moment when everyone laughed, they understood exactly what I had been through. That was it. That was everything to me.

Matthew Carey

Who was teaching you, or how were you learning when you were that young?

Wilson Charles

I had a very brilliant piano teacher, his name was Thomas Schwartz. He was like a father to me almost. Very, very, very, very strict. He would know if you didn't practice, and he would let you know that he knew that you didn't practice. It was an amazing experience as a child to grow up with someone who's able to instruct you in a way that would affect the rest of your career. There are moments when I hear his voice in my head, telling me how to get through, how to practise things, how to work things out, where to breathe or exactly what technique to use to work out a difficult passage. So yeah, I had very, very good instruction as a kid all the way up until about the age of 18.

Matthew Carey

With the same teacher right through?

Wilson Charles

With the same teacher, yes.

Matthew Carey

Wow. It's a journey for both the teacher and the student to spend that long working together, isn't it?

Wilson Charles

Yes, it actually is. Like I said, it's a family thing. When he and my mother met, they had an understanding that her children were going to be great at playing the piano and performing. We competed. My sister also was a concert pianist. She's a year older than me and we both studied with him. We competed and we did recitals. We did competitions and we did everything that could be done as a child, growing up playing music. We learned the idea of being exceptional. My father's rule was always be 10 times better than anyone in the room. So we always approached performing and playing with that mentality.

Matthew Carey

What was your father's experience that was behind that instruction to you?

Wilson Charles

My father is a black man growing up in Detroit inner city. He just knew that in order for his children to be exceptional, they had to have the mentality of exceptional people. One of the things he instilled in us was "You can't be average." You can't be even an A student. You have to be an A++ student in order to be heard and understood in this world. It's good that he had that.

Matthew Carey

Yeah. As long as it's delivered in the right way, the sort of discipline that comes from your father, and that also came from Thomas your piano teacher, is really helpful. Sometimes we need somebody to kick our butt, right?

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's such a necessary thing, especially for children. I grew up on the west side of Detroit in what I was doing, playing classical music, was not a thing. My friends were playing basketball and hanging out in parks and I would do some of it but they I would have to say, you know, "Hey guys, I gotta go and practise for an hour or two." That discipline was definitely something that influenced me not only as a child but as an adult.

Matthew Carey

The discipline to be a musician, especially one that's working on classical music requires a lot of time, a lot of focus. How did you feel about balancing that with the social aspect and all the things that your friends were doing?

Wilson Charles

Oh, man, it was hard. My sister and I thought we were strange kids. Our complaint as children was, "Mom, we're not normal." We wanted to be like the normal kids. We wanted to be like everyone else around us. But the thing that she insisted was being normal was not the wave. That wasn't what you were supposed to be. You're supposed to be abnormal. That's what creates greatness. I have great parents and they instilled great values in my sister and I and as an adult, more than ever, I use these tools from my childhood in my adult life.

Matthew Carey

At what point did you reconcile that idea of not being normal? When did you come to be at peace with that?

Wilson Charles

I would say somewhere in my early 20s, when I first started touring. That was the breaking point for me and I realized that being normal was not cool anymore. Being abnormal was really, really cool. I began to develop my own personal identity and I will say that that development of my personal identity within music has been one of the driving forces in my career. It's allowed me to stay on tour with some of the best artists in the world. That personal identity, personal touch, that one thing that makes you stand out from everyone else, is very strong. It's helped me in my professional career.

Matthew Carey

So there's a jump there between the boy that was studying classical piano and the man that goes on tour playing contemporary music. How did you make that shift? What was it that shift like for you?

Wilson Charles

It was bloody and difficult and, I don't know, it was really bad! I realized it somewhere around high school or my early college days. Classical music was great. It had served me, but I wanted more. So first thing I sought was jazz, which is all interpretation. Creating as you go. I really got deep into jazz and studied and learned from professionals. Detroit has a beautiful community of jazz musicians, who are the original Motown musicians. So they're able to teach you things not just in music, but in life. From college, I started doing hip hop and production and pop music. In college I also played with a blues band and that jumped me into contemporary music and pop music. So it was the combination of all these genre that pushed me into this new part of my life, which was actually really cool because I was able to search back and reach back and grab things from my classical days. Like how to work out certain passages. I would say, "Oh, I know the technique to fix that." I would use that stuff playing pop music.

Matthew Carey

Yeah. There's lots to dig into there. When you went to college were you majoring as a musician?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, I was. I went to regular college for two and a half years and then I transferred and went to full sail, which is a media arts school. I studied recording engineering and MIDI and all those things. I realized that at some point, the technology was a very important part of what my future was going to be so I needed to really dive into it, even though I did not have my mother's approval. I left regular college and went to technical school and got a degree there and really, really learned not only the technique of music, but I also had to learn the technology of music.

Matthew Carey

Yeah. Was there friction between you and your parents at that point as you moved away from classical music? I guess they could certainly see the discipline involved in classical music, and then as you move into contemporary styles - into jazz and pop and hip hop - to a parent, they might look like you've let go of the discipline altogether. What was that like and was there any friction there?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, there was definitely friction. In the beginning, my mother's role was "You can do anything, but you have to play classical piano. Then at 18, you can decide whether you want to continue or not." I say around 15 or 16 I found that interest in jazz. That was a little hard for them. They didn't exactly understand why I wanted to move into something different. But of course, they supported it. As they supported it, they realized how gifted I was, and "Wow, this kid really picks up on this jazz stuff. He really loves it and he's growing in it really fast." That was the first time where they kind of loosened the knot a little bit. My leaving regular college and going to Full Sail was very hard in on my mother. She wanted me to finish college. She thought always I should have a plan B and my plan B should be to be a music teacher. That was never a goal of mine. I do believe that teaching is important, that you have to give back what you've learned. But I wanted to do it in my own way, and not in a way that was being a college or high school music teacher.

Matthew Carey

You mentioned already that developing your personal identity and the personal touch has become something that has been a really primary driver for you. I can see that, as you're going through your middle teenage years where you're discovering your identity and really learning to assert it more, that it would feel easier to do that in jazz and contemporary music than it does in classical. Classical music is all on the page and the amount of interpretation you're allowed is really very limited compared to in those other styles.

Wilson Charles

Absolutely, absolutely. That was my driving force as well. I wanted to get off the page. I really, really felt the need to begin to, you know, express my own voice. Beethoven wrote what he... that was his voice. All I can do is interpret his voice, but I needed to understand my own voice. My parents, they finally got it. It took them years, but they got it.

Matthew Carey

I guess they've seen you do work that they can look at and say, "Well, that's successful." That allays their fears, doesn't it?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, very much.

Matthew Carey

You don't need the plan B just yet?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, not yet. Thank God.

Matthew Carey

One more question about that time in your life. You mentioned that your grandfather was well known as a jazz and blues player. Wiith his background in that style of music, why do you think you or your parents leaned towards the classical music to begin with?

Wilson Charles

I don't know, honestly. Like I said, my mother's family - which is my grandfather - they're musical. Very musical, and they're all entertainers. It may be that she knew that I needed a strong foundation to build upon. I think for her classical music was that foundation. Being in classical music and playing the way I did, it was difficult for her to kind of see where I could transition. S he was more keen to letting me try other things that my father was. So when I finally was able to get into different genre, I was able to rally the troops.

Wilson Charles

It's difficult question.

Matthew Carey

It's an interesting question. I've got a son of my own and I think that for a parent, you want to give your children opportunities. Ideally you want to give them what feel like better opportunities than you had. Then as you spend the time and maybe the money in helping them develop their skills, the things that your kids do become part of you and your family's personality. So I can imagine for a while there, your parents were the parents of two concert pianists. That became part of their identity. Getting you to lessons, making sure you practised, helping you go to competitions. E verything that was involved in that became part of the fabric of the family. Then when one of you threatened to move away from it in a sense, it kind of destabilizes what they knew.

Wilson Charles

Yeah, absolutely. I have to thank my sister as well because she decided completely to go the other direction. So now she's decided, "I don't want to play piano anymore. I want to do science." So for me still wanting to do music, it was a little bit of an easier blow.

Matthew Carey

Wow. That must have been a massive decision for her, after having made that incredible investment. But how exciting to know that you want to do something else and to branch off and move into that field.

Wilson Charles

Yeah, very exciting.

Matthew Carey

What was your first experience of touring, Charles?

Wilson Charles

My first experience of touring was Justin Timberlake'a Justified tour. That was around 2002 to 2003. I was fresh out of college and just didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But I said to myself that I wanted to play keyboards for the largest tour that was going out that year, not knowing that six months later, I would be with Justin Timberlake. Once again, I was able to really, really focus my energy and manifest something. I did not see it coming. But when it arrived, I was ready. I was prepared.

Matthew Carey

That's incredible. Tell me about the steps that happened, that got you the gig, got you on that stage.

Wilson Charles

Well, I lived in Orlando, Florida at the time. I was playing with a band and we were doing rehearsal at the Epcot Center on Disney property. It just so happens, the band for the group NSYNC was next door in the next rehearsal hall. I just decided to go next door and introduce myself meet the guys. I'm very social that way, especially with musicians. I love to meet new musicians and talk and see what they're into and what they're not into. I met a musical director, his name is Kevin Antunes. It just so happened that our band went on lunch. I decided to stay back and just really work on some tunes. So I played some classical tunes and some jazz tunes and gospel tunes. It just so happens, Kevin walks by, and he says, "Hey, you're playing all that different stuff? Those different genres of music? Let me get your number." So we exchanged numbers. I stayed in contact with him throughout the next year or so. And the opportunity came. He called and said, "Hey, man. Do you want to come by my house, hang out, listen to some songs and play and jam?" We programmed for about an hour. He wanted to see if I knew how to use MIDI tools and if I had the tolerance - if I could sit there and tweak a sound for an hour. After we tweaked it, he says, "You know, what? Would you like to go on tour with Justin Timberlake?" I mean, that's a no brainer. Of course. Yes. And then a week later, I was on Jay Leno, with Justin Timberlake, and the rest, you know, is history.

Matthew Carey

Was Kevin putting the band together at that point, or did he had to replace somebody?

Wilson Charles

I think what was happening was that Justin was looking for a different vibe and I fit that vibe that he was looking for. Once again, getting back into personal identity and you're look - I always telling musicians, if you want a tour, you have to make sure you focus on your appearance, your energy, how people perceive you. When you're on tour, you're onstage with a group of musicians for two hours, but then you're offstage for 22 hours, which is really important. You have to know how to be a good friend, a good part of a family. Within all that a personal identity stuff was the vibe that he was looking for.

Matthew Carey

I have just been doing a bit of a deep dive into some Prince material. He was really insistent that the band members needed to really play but they needed to be out of move on stage. They talked about how they created the identities for the different band members on stage. So that's really interesting and that's not something you're taught as a piano player. It's something you need to discover and work out on your own.

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. It's one of those things where if I speak at colleges, that's the first thing I talk about. Personal identity. You have to establish a look, a feel, a groove. You have to be able to move on stage. One of the things I did in my early career was I figured I was with Justin Timberlake. I'm with some of the best dancers in the world. Why not take their classes when they teach them? Why not dance with these people when they dance? Why not learn from them? So I took dance classes, and I sat in front of a mirror and I took my keyboard and put it in front of a mirror and I realized, "Oh, wow, I have a whole lower body that can move. Wow, why not use that in a way?" So it took that discovery. I've always been in that frame of mind where discovery is key. You have to discover - what's the next thing? What's the next look? What's the next way to move? How does this make you feel when you perform this song? How does it make you feel? How does your body want to react? What's natural? What's not natural? What's not natural that can become natural? I can agree with that completely. Your Look, the way you move. It's all very, very, very important for being a musician, especially in a modern age. You have to take the time to develop those skills as well as your piano skills.

Matthew Carey

When you're rehearsing for performance with that sort of band, with that sort of artist, do you have a director or a choreographer that talks to the band members about how to move? Or is that something you really are left on your own to devise?

Wilson Charles

In some cases you are. and in some cases you aren't. For Justin's second tour, the FutureSex/Love tour, we did have choreographers that would teach us certain things because the band moved, we actually danced. It was good that I had taken dance classes four years prior to coming into this situation where now I have to dance and I'm like, "Oh, this is easy." As opposed to many other musicians were struggling. Sometimes you do have choreography and direction, other times you don't. A nd if you don't, it's still kind of on you to develop your thing.

Matthew Carey

Alright, so paint a picture for me, Charles. We're on a podcast. Anyone that's listening can get a sense of you from the sound of your voice, but they haven't seen you on stage. If someone was watching you perform on stage, what would they see? What would you be trying to give to them?

Wilson Charles

One of the things that I always do is try to let my body and my emotions interpret the song that we're playing. For instance, there's a Rihanna song called S&M. It's a very sexy kind of driven rock thing. So we get low and we dance and we have expressions. There's also another song she has called Rude Boy, which is Jamaican, so we go into our Jamaican dances. Every song has its own mood and I try to express that mood beyond just the notes - in my movement and the way my arms move and the way my hands move. I want to be infectious. My job is to touch the person in the back of the room, and let them know that I'm feeling this in a way that's beyond just the music. I'm feeling this with my whole body, with my whole being. That's the idea behind everything is make sure that people can understand what you're trying to convey. Even with my nails, my nails are painted, they always painted some kind of crazy colors or crazy graphics or words or something like that. And that's one of the things that Rihanna loved about me. She would always ask me "What your nails doing today?" And I just show her and she says, "Oh, you could you're the only person that can pull that off. And very much so - it's part of my personal identity now. I don't go anywhere without my nails done. It's crazy. My dad says, "What are you painting your nails for?" and I'm like "Dad, it's part of the performance. It's part of the show." It's another layer to the show. Right now I take my keyboards and I tilt them forward so you can actually see what I'm playing on the keys. It's more of a performance. The performance is the overall body. What you're playing in the notes is a small piece of the performance.

Matthew Carey

Tell me about angling the keyboard forwards. You're the first person I observed doing that and since I've seen footage of you doing it, I've only ever seen one other person doing it. So tell me about how you came to do that and what do you have to do logistically to make sure the keyboard doesn't fall off your stand?

Wilson Charles

The craziest thing is that logistically, all you have to do is take the keyboard stand, angle the arms, and then turn it backwards. Turn it around the other way, so the arms are leaning downward. So when you place the keyboard on it, it just kind of gives you that perfect tilt. They're actually making stands like that now, because more keyboard players have been playing with tilts. The first time I did it, a friend of mine, who's also on tour with Rianna, we kind of came up with the idea and he did it first. I saw him do it and I said, "Wow, that's really cool. Let me try it." And when I tried it, I loved it. I felt like this is another part of the identity. This is another thing that says Wilson Charles is on stage. Oh, I can tell. Look at the keyboards. They're tilting.

Matthew Carey

It's really cool. Was there a transition for you from the self identity of the guy that have been just a piano player to the guy that got on stage? Was it it transition in terms of your mindset and in terms of the way you thought about your appearance, or did that come pretty naturally already?

Wilson Charles

There was a transition. I think, throughout my teenage years...we're all teenagers, we're all rebels. I think in my rebellion, there was this form of creating that identity. Going back into it as a musician was "Okay, what are these rebel ideas that I had?" I had painted my nails when I was a teenager. Nobody really knew about it, but it was part of the rebel in me. It was very much a revisit to these parts of me that existed, and just kind of letting these things grow and be what they are. At this point, I'm an adult. No one can tell me what to do or what not to do. I have to make these choices and decisions for myself. It was easier to make the transition as a musician on tour, because I just had the freedom and that's what it really was about. "Okay, now I have the artistic freedom. Not only just in music - from being a classical musician and not having the freedom, to being a pop musician and having all the freedom - but just the freedom of expression as a whole. I started to see art that way as well. The art that I create is just an expression of freedom. More and more, I began to express that, and even now, it's still developing. There are still things that are becoming a part of me that were very early on, but now beginning to manifest themselves.

Matthew Carey

It's interesting. I studied jazz at college or university as well. I can't imagine anybody in my jazz class even beginning to adopt a different look. There's something about musicians sometimes that want to keep everybody at the same level. They don't really respond very well to somebody sticking out too much. I think it's perhaps threatening in various ways. Having said that, as soon as we saw somebody have some success because they did something differently I'm sure it becomes undeniable at a certain point. I think about the nails...you don't always see painted nails on a man. But apart from being part of your self expression, they're also a good conversation starter. If that opens up a conversation with Rianna that then leads to a conversation about something that is much more interesting, ultimately than your nails, then that's wonderful.

Wilson Charles

Yeah, absolutely. And I look for those things now. That uniqueness has always been conversation starters. At one point, I wore rings that were pointy. They were armor rings, so they were really long and went over my whole finger. And then never seen. Guys don't wear stuff like that. So it's always like, "Whoah, what is that?" I've always searched for those things, conversation starters, those little things that make you different.

Matthew Carey

Tell me a little bit more about working with Kevin. So Kevin had been the musical director for NSYNC and was he the MD for that first Justin Timberlake tour that you went out on?

Wilson Charles

Yeah, he's an amazing human being. He and I have developed a relationship. We're like big brother, little brother. We've worked so many gigs together. Justin was the first. We also did Backstreet Boys together. We did the second Justin tour, FutureSex/Love. We did a couple of one offs together with Ciara. He didn't go on tour with Rihanna, but he was the musical director for the Loud tour. He also was the person who put me on the Michael Jackson Immortal gig with Cirque du Soleil, which was absolutely life changing. Absolutely life changing. He is an amazing musical director and musical designer. He has a talent and a skill level that is so amazing. But not only that, he's a great human. He's a great person. And that's what I've loved about him for years. And that's what's been able to keep us glued to each other.

Matthew Carey

Yeah. There is something about being able to learn specific skills from somebody, and the fact that they have those skills that they're able to share. But even moreso, it's who they are as a person, how they model themselves as a person that can really make the difference, can't it?

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. In Kevin's case, one of the things that I can say I've learned from him is discipline, and how to work with an artist. There is a skill behind working with a pop artist. There's a certain ebb and flow that has to be learned. There's a certain amount of research that goes into what they do and what they love and their likes and their dislikes. Creating shows and creating their vision. So that was one of the things that I really, really paid attention as I was coming up around him. How he worked and how he moved - on the music end and as well as on the business end. As a musical director, you have to be the direct contact between the artists, the musicians, you know, the audio world, the management, you're the center point in everything and you have to know how to work these angles. I think Kevin was a great example of the perfect conductor. He knew exactly what and when and how to communicate and relay messages to each part of a production.

Matthew Carey

You've worked as a musical director as well. I've had some experience in that field, but certainly not at the same level. One of the things that I find interesting is working out who I am in each situation. Working with different artists, there are different requirements, there are different levels of engagement that are expected or allowed. How do you think about that when you show up for a new gig? How do you find your place within the system?

Wilson Charles

Research. First thing you have to do is research who you're working with. Find out as much information as you can about this person. You're going to be dealing with them on a very personal level, so the more you're informed about what's going on personally for them, the better it makes it for you to work together. Then it's very much being present, understanding and being a great listener. A lot of times, the artists that I've worked with, I have to listen a lot. Because what we're essentially doing is creating their vision in order to create their vision and actually have creative input that helps with that vision. You have to listen first, when I deal with an artist, the first thing I do is just sit down and have great conversations. I want to talk first, I want to understand this person first. When I understand them, it allows me to understand their music, their vision, their creativity, what the production is that they're trying to create and how I can be best of service.

Matthew Carey

I'm interested - when you start out on a new tour and the band's getting together for their first rehearsals or the first playthroughs together - what sort of preparation do you do together as a group, and what sort of preparation are you expected to do before you come to the rehearsal?

Wilson Charles

Oh - before we come to rehearsal there is a lot of prep work for the musical director. A lot of prep work. I'm working with this artist now, his name is Jessame Berry. For Jessame's last tour, I usually clock my hours as I work, and it took about 38 hours to get his show ready for tour. So there's a lot of time spent in front of a computer, doing a lot of programming, figuring out what goes where. Learning the songs, so you can teach the songs. Figuring out who's going to do what, who's gonna play what, who's not gonna play what. It's a lot of prep time, a lot of prep time. Then when you get in rehearsal, which is my favorite part because it allows everyone to kind of put themselves into it. One of the things I do when I first get into rehearsal with guys, I say, you know, what we're creating is ours. It's not mine. What I've created up to this point is just my interpretation. What I want to know is, "What is your interpretation, and how do your ideas fit into the scheme of what we're doing?" So putting a show together with a group of musicians is a collaborative effort. I don't ever want to be just the guy with all the ideas. I want to be the guy that's able to hear the ideas and then convey the ideas, put them into a way that works. So the prep time for a musical director is very extreme. But once we get into rehearsals that week, or two weeks, or three weeks, or whatever it may be... it's just a real fun time hearing everyone else's perspective and creating something great with a group of people. Which is, to me, the thrill of it all.

Matthew Carey

Well, that's something that I think moved me from being somebody that wanted to be a solo pianist, to somebody that really enjoyed working with other artists. As a solo pianist, it's very solitary, you spend hours at the piano, playing by yourself. If you were a concert pianist, you're often going out on tour by yourself. You're either performing solo or you spend a couple of days with the orchestra and then you're off on your own again. Whereas when you're working with a group of any description, you get a chance to build that relationship and like you said, you spend two hours a night on stage with these guys and then 22 hours between the hotel, the bus, the airports and all that sort of stuff. You touched on the Michael Jackson Immortal show that you did with Cirque du Soleil. Clearly, that had a lot of impact for you, so tell me a bit about what was different about that.

Wilson Charles

Wow. Michael Jackson Immortal. The first thing is that I was hired to replace the second pianist. The first pianist on the gig was if anyone knows, the famous Greg Phillinganes. Greg Phillinganes was the original guy. He le ft the tour and he was replaced by a good friend of mine, Darrell Smith, who is absolutely phenomenal, same level. I was brought in to replace Darrell Smith. The real tricky thing was that I had these two absolutely phenomenal pianists before me, so I had to step into these humongous shoes. It took me about a month to learn the entire show, but once I got it, it was one of the thrills of my life. One of the craziest moments of my career. There is a reason why Michael Jackson is Michael Jackson. There is an energy. There is a love that surrounds that legacy. To be a part of that legacy is an unreal experience. The band consisted of some of Michael's original musicians like Jonathan "Sugarfoot" Moffett, Don Boyette and Jon Clark. People that were key throughout his career in touring. The multi tracks that we played to were the original multi tracks from Michael's sessions. It was amazing to be able to listen to these original recordings, and play along with these recordings. I would always say in my in-ears, I was always tell the monitor engineer "Turn Michael up. He's doing something! I can hear it something in there." It was Pop 101 Class was in session every day. I learned something new every time I stepped on stage and played along with these musicians. You add the element of Cirque du Soleil, you add acrobats and contortionists and dancers and so many other things. It just becomes this ultimate crazy, multi sensory experience. To be a part of this experience from the stage was life changing. I learned so many things, not just about music, but about love, about connection, about people and about relationships. It definitely changed my life. It changed who I am and how I view the world.

Matthew Carey

Wow, what an incredible gig to be playing music that we all grew up with in some way or another, to be playing it with a great band there in the room, but also with some of the best musicians that have come before you. You've literally run away with the circus. It doesn't get better than that.

Wilson Charles

Yeah, it doesn't get better than that.

Matthew Carey

When you finished on that gig, I've read you say "My professional career has way surpassed my dreams." That's something that's really interesting to me. What do you do when you've overshot the dreams you had originally? How do you think about recalibrating your dreams?

Wilson Charles

That happened. That definitely happened after Michael Immortal. I took some time off to decompress. And I had to refocus. I had just been through a 10 year cycle twice on tour with Justin Timberlake, twice on tour with Rihanna, John Mayer, Michael's Cirque du Soleil, Demi Lovato. I had been in this bubble, this bubble for all these years and when I reached Michael Jackson, after, I didn't know where to go. Where's up from Michael? I had to recalibrate like you said. You get into a place where you realize that, Okay, the next step is myself and looking into myself. What do I have to say? What is my voice? I've helped all these people express their voice, but what is my voice? It took some years and a lot of experimentation to find that. That's where I am now, especially with this newest project. You just mentioned being on stage with a bunch of musicians. Now at my publishers request, I'm back alone. I'm back by myself, just me and the piano, which was terrifying at first. In a way it still is terrifying. But it's allowed me to find a deeper sense of my voice. My voice always existed in classical music, but it's been around the world just to come back home.

Matthew Carey

Yeah. I've had the chance to listen to a bunch of these pieces that you've been composing for this new solo piano project. To think back on what I've been listening to, having had this conversation, I can hear elements of all those steps of your journey right back from the classical music through all the contemporary flavors as well. They're all in that. What's it been like to rediscover that, or find how those styles and those moments work together?

Wilson Charles

The hardest thing was to figure out where I existed in the world. My publisher's name is Billy Mann, he's an absolutely amazing human being. He called me and he said, "Hey, I want you to do a solo piano album." My first question to him was, "What is that? What does that sound like? Is it pop music or pop piano or jazz piano? What is it? It took me a while to figure out that the only way I could write something was to return to my roots. That was once again classical music. The writing is classical music, and then all these other things that have been experienced throughout my career are injected into this root system. That's the thing that I discovered is that my root system is classical music. All these other branches and other things also exist as well. It's been a whole experience of discovery, this journey has been a journey of discovery. I'm just really happy to be at this place. This is a wonderful time in my life in my career, where I'm beginning to see who I am.

Matthew Carey

You and I have met through a course called the creatives workshop. And one of the fundamental aspects of the course put together by Seth Godin is the idea of a daily practice. He makes it very easy for us to share with the rest of the people in the course what we're working on day to day. Being a pianist, practising can be a solitary experience, and being a composer can be a solitary experience. But what I've witnessed you doing in this course is basically practicing in public. You've been sharing what you've been writing each day, whether it's completed pieces, whether it's the fragment that you've worked on that day. What's it been like to do that?

Wilson Charles

Absolutely terrifying. Absolutely the scariest thing I've ever done in my entire career. One of the things that we do as musicians is that we present and we ship when it's good, when it's perfected, when it's in a great place. You don't see a tour when it's being put together, you see it when it's completed. To give people the view into what you're doing, as you're doing it, is absolutely horrifying. It scares the crap out of me! But through this workshop, I've learned that *that* is a powerful tool. To be able to be that vulnerable and that open to letting people see where you've had good days and where you've had bad days. Where you've made great strides and those days where nothing happened. It's that human factor that people can relate to. I believe that's what draws people in. The ability to see you as a human and then see something manifested. That's beautiful, and it's creative, and it's lovely but to also see the steps that it took to get to that beauty has been one of the greatest lessons I've learned throughout my entire career. To actually open the doors and let people see your practice.

Matthew Carey

There's something that we shy away from as creatives, the idea of showing the work before it's polished. You talked about 'we don't see a tour when it's being created,' but I know that you will have seen the "This Is It" movie that they put together where they were still in rehearsal for Michael's final tour, which unfortunately never happened. I n some ways, those two hours are more interesting than going back and watching him play live in Bucharest.

Wilson Charles

Exactly

Matthew Carey

We're seeing the person behind the polished artist. We're seeing the human behind the polished veneer. I think we respond even more to the art when we have a connection to the person, or the people that are making it and where it's come from.

Wilson Charles

Absolutely.

Matthew Carey

As a human, what does it feel like to be able to present it each day and to have people respond? I mean, you get a lot of positive response. Even within that workshop, you've created an audience that are really excited to see and purchase the final product when it's available. To be able to hear the fruits of your labor. What has it meant for you? If we had two hats, the artist and the business man or the the marketer - what has it meant for you in those two senses to be able to do this in public?

Wilson Charles

I don't know. They've been very much tied together. I haven't thought of them separately. Right now, I'm in the mentality of, 'let me just keep showing.' The business part of me is making sure that I show up. Making sure that I'm there for my audience. It's very ironic story. I never go to sleep before midnight. This day, I went to sleep around nine o'clock. But then I woke up at three in the morning because I needed to write. I said, "I can't let my audience down." I have to get up and I have to write because they are expecting something. I've been told throughout the workshop, some people start their day by listening to what I've posted for the day. So I can't let them down. The businessman and the artists are in the same mentality of "I can't let my audience down. These people who are depending on this music to be there - I can't let them down." I have to make sure that what they need is there for them to have. I guess that ties into marketing, the commitment to actually make sure you service an audience. I'm making sure that if it's good, bad or indifferent, I have to be bold enough to go ahead and post it and share it. It's been a crazy balancing act between being an artist and being a businessman or a marketer. More and more I'm finding the balance.

Matthew Carey

Do you feel like you've written these pieces faster than you would have if you were on your own doing them, by having made the commitment to show up and present fragments each day?

Wilson Charles

Absolutely. Before the workshop, it took me about two months to really start sitting down and writing. I had this conversation with my publisher - he introduced me to the workshop maybe the second day of my writing, but it was perfectly timed. This workshop has allowed me to learn that process that pattern, and build that muscle in order to ship all the time. The workshop has definitely done wonders for me as a musician and as a creative. I did not have a process at one point, and now I do. Two weeks ago, I had to work on a film project and I was able to turn the music around within hours. I'm seeing the benefits of the workshop, not just in the workshop, but in my professional life as well. So everything has kind of changed since my understanding of my process. So I'm very, very, very, very grateful for the workshop for that alone.

Matthew Carey

That's incredible. I mean, that's exciting. When you've wrapped up this solo piano project, and it's time to think about what's next, do you think you would repeat this process? Would you find a way to continue to share your work in progress in public? And how would you talk about this with the other artists you work with? Would you recommend it to them?

Wilson Charles

Absolutely.

Wilson Charles

I've just started my Patreon page. I keep saying that after this 100 days, I want to take three days off and then start another 50 days. This is a cycle for me. This is a new way of life and I'm keen to continue making large commitments, stepping up to the plate and making sure I fulfill those commitments and stay committed. But I know that after the piano project is done, I have to actually sit down and study it. I have to thank you for being so helpful with transcribing one of the pieces, Matthew. That was amazing, what you've done. That definitely helps in my process after - which is studying. I have to take these 9 or 10 songs that I've written, study them, so hopefully when the world is back to its regular way I can tour these and perform these for people. There actually is going to be a process of studying and then a process of perfecting for performance. I definitely want to use my Patreon page to continue to show people that this is not something that ended after 100 days, but the 100 days was the beginning of a larger process. And keep them in tune with actually what's going on. I find a certain amount of fulfillment in sharing now. Even the bad stuff. It means a lot to continue to share everything that's going on. How this is built and how my career develops from this point.

Matthew Carey

The process of sharing it during the workshop is in a safe space. It's inside a website that's set up just for the people that are doing the workshop. Have you thought about how you would share your work with the wider community in a similar fashion?

Wilson Charles

One of the things I have been doing is I have been on my Instagram, sharing every day. I'm doing a count on my Instagram since day 1. Occasionally, I get people who ask me, "What are you counting?" and then I get it to share with them exactly what's going on. It's gonna be amazing to me to be able to share after 100 days and say, "Okay, that 100 days manifested this. This is the product that came from it." I feel like I want a larger audience. I wish there was a way that the workshop could actually expand and open up to the world, because I wish that could be a gateway for me to expand into a larger audience. But the next couple weeks, a lot of energy is being spent looking into how to share these things with a wider audience. Patreon is one way. Instagram is another way. I definitely want to shoot some video content for YouTube and such. But that's where I am right now is just figuring out the best ways to stay connected with the workshop audience but to also expand that fan base.

Matthew Carey

Moving forward. What's next for you after the solo piano project? Having spent three months or so working on creating this music of your own, how do you feel about how you want to move forward as an artist? Are you itching to get back in the room and onstage helping other people make their music or have you shifted focus on how you'd like to spend your energies as an artist?

Wilson Charles

I've definitely shifted my energies. Right now. I do have a couple of artists that I still music direct and tour with. But they're more independent artists, so it leaves me more time to focus on myself, my own craft and my own career. One of the things I definitely look forward to is getting on stage with my own music. That is the dream. The dream is to be able to sit in front of an audience, and play my songs, and play my pieces. Touring and being on stage is my happy place. So this is all for that. This process was so I can get on stage. I love being on stage.

Matthew Carey

Well I look forward to hearing that! I look forward to the day when you can bring your music to Australia so I can see you on stage with my own eyes. But for the people that have been listening and want to connect with you want to hear the work you make, want to see your fingernails and want to learn more about you - where's the best place for them to find you online?

Wilson Charles

Right now the best place to find me is either by Instagram, @wilsoncharlesofficial, or my patreon just started which is patreon.com/wilsoncharles. I definitely will be posting more content after this workshop is completed. I want to tour. I want to come to a town near you and meet these people and hug these people and thank them for being with me during this journey. That's the thing that's most important is for me to connect with the people who are with me on this journey. They are the fuel for my fire and that's one of the things that just drives me. It makes me keep going, it makes me keep pushing.

Matthew Carey

Well, as much as it's been helpful and fueling for you, it's been wonderful to watch the people within that workshop that have really found peace, healing and engagement with the music you've been creating. What you give to that community is so amazing that I can't wait for you to share it with the rest of the world.

Wilson Charles

Yeah, me too. Thank you so much.