Austin Willacy: Gonna Be Alright
Austin Willacy’s latest EP, “Gonna Be Alright," featuring the singles “Saw You in the Light" and "Gonna Be Alright," is a 5-track genre-bending record embracing hope in the face of hardship, perseverance, dedication to dignity, and the beauty of lessons learned through loss.
The singles are a collaboration between Austin Willacy and Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Rich Jacques, who met at a songwriting immersive after the 2022 Hawaii Songwriting Festival. Introduced through their mutual friend Patricia Bahia, they bonded over breakfast, geeking out about music and travel. At the immersive, Austin co-wrote a song a day for 4 days with different collaborators, the last of which was a song with Rich called “Runnin.”
“We tapped into something that felt like a powerful fusion of gospel, blues, and bayou soul, and it happened fast. Clearly, it needed to come through. “Runnin'” is a perfect example of how my first lyrical instinct may be my truest one. As a songwriter, I often think about contrasts. Tension and release, low and high, short versus long, fast versus slow. I've also experimented quite a bit with chord progressions and creating contrast, tension, and resolution there. Every time I had an instinct to release some tension, Rich suggested that we stay with it. The whole song happens over the same chord. The established tension never really releases; it just keeps feeding back upon itself. We love the song, and the process of creating it felt effortless and alchemical. The ease of our collaboration and our deep appreciation of the song are what prompted us to talk about writing an EP.”
Have a listen and connect with Austin Willacy:
