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

Will, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

As a creative, I think the goal tends to be that all our projects are meaningful, but with that said, there are some that are extra special.

I’m fortunate to be working on several such projects at the moment with other artists, but for now, I’ll share a story from my own artist project Ships Have Sailed about a song we released earlier this year called “Silence”.

This song was born out of profound grief stemming from a series of personal losses – the loss of an early musical mentor, the loss of my grandmother, and the diagnosis of my brother-in-law with a brain tumor that wound up being terminal, so it was deeply personal. These events hit me in pretty rapid succession at a time that was incredibly busy, so much so that I almost didn’t feel I had time to breathe, so I set aside two minutes three times a day to simply sit in silence with my eyes closed, and in one of those moments, “Silence” began to create itself.

To get a bit of objectivity I brought in a dear friend and trusted collaborator to work on it with me, and we took our time bringing it to life – it turned into a thing of beauty, but I didn’t know quite when or where it might find its moment in our release cycle. However, I knew a bunch of people (namely music supervisors) who would be interested to hear it, so I started sending it out to folks I thought might find it useful in their projects.

My wife and I were expecting our first child (a little girl) this May and I got an email two weeks before we expected her to arrive requesting clearance to use “Silence” in the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, which was set to air a week from then. A ‘request’ is never a confirmation and, since the song was unreleased, I decided to go on faith and schedule the release for the air date of the episode (which was one week before our daughter’s due date) – the stars aligned, the placement stuck and the song made it onto all the streaming platforms in time for folks watching the show to discover it.

The song is a little dark, but the way the supervisor, producers and editors chose to use it was incredibly touching and uplifting … seeing the scene, I was a bit speechless, and the response from listeners discovering it has been nothing short of amazing.

To have such a special song (to me, personally) used in such a beautiful way, and given such an entrance into the world is one of the most serendipitous things I’ve ever experienced as an artist, and certainly brings a new perspective to the word ‘meaningful’.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Of course, I’m an award-winning songwriter, producer, mix engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and the creative force (and front man) behind indie rock duo Ships Have Sailed. Originally from Vermont, I’m currently based in Los Angeles where I’ve spent 10+ years in the music industry having worked with songwriters / producers such as RedOne (Lady Gaga, U2, The Band Perry) and Wally Gagel (Family of the Year, Miley Cyrus, Best Coast). I love to collaborate and frequently work with other artists as a writer, producer and mix engineer as well as working on my own projects.

Ships Have Sailed materialized in the waning days of my previous project –a band I had been an integral part of ever since moving to Los Angeles. My decision to individually focus on new music again was initially daunting, but the risk proved to be invigorating and refreshing. The music became uplifting and buoyant. The lyrics revealed a thoughtful and conscientious perspective. And the sound evolved into sincere indie rock with an unabashed pop structure.

My story always seems to circle back to a common theme of resilience and the ability to find a silver lining even when the clouds are dark – so I’ve learned to embrace that, both musically and as a human.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me it’s all about being able to express moments, thoughts, feelings, experiences which may be deeply personal, but to bring them to life in such a way that they resonate with others.

I mentioned the birth of my daughter before – well, a song wove itself out of thin air before my wife and I even knew we were expecting…I’d already started to create it when we found out, and all of a sudden it made perfect sense! Given the nature of the song, and the journey we were about to experience, I asked my wife (who is not a creative, and tends to be very private) if she would be open to documenting our journey towards and into parenthood to see if it might edit together as a music video, and much to my pleasant surprise, she loved the idea.

The song and video are now out in the world (it’s called “Edge of an Ocean”) and, as much as they are enjoyable to our broader audience, they’re also a little time capsule that I cannot wait to share with our little girl once she’s old enough to appreciate them. She also heard the song so much when she was in utero that she actually recognized it and gave us her first little smile and giggle as an infant…it was an amazing little moment.

So it’s that type of synergy that I try to find given any creation, be it for my own project or someone else’s. To write something real, something personal and authentic, and to find a way to allow that personal seed to grow into a song that others can find a deep meaning from as well.

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

I strive to be an educator as well as a good and fair collaborator. I think that entertainment and the music business particularly has a bad reputation for the folks with the knowledge and / or power taking advantage of the ones who are less experienced and / or educated.

There are a lot of very complicated aspects of the music industry, and they can be a bit mind numbing to think about (intellectual property, metadata, all the different registrations that need to be in place to collect the royalties from a song and the recording that allows people to hear it, to name just a few) – but they are incredibly important, and many of these complexities can be used duplicitously to take advantage of someone who doesn’t know better. So if I need to spend a small amount of my time explaining to a new artist why having, for example, a contract with your producer and a split sheet for a co-write is important, that’s time well spent and information that is hopefully well received and that the artist can take forward with them in their career.

As much as I needed to learn tough lessons myself to understand the importance of the various aspects of this business, I’m trying to save others from a similar experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shipshavesailed.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shipshavesailed
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shipshavesailed
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-carpenter-music/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shipshavesailed
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/shipshavesailed

Image Credits
Gentle Giant Digital