Will Lawton is an English singer-songwriter, pianist, hang player, and music therapist. He has been the song-writing force behind three EPs and four albums. He is active in the west country live music scene and regularly writes and records.
Music career
Lawton began his musical career after forming Orangutan with guitarist and drummer Joe Holweger and recording the Surprised Coconut EP in west London. In 2001, Lawton with Neil Muttock on guitar formed The Zennor Project with band members Tracy Jane Sullivan, Peter Van Pletzen and Ashley Moffatt and released the Twist EP. Lawton, Holweger and Muttock reconvened and went on to release two albums, The Monkey and the Whale by Brontosaurus in 2006, and Ember by Orangutan in 2008 In 2012, Lawton performed with The Heavy. He went onto record a solo project, The Wood Room Session at Real World Studios. He formed The Home Fires with Neil Muttock and Nikki Capp and performed at Priddy Folk Festival and Purbeck Folk Festival in 2012. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, the band recorded This Too Shall Pass at Real World Studios, which featured musicians Phillip Henry, Hannah Martin and Bethany Porter. Lawton started working with drummer Weasel Howlett in 2015 and the duo went onto write and record Fossils of the Mind at Real World Studios. The album was released in 2017, with a vinyl release the following year after a successful crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter. As of 2019, the band are active and regularly joined by Buddy Fonzarelli on bass guitar, Ami Kaelyn on guitar and vocals and Harki Popli on tabla. They recorded a live session in March 2019 in the library at Abbey House in Malmesbury and plan to release this new music in early 2020. Lawton currently performs solo, with his band and works as a music therapist. To accommodate the growing number of current band members, the band currently perform as 'Will Lawton and the Alchemists' and re-released 'Fossils of the Mind' under this name in 2020. In April 2020, Will collaborated with a group of poets that he had never met after issuing an appeal for original poetry written during the time that the UK was in lockdown. He composed, recorded and co-produced 'Salt of the Earth' which was co-produced, mixed and mastered by Patrick Phillips. Each poem is embedded in meditative piano and ambient soundscapes and will be released digitally in May 2020.
