Bill Rootes is a composer, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist currently based in Auckland NZ but originally from London UK born into a family who ran pubs and music venues in the big city before and during his earliest years. He began his musical journey by learning how to play blues music on acoustic guitar at about the time of his seventh birthday and began writing his own songs and music from about this age also. His next step was basic level classical training in the school choir when he was about nine or ten years old which was also his introduction to more serious musical arrangement and discipline. By the time he was 15 years old he had converted to electric guitar and began playing local gigs with a couple of rock, blues and metal bands, this being his introduction to the NZ music industry on a slightly more professional level. He began studying his certificate in contemporary music at Unitec when he was in his late teens whilst continuing to play in local bands to keep a balance of theoretical and practical musical approach in his repertoire. After about a year or so of music studies and making several singular recordings during this study process he decided to put his studies on hold in order to make his own records and play more live shows. The first record to be released was an alternative rock ep in 2009 titled ‘Heaven So Far’ with his band at the time called ‘Obliged Within’. Shortly after that project he went on to record 2 more records and tour NZ with his next band called ‘Blackleaf Gardens’ which was mostly considered to have a progressive rock/metal sound and he also at the same time did several session recording/performing gigs of various musical styles including hip hop, blues, rock, jazz and a few others for several solo artists and bands which really helped stretch his versatility as a musician. After his band ‘Blackleaf Gardens’ disbanded he decided to focus on his solo musical endeavors as a composer/songwriter and proceeded to release 2 albums consisting of a mix of instrumental music, soundscapes, occasional spoken word and songs of various genres entirely under his own name, the first one being in 2015 titled ‘The Audio Perception Project’ and the second one in 2017 titled ‘Cultures of Abbreviation’ in which he has said has really helped to find his more mature voice as a composer and songwriter. As well as those projects he decided to commence his music theory and performance studies at Unitec in 2016 and received his diploma earlier this year. Rootes is now attending The University of Auckland to study towards his composition degree and will hopefully graduate by 2021. At this stage of his career Bill Rootes is currently set to release a new E.P of experimental electronic music titled “Diploma Electronic” in several months as well as several other album release plans yet to be announced. Besides that he is also looking to apply his musical ideas and creative energies towards more visually orientated platforms, this of course can span from film to television to video games to marketing to advertising and much more especially considering how versatile these jobs require musicians to be. With all this in mind Rootes knows that this is the direction he wishes to pursue further in the near future.

 

Music Links

(Bandcamp) – https://audioperceptionproject-themusicofbillrootes.bandcamp.com/music

(Soundcloud) – https://soundcloud.com/bill-rootes