Meet Brendon Williams

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

Hi Brendon, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk-taking is a given when pursuing a career as a musician – even going all in doesn’t guarantee success. At first, this was a discouraging thought for me until I realized: this really just applies to life in general. Success isn’t guaranteed outside of music either, so why not spend my time doing something I’m passionate about? If I failed, at least I’d have spent my time creating something meaningful, rather than at a job I was eager to get home from every day.

This mindset has guided me through several pivotal choices in my career: leaving my day job to compose full-time, joining Riot Games as a senior composer after six years of freelancing (leaving behind my hard-earned clientele and projects), and leaving Riot after nearly four years to return to freelancing. Each choice felt risky, and each brought major life changes and intense periods of growth and self-discovery. And ultimately, these risks pushed me forward and shaped me into the composer I am today.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My favorite part of being a composer is the many twists and turns my path has taken to get to where I am today. I started out focused on metal and prog, then transitioned into fusion, Brazilian music, jazz orchestra, classical, and orchestral. As my career in game and film scoring developed, I expanded further into modern music production, electronic music, pop, hip hop, and more.

Any of these can take a lifetime to master, so on paper it sounds like a terrible idea. But in reality, allowing myself the freedom to explore so many different directions has kept my work fresh, interesting, and challenging, leading to a deeper investment in the learning process. The time I spent across these diverse areas of focus in music has given me a much wider set of skills to draw upon, both technically and creatively. But most importantly, it’s helped me develop my own unique creative voice, which is critical in this industry.

I used to worry that this approach would make me too much of a generalist to stand out, but over time, I’ve realized that my specialization is writing music that sounds like me.

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?
We’d definitely prioritize going to see some live music together! Some of my favorite spots are the Baked Potato for live fusion, Disney Concert Hall for orchestral music, and any number of spots for metal shows.

We’d also probably eat a ton of food. There are too many great places to choose from, so we’d likely do a tour of food from different neighborhoods! Santa Monica, Downtown, Culver City, Sawtelle, Tokyo Town, and Koreatown all come to mind.

We’d also just want to spend a lot of quality time working on music together, likely at my studio and then I’d take my friend to a tour of various other other composers’ personal studios!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Too many people to count! I owe to much to so many people. But I’ll keep it more concise here.

First and foremost, my wife, Lindsey Williams. Not only is she an incredibly skilled and inspiring artist herself (dancer and aerialist), but she’s been there supporting me through every step of my journey – from when we met in college through my entire career and all its ups and downs.

Most of my biggest success in the foundational years of my career came from other composers giving me a shot and believing in me, even before I had the track record to back it up. So major shoutouts and thanks in particular to Wilbert Roget, II, Skye Lewin, Maclaine Diemer, and Wesley Slover for taking a chance on me early on!

My composer colleagues from Riot Games – I learned so much from each of them in my time as an in-house composer: Jason Walsh (also a frequent collaborator now that we’re both independent), Sebastien Najand, Alexander Temple, Kole Hicks, J.D. Spears, and Bill Hemstapat.

My alma mater, the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program, for setting me up for success in this career, as well as Cornish College of the Arts for helping me to build a strong foundation.

I’m also massively thankful to my parents for exposing me to so much quality music from a young age, and for always encouraging me to pursue my passions. Having parents who enthusiastically supported my pursuit of a career in music was a huge advantage for me.

Website: https://linktr.ee/brendoncomposer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendoncomposer

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendoncomposer/

Twitter: https://x.com/BrendonComposer

Image Credits
Jimmy Sudekum, Nolan Markey, Bill Hemstapat