SHOUTOUT LA - Meet Willy Calderon | Award-Winning Musician, Record Producer, and Recording Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Willy Calderon and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Willy, other than deciding to work for yourself, what was the single most important decision you made that contributed to your success?
The real turning point in my career happened when I started to market myself as a more exclusive artist. This meant saying “NO” to many gigs, shows, and offers that were not up to my standards, didn’t want to pay a decent rate, or were just not that interesting to me. This also meant a low point for me, because if my rate was “this” much, there was always someone that would happily take the gig from me for “that” much- if you catch my drift. But soon enough, the right offers started to come my way, and I found myself in a much more prestigious environment. I went from being a musician to an artist and a brand.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’ve been creating music since I was a baby. I’ve been on stages since I was 2 years old thanks to my mom and grandma taking me to family friends’ shows and concert. Most of our family friends are musicians, artists, and producers, so I’ve always been around music. I taught myself how to play piano, bass, drums, percussion, how to produce, and everything else involving music. My mentors helped and are still helping me polish those sets of skills. It’s only now that I’m learning to ask for help, which has been a huge lesson for me. I don’t think you can ask everyone for help, but you can ask people that you look up to or really share a connection with. Successful people are always the one’s to lend a hand.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Little Tokyo is always a place I can go to eat, shop or relax. It’s usually safe and people stay to themselves, but random conversation is fun when it happens. The Taiyaki, crepes, and ramen always reminds me of my late night snacking and wandering in Japan. There are also great vintage clothing shops I like to find cool styles at.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I thank God, my late mother, Jeanine, and my wonderful grandmother, Blanca, for supporting my dreams to travel the world playing music. I thank my mentors, Neil Benitez, Alex Acuña, and Luisito Quintero, who all in some way have been like the father I never had, in music and in life.

source: Shoutout LA
shoutoutla.com/meet-willy-calderon-award-winning-musician-record-producer-and-recording-artist/