Life & Work with Wilson Good of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Wilson Good.

Wilson, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Like many of my kind, I originated on local theatre stages in Memphis, Tennessee. Growing up around powerhouse vocalists and world-class instrumentalists in a music city really shaped my worldview, establishing a desire to partake in the collective artist hive. I started writing songs on the piano at 14 and really found my home in telling my own story. This led to me studying the craft in college and signing to a small indie label in 2016. Due to creative differences with the label, my project never really went anywhere at the time. I spent the next seven years really present in my life, relocating to San Francisco pre-COVID and making my way down to Los Angeles in 2020. I worked with an engineer based out of Long Beach (shoutout Valel) to develop my first ten-song-mixtape ‘i can’t listen to music we used to’ released in early-2024. On the heels of the mixtape, I released my single ‘secrets!’ in June of 2024. ‘secrets!’ (written with Noah Hernandez) brought my career to new heights and caught the attention of television execs at OutTv who licensed the song (and six other Wilson Good tracks) for an upcoming docu-series due for programming later this fall. Chasing the high of my first sync placements and writing music I genuinely love and feel proud to promote, I turned inward and began self-producing. I released ‘haunted house’ in March of this year and ‘fantasy’ in May, both of which serve as the first two-of-four singles off my entirely self-produced debut album coming out in October of this year. Music is my life and I will never stop creating as long as I have fingers left to play the keys and a voice left to sing the notes placed in my heart.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not. I faced a really rough upbringing growing up queer in the Bible Belt. My parents were very ‘pray-the-gay-away’ in my youth and sent me to conversion therapy camp in my twenties so my fundamental beliefs were very screwed from a young age. That came with really poor self worth and unhealthy ideation that took me decades to heal and come to peace with. Without getting too bleak, I hit some very low points and am sometimes shocked that I’m still here standing and in one piece. I don’t speak to certain members of my family due to the trauma and isolation I endured because of my sexuality. On top of all this, I am entirely self-funded, self-produced, self-managed, etc. and have to work a customer service job at a restaurant to make ends meet and foot the bill for my dreams. This is not me complaining, I’m grateful for my struggle because out of that I believe is born my profound love for art and connection.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a singer/songwriter/producer/performing artist. I’m known for my unique takes on modern love and how the digital age has shaped so many of our relationships with self and others. I like to fluctuate between genres not really tying myself to any one expressive output so I’m more experimental than anything else. I just love building worlds that sound very specific to me and my strong-suites. I’m different from other artists in my network because I’m not chasing a viral moment or wasting my time posting short-form content all day, I’m living in my misery, bliss, pain, torture, joy, excitement and alchemizing it all into a world so ubiquitously my own, even the biggest cynics can’t help but find something to love about my music. I’m most proud of syncing seven songs to a queer network television series!!!!

What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most to me is others seeing themselves in whatever I am doing and feeling less alone and depressed because of that. I look at the artists I grew up with and hold them in utmost love and gratitude for saving my life. I believe without my unique love for music, I wouldn’t be here any more. So I owe my life to trying to be that for at least one other person.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wilsongood.bandzoogle.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wilsongood/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQm0E4NiLyU
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/WTcj3dfObft1SQQCFj
• Other: https://ffm.to/vgpnv4r

Image Credits
Haleigh Bolduc, FLASCH