Bio
Billy Reeves is a Melbourne based New Zealand born artist. Reeves has spent the majority of his career brewing up low-key, insightful and genre bending music that spans from lo-fi hip-hop to trap club ready bangers. After studying at SAE Auckland in 2016, Billy made the trip over to Melbourne to start a new progression in his life and career. He has since released 5 studio albums under various pseudonyms and has produced for artists all over the world. Billy has caught the attention of local media with his music a number of times and has also been featured on Apple Music and Spotify’s new release playlists.
What or who inspired you to start playing and making music?
I think generally speaking I caught the mojo to make music while I was at SAE back in 2016. I originally was there to mainly train for ADR Engineering but since my course involved so much music related theory and practice it really rubbed off on me in a good way. I was also around a lot of great minds in my class who inspired me as they were super awesome at singing, rapping, making beats etc. That was really the seed that grew into my passion.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
Most of my music up until now has been purely hip-hop, but over time I have branched into other areas and started incorporating elements of indie, neo soul, experimental rap and R&B into one big stew.
Music is limitless so I will always try and push my previous boundaries.
What did you enjoy most about your time at SAE?
The best memories I have involved collaborating with my classmates on module projects, hearing funny and insightful anecdotes on the music industry from lecturers and staff. I’ll also never forget the amazing help that I always received when I asked for it from lecturers, I would have never passed without the help.
What have the highlights of your career been so far?
In the past 3 years alone I’ve had some amazing opportunities like having my work played on an ABC TV Drama (In The Heights), being added to Spotify’s Editorial Playlists a number of times, being played on Triple J, being interviewed on the Radio as well as performing live on the air, producing tracks for L’Oréal’s recent campaigns, producing for Rostrum Records artist Rockie Fresh and releasing my album on vinyl for the first time.
Who would be your dream collaboration?
Definitely hard to pick one but a few off the top of my head would be James Blake, The Avalanches, Logic, Mac Demarco and Frank Ocean.
I could honestly go on for hours about who I would love to collaborate with, too many to list them all.
What are your future career goals?
My future career goals are mainly to branch out to other areas beyond music. I have recently started directing music videos, so I definitely want to make more of those with other artists. Eventually I’d like to direct feature films.
As far as the music side of things, I definitely want to produce as much as possible for other artists. That much has already been going great so far so I’d love to push it further.
What advice would you give someone looking to get into a career in music?
I would say that it’s important to have supportive friends in the music industry but also people who are honest with you. Honesty will push you the furthest as you can get the necessary criticism to develop your skills.
Also it’s okay to have influences, if people say you sound like another artist it just means you are still in an early stage figuring it out. It may very well take years to develop a more unique sound, but you will get there eventually. At the same time don’t be afraid to take risks with your sound either, you could be a trendsetter before you know it.
