Musician of the Week: Will Tenney

Name: Will Tenney

Age: 21

Education: Northeastern Class of 2014

Instruments: Piano, guitar, bass, and drums

Bands: Call Me Anything; Will Tenney and the Music Business

When did you first start to take an interest in music?

I’ve always been interested in music. When my mom was pregnant with me she and my dad went to a James Taylor concert, and apparently I kicked really hard the entire show. Then I was born and I’ve pretty much been doing music my whole life. When I was five I started playing piano, because the girl across the street did and I thought she was cute. I’ve been using music ever since then to trick people into thinking I’m cooler than I actually am.

Popular Stories

• A helping hand in the community!
• Greenwich Parents: Keep Our Neighborhood Schools
• A Look at Greenwich's Redistricting Options

What musical projects are you currently involved with?

I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but I actually work as a freelance songwriter and designer. I write songs for bands, so up and coming artists will hire me to help put together a marketable and musical record. I additionally play in a pop band called Call Me Anything, who are located in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the past two years I’ve also been working with a few friends of mine from Greenwich to put together a solo project. It’s rock and roll based, so it’s a little bit different than Call Me Anything, and it’s called Will Tenney and The Music Business.

Is that exciting for you?

Yeah, it’s cool. It’s going to be different from Call Me Anything, and a fun project for me to work on in my free time.

What bands are you listening to these days?

I work in pop music, so I’m religiously looking at the Billboard charts. I’m checking who sold more records, who wrote what song, and who’s getting what right. I’m always looking at the Top 40 Radio.

One of my biggest influences is Butch Walker. He’s my favorite artist or band of all time. He’s a songwriter and he wrote most Fall Out Boy songs, most Bowling for Soup songs; he writes for all these huge names. He’s a great writer and a great musician.

If you could go on tour with any band who would it be?

I’d love to take Call Me Anything out with Hot Chelle Rae, because they seem like great dudes. We actually recorded our new album in the same producer’s studio that they did their new album in, so I think when both of our records drop they’re going to sound pretty similar. Hopefully we can get on a few shows with them, because I think they’d be a really good match for us.

As less of a business decision and more for my own fun, I’d love to go out on tour with Blink 182 or one of the classics.

What has been your biggest musical achievement?

Recently we (Call Me Anything) played at the Boston House of Blues, which was really cool. Back when I was six or seven years old, I was really into music and wanted to go to a concert, so my mom took me to The House of Blues to see an underground band that was playing. It turned out that that band was Train before they got big. That was my first concert, so it was really cool to invite my mom back to the House of Blues to show her how far we’ve come and just bring it around full circle.

It’s also been really amazing meeting the people that I’ve grown up listening to. I don’t usually get star struck or anything, but when I meet someone who had a big influence on me growing up and then they tell me that they like our record – it’s just crazy.

What are your plans for the future?

Our first record with Call Me Anything came out a year and a half ago and did pretty well, so we’ve been working since then to get it higher up on the charts. Additionally, our new record is coming out in September. We’re going to do a couple of tour dates between now and then, but hopefully a longer tour after that.

Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?

There’s no set formula on how to make it big. That’s not to say that I (or we) have done it by any means -- because we haven’t. People always ask me how I’ve made it this far, how I’ve done this at such a young age, and how I’ve taken it so seriously. You just have to remember that there is always a way. It might come at some sacrifice, but there is always a way to do something well. I spent every minute of every day over the last ten years thinking about music. I wake up in the morning and think about my business and how to sell more records. Unfortunately I missed a lot of family birthdays, baseball games, and other commitments throughout the years, but that’s the way to do it. You have to work hard.

You can check out Will and his music at: www.whoswilltenney.com

The Greenwich Patch’s ‘Musician of the Week’ is a weekly column designed to highlight the young, talented musicians of Greenwich that often go unnoticed. Each musician chosen for this segment will have a mini-profile written about him or her in addition to them being interviewed. If you have any suggestions of talent for upcoming weeks, feel free to send an email to bellisss@dickinson.edu.

Download the movie