Scout Willis
City Winery NYC presents Scout Willis live on Friday, November 15th at 9:30 pm!
The music of Scout Willis lives in a world of sublime and lovely paradox. It’s otherworldly but embodied, resplendent yet raw, capable of inviting both unbridled bedroom dancing and a metamorphic shift in perception. Born from a period of intense transformation and self-discovery for the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter/guitarist, Willis’ latest body of work reveals an artist with a rare power to heighten our attention to the ubiquity of beauty, even in the darkest of moments.
“I believe that we all have the opportunity to add to the sum total of joy and uplift in the world, rather than the sum total of hatred and pain, and I want everything I create to be of service through that lens,” says Willis. “Over the last few years I’ve faced some of the deepest grief I’ve ever experienced, and it feels so powerful to bring that into my art in a way that also makes room for pleasure and joy.”
Recorded at the legendary Sound City Studios, Willis’ most recent output strays from the stripped-back folk of her 2022 self-titled debut album and inhabits a far more extravagant sonic universe: lavishly textured, visceral in impact, adorned with so much mesmerizing detail. In dreaming up her luminous form of Venusian pop, Willis worked with producer Kane Ritchotte and musicians like guitarist Dylan Day (Jenny Lewis, Nick Hakim), exploring her most unfettered impulses while embracing a playful fluidity in the musical process. “Going into the studio, I knew I wanted to collaborate and stay open to other people’s ideas, and it created an environment unlike anything I’d ever experienced,” she says. “It was so incredible to realize that I’m in a completely different place musically, where I’m a lot more confident experimenting with whatever feels good instead of being rigid with myself and my art.”
A prime introduction to the next era of her artistry, Willis’ recent single “Over and Over” sets her shapeshifting voice against a backdrop of unhurried grooves, lush synth lines, and gilded guitar work—ultimately creating a gorgeously layered emotional experience. “It’s a song about feeling stuck and wanting to break out of old patterns, but recognizing that there’s often tremendous pain involved in moving from that place of comfortable stasis,” says Willis. “What’s amazing is that when I’m just finger-plucking it on guitar, it feels like quite a sad song. But in the studio all the elements flowed into place in a way that never could’ve been planned, and it turned into something sonically fun that you can dance to.”
On her follow-up single “Take Me,” Willis illuminates her gift for alchemizing moments of charmed inspiration into songs that contain a vast complexity. “Someone sent me a video of a thunderstorm happening in Italy, and I grabbed my guitar and started playing along to the storm,” she recalls. With its dusky guitar tones, galloping rhythms, and swooning violin work (courtesy of Odessa, a musician who’s worked with Marina Allen and Old Crow Medicine Show), the track soon morphed into a poetic reflection on desire and surrender. “‘Take Me’ came from rediscovering myself after moving on from a very long relationship,” she says. “It’s an ode to coming back into your life outside the context of partnership, and even though it’s ostensibly sung to a lover it’s really a love song to myself.”
In bringing her latest work to life, Willis uncovered previously untapped dimensions of the expansive musicality she’s cultivated since childhood (a journey that’s included co-founding the beloved folk-rock duo Gus + Scout back in her college days). An endlessly enchanting vocalist who names Patsy Cline as her number-one influence, she focused her elaborate vision on creating songs that hit every pleasure center while delving into the psyche’s most shadowy depths—a dynamic that closely echoes her newfound devotion to the absolute expression of her femininity. “Over the past two years I’ve turned a corner on something that had always seemed like an unreachable goal, which is letting go of self-judgment and a fear of being misunderstood or seen as frivolous,” she says. “I’m finally getting to how I always wanted to feel in my 20s, which is very grounded in myself and fully in my womanhood.”
As Willis explains, that evolution of perspective was largely informed by her study of mythopoetic archetypes (particularly the notion of Venus as an emblem of beauty and sensuality), as well as her fascination with female authors like Anaïs Nin and Eve Babitz (whose philosophy she refers to as “intentional hedonism”). And in sharing her new songs with the world, Willis hopes to awaken others to a greater purpose behind the deliberate pursuit of pleasure. “I think many of us have the idea that we must suffer to earn joy, but the truth is that even if you live a deliriously perfect life, you’re going to face so many challenges,” she says. “I’m learning how to navigate that with as much grace and curiosity as possible, and I’ve found that an attention toward joy and pleasure can deeply impact the way we walk through the world. If my music can somehow support people in feeling good about themselves and fired up about their lives and everything they want to create, then I feel like I’m doing my work here on Earth.”
