![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Promo-Pic-3.jpg\")
<\/a>Wilford\u2014who graduated with a diploma in Contemporary Music Performance in 2018\u2014says that \u201cScotch\u201d was written during periods of change for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first lyrics that I wrote that actually made it on to the song, I wrote in 2015, right before I moved to Victoria to go to Camosun,\u201d he says. \u201cI think it was in August or July of 2015. So I was thinking about being away from home, thinking about missing my family but knowing that I was going to be pursuing something that I loved, so that it was all worth it. That was written in that period of change, and then I properly wrote it with my friend Joshua at school in 2017-2018, which was the year that I finished school, and then it sat until the next big period of change, which was the pandemic. So it came from those three periods, which were big moments in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the pandemic hit, that was the final push Wilford needed to record the song.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith music shutting down in 2020 because of the pandemic, I pulled the song out again, called up Ben Erikson, who is the mixer and the engineer for the song, and we did another version of it, added some more guitars with Chris Lloyd, who is a local performer, and then I felt like the song was ready to come out. So it really took the world shutting down for me to feel like I was ready to step out on my own. Before that, I\u2019m a drummer, so normally I just play for other artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilford says that the song\u2019s musical origins come from a humble place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main idea of the song really came from when my friend Josh bought this $10 acoustic guitar and was trying to learn some blues riffs on it,\u201d he says. \u201cHim and I were hanging out and he just started playing the riff that ended up in the song, and I loved it. I just started singing over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilford\u2014who says he is \u201cheavily inspired\u201d by bands like Arctic Monkeys \u201cand, at the time, some of the big songs on the radio back in 2017, songs like \u2018Way Down We Go\u2019 by Kaleo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBands like that always had big influences on me, but, really, the sound came from that riff that Josh was playing. I\u2019d been sitting on the lyrics and suddenly I was like, \u2018This is perfect. Let\u2019s make it happen,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Wilford says Camosun helped shape his career in the music industry.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Victoria Conservatory of Music] actually hired me straight out of college as a junior faculty member,\u201d says Wilford. \u201cI\u2019ve been working there the last couple of years teaching drums and the Rock Band program. It\u2019s been really amazing, partly because it\u2019s a job in the field I wanted to work in, but also because I\u2019ve been able to work in an environment where I\u2019m surrounded by my teachers from Camosun, the people who mentored me and the people who taught me pretty much everything I know. So I get to see them every day, we stay in touch, they support me, and they help me continue to develop, which has been really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n