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

William , appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

This is a difficult question to answer as with any and every project, at the time and during the creative process, it always seems that what you are working on will be the “most” meaningful project of your life up to that point – and it should feel that way. If you approach your art with real passion, your evolution as an artist should mean that you learn how to better express what you “mean” with each new project. So every album since the inception of SeepeopleS, the anti-genre band I’ve led for 25 years, has been a further step into deeper learning. With that said, SeepeopleS unto itself has been one big long project, with one mission since the beginning, to try and change the world for the better through music. This mission has helped us collide with so many open-minded and sometimes like-minded people and artists, some of whom we’ve been so lucky to work and collaborate with.

One of the undeniable highlights during this 25 year expedition has been working with famed animator Pete List (Celebrity Death Match / MTV). Our first video collaboration, ‘New American Dream,’ (2017) went on to win many awards and was a true fan favorite. It would also be the first video (known) to be removed from the Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram – Banned if you will! We also knew we had touched a nerve with the video, garnering as many death threats as the wide critical acclaim the music video received. The bands social media accounts have effectively been relegated to “Facebook Jail” ever since. The video itself is more of a blanket statement on power, how it corrupts, and how it has throughout the ages, and especially how it has corrupted the world leaders of the last century or so. Even now the video languishes in mostly anonymity, but also finds an audience, somehow, and eventually brings us closer to the open and like minded aforementioned.

Pete List and us released our 2nd collaboration, “Shame,” a stunning music video dedicated to the victims of gun violence, in 2022 and are currently in the prep stages for a third video produced by the renowned animator for our forthcoming album, due for release in 2026 on our imprint, RascalZ RecordZ. We have learned the true cost of expression in a world that is increasingly becoming harder to do so. Knowing what we are up against, we can safely say that the next step into deeper learning, will be a calculated one, and it better mean a lot – who knows what may be sacrificed in the future for the expressions and out of the mainstream consciousness, to be seen, heard, or let alone, be understood! With that said, obviously the ‘next’ project will be the most meaningful, and it will always be that way – we hope.

William , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I dropped out of college in 1997 in the first semester at Boston University, and have been a touring musician ever since, 29 years in fact. Out of the ashes of Cosmic Dilemma, my first touring band, who signed with a small indie label, Naked Ear Records, in 2000 I formed SeepeopleS with Tim Haney and Dan Ingenthron in Boston, MA, with the intent of combining any and all genres or types of music into the vessel of one musical project. I had one foot in the door of rock music as a songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist, and the other foot firmly planted in the door of the then burgeoning electronic music scene of the mid and late 90s, as a producer and a trance DJ in my early twenties. I wanted to combine all my musical worlds into one focus. Lyrically, the band has always sought to revive the ancient minstrel tradition of both entertaining and documenting the world around us. Art is History, and when it is done exceptionally well, can often serve as a landmark towards understanding a culture, a society, or more broadly, the world we live in, or perhaps most importantly, ourselves.

Throughout the years, I started to realize how unique my little band was. Certainly with such a broad focus, record execs frowned, managers and agents always frustrated with the lack of success and commercial appeal, or that we simply would get ourselves in trouble by calling out the wrongs of the world, or suggesting ways to make them right. It has drawn both love and ire from audiences. Personally, the band has been with me through my entire adult life. Sadly, decades of this time was spent mired in drug addiction, and eventually the legal trouble that ensued.
In 2014 I finally stopped using heroin and opiates and hard drugs, and I was reconnected with my original mission. To make music that I hadn’t heard before, and to keep alive some of the ideas that helped shaped my perspectives, some of these ideas being radical in relation to societal norms. Finally, I had learned the value of true discipline, not just with my craft, but with my life. Amazingly, after decades, SeepeopleS is still here providing a safe place for those on the fringes to know, you are not alone! The fact that this band continues to push hard against boundaries and walls that keep us and our society closed and our world, sometimes heartless and merciless, continues to try and speak truths, continues to have the fire to keep creating, is perhaps what I am most proud of.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I have never seen a thriving creative ecosystem in all my years as an artist. It has always been hard, there has always been a song and dance routine that is “taxing” at best when it comes to what you are required to do make art accessible to an audience, and then somehow, make a living doing so. We also live in a world where because of social media giving us unprecedented access to our lives, this song and dance routine gets more burdensome by the day.
In our current capitalist society, one that many could argue has derailed from the tracks, it has become almost impossible to have the time and money to be creator and pay your bills. Support for creatives, often struggling financially, would come more easily by attacking the root problems of gentrification, wage disparities, and cost of living. This is the real problem, and having spent 27 years touring throughout America, I can easily say this problem threatens any and all creative ecosystems in this country, and I have been told, throughout the world. This has become a global problem with the entire global creative ecosystem now threatened existentially.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

In all truth and honesty, that we buck the trend of self-censorship (social media), and normalize openness, new ideas, and change. Just adding our small two cents and efforts into the grander effort of making this world a better world ,will always be our goal and we are simply honored to continue to have a chance to still be on this truly amazing journey. SeepeopleS has taken me all over the place, helped me make friends in every direction, and the musical family has now extended into my other touring band projects, theWorst & Sparxsea, as well our own imprint indie label, RascalZ RecordZ, a partnership with Whitney Walker, who is also an artist on the label, as well as Sparxsea and my 501c3 charity record label, CommunityZ RecordZ, and lastly the ARME Group, our artist collective full service publicity and promotions company. Each endeavor is a journey unto themselves, but with spreading love and joy as the primary goal, the overarching mission is shared amongst the entire family and beyond. I sincerely hope that this journey continues, perhaps even after we are no longer on this planet, and that it wraps its loving arms around as many willing potential partners, friends, and future family as it can. This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked about the “journey,” and my response has essentially always been the same – we are in this together – and I have always meant it, Throughout my years doing this professionally, it has always been proven true.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seepeoples.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/seepeoples
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/seepeoples
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/seepeeps
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@seepeoples
• Other: instagram.com/theworstband
  instagram.com/sparxsea
  instagram.com/armegroup
  instagram.com/rascalzrecordz
  communityzrecordz.com

Image Credits

willpc is Lauryn Sophia
theWorst photos are Joe MacFadzen
the Sparxsea photo is by Sarah Violette
the seepeoples logo is by Victoria Karol
theWorst logo is by Olive Twombly