Today we’d like to introduce you to Zachariah Watson.
Hi Zachariah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have been making music since my teen years, and fronted a band called Time Pilot for several years after high school. My project Old Trees in its current form was initially an outlet for ideas that didn’t fit with the band’s style — too odd, too experimental, or just too different. After the dissolution of the band in 2018, it became my primary focus artistically. I now release singles and EPs as I please, and have a blast doing it, but it was a long road getting here.
Though we were all hungry for success, and watched many we knew become successful, my years in Time Pilot were hampered by mental illness, alcohol & drug use, and financial instability. I was a college dropout, had a rocky relationship with my family, and little prospects for my future besides the long shot of making it as a musician. It wound up being a very dark period in my life. My behavior was erratic and often hostile to other artists in the scene, and I quickly gained a reputation for being unpredictable and aggressive. This would affect my band more than I knew at the time; it made getting booked for anything very difficult, and I hurt a lot of people. After 5 years of spinning our wheels while our peers in the scene found success, Time Pilot ended in 2018. We played a show at a venue we’d wanted to play for years, which wound up being a disaster for external reasons, and my bassist had his bass stolen after the show.
We all spent the next few years in varying degrees of personal turmoil. I lost many jobs and opportunities due to my mental illness and self-centered behavior. My relationship with my wife suffered. I slowly worked some things out — got proper treatment for my bipolar disorder, cut down greatly on my drug use, more or less quit drinking. I became a father in 2019 and it became much more vital to do things like hold a steady job (with which I still had difficulty nonetheless), get a house, etc.
During this time, I was also hard at work on Old Trees. I continued producing and releasing singles with the help of my old guitarist Diego (Hermoza, now of Choachi and sun.mouth). Though all were released to little fanfare and almost no coverage, I felt that I had found my creative voice. I was making something different than I was hearing from anyone else, something fearless and fun and true to myself.
This culminated in the EP I released in September, Elatseyi. Inspired by locations I’d passed in Georgia on long trips with my wife and daughter, and informed by the kaleidoscope of music I was constantly surrounding myself with, it’s both an exploration of past trauma and mental illness, and a technicolor tapestry of my artistic and production influences. Bold, experimental, and unabashedly strange, Elatseyi is the sum of years of writing and studio experimentation, and has attracted attention from indie reviewers for its unconventional approach to the pop format. I am very happy to finally have it out, and I am excited as always to get to work on the next one.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Mental illness and childhood trauma have been a constant factor in my ability to have a functional, stable life. I was well into my 20s and had several suicide attempts under my belt before I even started to really address these issues. Therapy has helped greatly, but my music has been an outlet through the years, and continues to help me process things that are sometimes difficult to talk about.
As a result of my unstable family life, mental health issues, and heavy drug use — as well as just kind of being a self-centered dickhead for many years — I closed a lot of doors for myself as an artist. I have spent many years trying to mend bridges and develop my artistic voice so I could continue my pursuit of music. I am certainly not perfect now, or even always in a remotely good place, but I have made great strides as a person and an artist, and I am excited to see what the future holds.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I dabble in many areas artistically, but primarily I am an experimental musician and producer. I’m not sure I’d say I’m “known” for anything, but I specialize in a specific and unique production style — one that makes heavy use of digitally manipulated samples from a wide range of sources, unconventional arrangements, and an eccentric, hallucinogenic approach to pop songwriting.
I am most proud of finding, after many years, a way to successfully execute the myriad ideas and feelings I want to convey in my art. I have always leaned more towards the abstract, atmospheric, and impressionistic in terms of expression. I’ve always said that when it comes to art, I will take ambitious and exciting over “good” any day. I have no interest in appealing to a broad audience if it means compromising my vision.
I’ve found that outsourcing has always resulted in some measure of creative compromise, so I directly execute (or at the very least directly oversee) every aspect of my art myself: writing, recording, producing, mixing, arranging, instrumentation, sampling, even the artwork I do myself. Whether it’s good or not, I am proud to be able to say that my art is 100% mine.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Stream and share my new EP Elatseyi!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://oldtreesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/elatseyi-ep
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arbolantiguo?igsh=MXhiOHVvMWVtaHNzeg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Jv6TzdaDn/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mRmIJuCMFLGAhBret5W0rUhKVALmOAvLk&si=xGQCwOWAtRJShwFa
- soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/cuqvTg9f6vYFtvVV1f
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/6q4xtnkawnlZIye2eYSkzF?si=vVcnOcBYSS-3M9E9pMpOOg
Image Credits
Nabrin Noor Zach Watson
