Maybe it was the constant rumble of band instruments heard at the Thompson house throughout his childhood. Maybe it was Uncle Gary’s stories of the secret inner workings of L.A. studios and the virtuosity of the musicians he worked with. Maybe it was the collective weight of five generations of family musicians looking over his shoulder from somewhere beyond, urging him to follow the strange, deep call of the music within. Or maybe it was just meant to be.

For as long as he can remember, Will has been surrounded by and absorbed into music. There seems to have been no real beginning to his experiences with music and musicians, just a clear, steady flow of music and instruments and players in and out of his life from his earliest days, his very first memories colored with the wild, beautiful sound of a thousand different influences converging on his ears. From the band room to the studio to the stage, Will’s childhood was woven of the threads of jazz and classical, blues and rock, country and pop, and he has emerged a complex and gifted musician in his own right, the multi-layered product of one long stream of musical mentors.

Yet the product that is the Will Thompson sound, the gem unearthed through years of searching the depth of his heart and breadth of his history, is not the result of a chance happening or natural selection. There has been work, a young lifetime full of the low, long grinding of the musician’s soul, a burning to capture and release to the world a sound unheard and unimagined. And through this searching, this yearning, this never-ending seek and find of the soul, discoveries have been made, music has been created, and the deep, wide dream of a boy with a voice has become the brilliance of his reality.

During Will’s high school years, years of finding his voice in the four-part magic of a quartet, years of answering the call of his own dreams, years of discovering the writer and musician within, the void of his future began to fill with sound. It was in those years that the young singer grew confident in the sound of his own voice, as if stretching in to a new suit, trying the fit and the feel. New ranges were explored, new melodies imagined, and the experiences of boyhood grew powerful in combination with the thrill of discovery. At the same time, the instruments long a part of his daily life took on new creative life of their own, as piano and guitar ceased to replay a learned sound, and began to respond to the genesis of Will’s own ideas. As songs were written, and productions constructed, all other possibilities seemed to fade, and the call of the music was answered once and for all.

Since those days, Will has journeyed as all artists do, faithfully going where direction is limited, and territory unexplored. But while many have succeeded around him by producing the well-worn sound of commercial pop radio, Will has labored alone, finding a road un-traveled, and filling empty space with a new sound. And the music has given up to the hands of one so determined, allowed itself to be discovered, to be wrought in the foundry of exploration. And in the mining of these sounds, the man has matured, the music has manifested, and the dream has materialized.

The music tells the story. Five generations inform every note, every melody, every tune, and the creation of sound from silence echoes the history of a boy following footsteps in the dust to a road unknown and un-traveled, upon which the life of a music man is displayed. The sound is Will’s story, and he has allowed us to hear it, and through it, to know the road he’s discovered.

Listen. The sound is calling.