Exposed Vocals Interviews Wutslav Walk
I make relaxational music – I sing, play guitar and piano. My music suits any type of relaxation, excercises like yoga, meditation or taiji, and many songs also have qualities for TV or film soundtrack.
Ever since I was a kid, I was making up songs and there was always some tune going on in my head non-stop. I went through many styles before, but ever since I got on a self-developement and spiritual path I’m still on, including meditation, yoga and taiji, I felt mostly drawn to relaxational and meditative kind of music – which I still keep making 🙂
I just publlished my first LP album which is called Sunrise after one of the tracks of the album. The song Sunrise is also my very first song I made in this genre.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Wutslav Walk: I grew up in a small village called Drnholec in south-east of Czech Republic in central Europe. My parents are both musical, my mom sings great and my dad plays guitar and piano. Music being big part of their lives, they both encouraged all musical temptations me and my sisters had – one of my sisters was playing piano and I was playing violin for about 9 years. I think a day rarely passed by without somebody playing instrument or singing, or both. I guess this could be the reason for me always having some tune playing inside my head and reason why I started making my own music – both since I was little. I started making my own violin music and later when I hit puberty and quit the violin lessons, I was composing music of the classical genre in some computer composition software. And started playing with my dad’s piano keyboard. When I was 17 I also started playing the acoustic guitar. Ever since then I play guitar and piano and sing. The decision for my current genre, New Age music, came up when I got on a self-developement spiritual path including taiji, yoga and meditation. Because New Age music fits this type of excercises and my path the best.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Wutslav Walk: My name is a pun of my actual name. Wutslav, read in english, sounds almost like my actual first name, Václav, read in Czech. And my surname Procházka means Walk. That’s it 🙂
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Wutslav Walk: I think online music sharing is a great thing. Sharing your music to others is great, because you share a peace of your work, your heart, and if you do so for free than it’s really amazing. But, as much as I would like to give all my music for free, I also want to have more time to work ond my music, not just in spare time around day job, my girlfriend, family and friends. I want music to be my day job. And for that to happen, I can’t give all my music away for free. So I hand out just a fraction of my music for free – for example my piano song Pure Love is free for everyone as an mp3 download on my webpage. And I give songs Fresh Air and Gentle Breeze to my fans when they subscribe to my email newsletter, as a thanks for their support.
Listen to Pure Love on YouTube:
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Wutslav Walk: I’d say that no matter if you’re a start-up or big star, it’s best to be personal, kind and humble all the time. Don’t put yourself down, but stay humble. For both airplay and gigs look for radios and places that support your genre of music, or better look for places that specialise on your genre. They want to discover new artists and you want to be discovered. The condition is that your music is original and good composition and well recorded, of course.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Wutslav Walk: A big part of my inspiration is nature – you can see that even by looking at the names of my songs 🙂 Nature makes my mind and my whole self quiet down, open up and dive into the silence, stillness and peace. And that is amazing state in which inspiration doesn’t get interrupted by your mind and ego and you just become a channel, a messenger of music and various kinds of beautiful things. Another big part of my inspiration are emotions and feelings. If something touches me deeply, or I experience some amazing joy or other emotion, an appropriate “soundtrack” for that moment and feeling starts playing in my head. And once I’m inspired this way or by the nature, I make some initial recording to prevent myself from forgetting the tune and then try working on the tune and developing it the way I feel it and add some vocals or other instruments if it seems right 🙂
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Wutslav Walk: Yes, I have a band website: http://wuw.cz . Aside from my website I also have a Facebook page (http://facebook.com/WutslavWal
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Wutslav Walk: Oh I think I would take a way longer time off than just a year 😀 Half a million dollars would be enaough to make a decent living for like 30 years in Czech republic, so I think I’d start by getting a nice house to live and then I’d spend the time focusing on my music and spiritual path. I’d be able to make my music full time, which is every musicians dream I think 🙂
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Wutslav Walk: I keep looking all the time for any opportunity to promote my music to people who might be interested in it. I think airplay on a radio appropriate to musicians genre is one of the best things, because it doesn’t cost anything and your music might reach thousands of listeners.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Wutslav Walk: I just published my first LP album called Sunrise, that is a great achievement for me and there is a lot of work behind it. At the moment I am resting a bit from recording although I already have several new songs under my sleeves that are being perfected at the moment. And I focuse more on perfecting my live performance, because I got several offers for various types of live performance, ranging from performing on early summer festival to having just a concert of my own.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Wutslav Walk: I think I’d probably be just doing my day job, which is currently software developement, and I’d be deepening my taiji skills and maybe starting my own school of taiji in several years.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Wutslav Walk: Juggle is really a fitting word for this, because aside from full-time day job and music I want to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, family and friends, I want to excercise my body and mind with taiji, yoga and meditation, I want to go for long walks to nature… If I’d be giving all those activities the amount of time I’d like to, I’d probably have very little time left for sleep 😀 So it comes down to compromises most of the time. That’s one of the reasons I don’t give all my music for free – because if music will become my day job, I’ll have way more time for all other activites as well 🙂
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Wutslav Walk: I am definetly going to record at least few new songs this year and plan to make them available as singles or EPs on online stores, so the album Sunrise is definetly not the last thing I’ll publish this year. Also there are few upcoming gigs, although the dates haven’t settled yet. For fans who’d have to travel a long way to get in Czech Republic, I’ll try making some nice videos of the gigs and post them on YouTube and other social media 🙂 For the moment, you can listen to samples of songs on the new album Sunrise here: