Marc Williams is a 26-year old songwriter from Waterloo, Ontario, and he’s here with his first release, Six String Storyteller.
Six String Storyteller is thirteen tracks of Williams exploring his hobby-turned-talent, crossing off party song, long song, sad song, and more. So there’s something for every country music lover. His first priority has always been making music that he knows his friends will enjoy.
“I have a tough time calling myself a songwriter at this point, but I’m just telling stories in the form of songs.”
The hockey player and academic is not a musician by trade, but an instructional designer at a technology company. Music has always been special to him however. When a song really caught his attention, it was about the story and the lyrics, and how a song made him feel.
“Whenever I heard a song I liked, I would always just naturally gravitate to the lyrics and the story behind the song, which is why I love country music; there’s something for everyone.”
“Last First Dance” holds a special place for Williams. He wrote it for his sister and her husband for their wedding in 2020. He wanted the lyrics to speak to their life experiences leading up to finding one another and hold meaning for them. Marc reflects on it’s big moment at their wedding, “It was a really cool moment watching them have their first dance to it, and I hope it was as special for them as it was for me.”
“All in all, I hope that these songs resonate with people and that they can find little pieces of themselves within it. I’m not quite sure where this ride might take me but happy to be on it and can’t wait to find out.”
If you’re looking to explore a little bit of music by Marc Williams, here are a couple of my favourites:
About Marc Williams
Marc Williams holds a Master of Education, and works at an ed-tech company, based out of Waterloo. He grew up playing competitive hockey, and when that came to the end of it’s journey with university, he had a lot of new free time on his hands. Marc refers to his journey into songwriting as a “stumble.” He didn’t grow up playing instruments or singing, in fact he says, “I can’t sing to save my life unfortunately,” but he was an avid music fan, and naturally gravitated to the deep storytelling rooted in Country music.
He says he’s still hesitant to actually call himself a “songwriter.”
He submitted to the Canadian Songwriting Competition at the end of 2018, and was selected as a finalist. It was after this that his parents bought him a guitar, and after a period of collecting dust, he picked it up and worked to pair some chords to his lyrics and bring the melodies in his head to life.
He didn’t actually know what to do with the songs he’d written, and came across the Canadian Songwriting Contest while researching how to get his songs out there. He submitted to the “lyrics only” category and entered four songs. Two tracks made it to the semi-finals, with one of them rounding out as a finalist. This was the first he’d had a professional opinion on his lyrics.
“But seeing that judges who are immersed in the industry liked my songs, it was the confirmation that I needed to keep writing and getting better.”
Williams grew up listening to a variety of music. Car rides with his father were usually to the tune of The Monkees, The Beatles, or Gordon Lightfoot, while the hockey dressing room was flooded with a variety of pop, rock and rap. It’s all influenced him in some ways, but the heavy storytelling element that defines the country genre is what really drew him in. Eric Church and Dierks Bentley round out a couple of favourites for Williams.
“Part of the reason why I decided to give songwriting a try was Dierks Bentley. Just before I started writing, my buddy and I were at a Dierks Bentley concert, and in the midst of all the craziness I just looked around at what he and his songs were doing to people, how they were making people feel, and I thought about how cool it would be to be able to do that myself.”
When he reflects back on that experience, he’s reminded of one very important thing as he sits down to write- what kind of reaction will this song evoke?
While he’s uncertain of where this experience will take him, he knows he has to give it a shot. He didn’t plan to be a songwriter, let alone have his work on display for listeners, but he really loves songwriting and feels there’s a place in Canadian country music for his work.
“The one thing I’ve told myself through this whole process is that I’m not going to be an old man one day wondering what would’ve happened if I’d given it a shot.”
Connect with Marc Williams on Instagram.
Stream Six String Storyteller by Marc Williams
Jenna
Country music lover with an unhealthy collection of concert t-shirts. Always looking for up and coming artists. Believer in music's ability to soothe the soul. Connect with me on Instagram and Twitter.
