Willie J. Healey talks new album ‘Bunny’ and getting punched in the face
After reinstalling Zoom before his interview with Far Out, Willie J. Healey is getting flashbacks to the press run for his last album Twin Heavy, a project released at the height of the pandemic in 2020. His album arrived as a much-needed source of escapism at a difficult time for many, and Healey’s new LP, Bunny, is another sun-soaked summer delight.
Healey has just relocated back to Bristol from his native Oxfordshire, and our conversation allows him to forget about the stresses of the “hectic” move. Naturally, we begin by discussing Twin Heavy, a restart in Healey’s career after he was dropped by Columbia Records and started again under The Maccabees’ Felix White’s Yala Records.
Being dropped aged 23 can make an artist go in one or two ways. Some will decide this is a sign that they need to focus their attention elsewhere and perhaps get a regular 9 to 5 career; others, meanwhile, are energised by a burning desire to make the label regret their decision. Fortunately, Healey fell into the latter category and didn’t let the ordeal break his spirit.
“I have nothing against Columbia or major labels, I think, and actually, in hindsight, I got off fairly lightly because I got to put an album (People And Their Dogs) out that I loved. But, it’s a completely different ballgame working with a smaller team, and it suits the way I like to make stuff,” Healey says of his relationship with Yala. “It’s personal because these people are working hard for you, and you can see it because there’s only five of them, instead of not knowing who’s working for you”.
While being dropped by Columbia was devastating, Healey admits that he is too stubborn to be defeated. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was rubbish. I had a tough couple of months because I also parted ways with a manager,” he explains. However, it was Healey’s “blind faith” in music which carried him through, and he picked himself up from the ground.
For many, Twin Heavy was an introduction to Healey, but without the option to capitalise on his new success by touring, he headed to a “little room” he’d filled with instruments in Bristol and began work on his next album. Rather than rest on his laurels, Healey used the time to get creative, and three years later, it’s finally set for release.
The official recording process for Bunny took place toward the end of 2021, with Healey teaming up again with producer Loren Humphrey, who was previously at the helm for Twin Heavy. For the new album, he headed to New York and worked with a series of gifted musicians who popped into Humphrey’s studio.
“He’s got a beautiful house just on the outskirts in New York,” Healey says of Humphrey. “I just had an amazing time at his house, finishing songs and putting our heads together, then we really did it all within ten days in December.” Of working with New Yorkers, he adds: “To be surrounded by people from a place as well, there’s a style and an approach musically that’s slightly different to what it might be here or, and I really leaned into that. And I was massively inspired by being in New York and kind of the feeling of the place. New York is pretty new to me. I’ve been a couple of times, but being there is still exciting.”
For the recording of Bunny, a core group of four musicians worked on every track. Also, a “revolving door” of artists wandered into the studio throughout the music-making progress to add an array of different textures to Healey’s album.
“I just felt really free,” he says of the process. “The albums I like (Van Morrison’s) Astral Weeks, and Neil Young’s stuff, not that it sounds anything like that, but you get this sense of people in a room at a time and a place. Sometimes it’s not perfect, but you capture that and commit to it.”
He adds: “I was loving it, so I just completely leaned in and gave myself to that process.”
Outside of producing, Humphrey is also a drummer and toured with The Last Shadow Puppets in 2016, an experience which helped get Healey’s work on Arctic Monkeys’ radar. He’s also signed to the same management team as the Sheffield band, and earlier this year, he received an invitation to support them across Europe. The singer-songwriter says he was “hoping that it would happen for a while”, and the offer was the culmination of many “things stirring away in a pot”.
As well as touring with Arctic Monkeys, one special guest on the new album is his friend and fellow musician Jamie T, an artist who Healey is set to support on June 30th at London’s Finsbury Park. They collaborated on ‘Thank You’ after Healey “borrowed” two drum machines that he thanked Jamie for on the track. Healey recalled: “I wrote ‘Thank You’ one morning quickly as kind of a joke. So I wanted to send it to Jamie because I wanted to impress him too, as I’m a Jamie T fan. I hoped it would probably make him laugh, and he’ll be glad I’m actually getting use out of this drum machine. So I sent it to him, and he found it funny and liked it, then said, ‘Do you want me to do a verse on it?’ And he just did it like in an hour.”
At the time of our conversation, everything is going smoothly for Healey. He’s working with his musical heroes and has just recorded an album in New York, but his life almost went down an unrecognisable route. As a youngster, Healey’s life revolved around boxing and trained every day of the week before leaving it behind to pursue music. “Boxing used to scare the life out of me,” Healey admits. “I started music while I was still boxing. So music was bliss because I could get up and play these songs. Most of the time, people are nice to me, and it’s not hostile. It’s remained this thing that I feel very comfortable within, and I think having been scared to death while boxing over and over again put me in good stead with nerves.”
He continues: “I boxed from the age of 10 to 17 pretty much every night of the week. It was my life, really. I loved it, and it was all I knew, so it was hard to stop because I felt I was letting people down and didn’t know anything about music back then. Me and my Dad are really tight, and it was our thing. I was terrified to tell him because we’d put in all this work together. I know it’s not really comparable, but it felt a bit like coming out for me.”
Thankfully, Healey’s father was pleased he’d quit boxing and told his son, “Thank God because I don’t want to see you getting punched anymore”.
Those years Healey spent in the boxing gym helped Healey become the artist he is today. Once you’ve been punched in the face, the thought of trying to win over thousands of Jamie T fans at Finsbury Park isn’t that scary in comparison. Healey believes boxing gyms are an important societal tool because they “teach you how to look after yourself, but also, more importantly, teach you respect”, and after our conversation, it’s hard to disagree with that sentiment.
Bunny is further proof that Healey made the right choice to call time on his boxing aspirations and pursue his dream of being a musician. The singer-songwriter has overcome the adversity of being dropped by Columbia without developing a bitter resentment against the industry, and like a fighter rising from the canvas, he has taken everything in his stride, and this summer, he’ll finally reap the rewards.
Bunny is out on August 25th through Yala Records.
