I sat down with Durban-bred musician Nic Billington. Now, living in London and making his mark on the music scene there! What I like about Nic is that, when I watch his videos, I can’t see another artist. I see Nic Billington. He is an original and his music evokes emotion. I confess that I love following him on Instagram too! @nicbillington. Do yourselves a favour and go to YouTube and watch his music videos. They are, in themselves, perfectly curated pieces of art!
“Dark Horse” out now: https://ditto.fm/nicbillington_darkhorse
Tell us about your move to London
I moved here in June 2021. So I’ve been here just over two and a half years now. It is a combination of things. I was just at a point in my life where I thought I needed a bit of a change. Things weren’t working for me. I had some personal things going on, and I just thought it was a clean slate of fresh start. It’s London, so music opportunities are endless,
If you could speak to one musician, who would that be?
If I could speak to one musician, it would probably be the late Aaliyah… She accomplished a lot in a short time on Earth.
What are your favourites out of the songs you’ve created?
That’s a good question. I have so many favourites that I’ve written for many reasons. Musically. One track that always confuses listeners is called “Homesick,” with people mistakenly thinking the song is about a particular place, when in fact it is about a specific time. So when I say I’m homesick, it’s not, for example, South Africa or Durban. Not that I’m not homesick because I am living in London, but it’s more about a time in my life that you can never get back. So that song, in particular, is very sentimental whenever I listen to it. It always gives me that nostalgic feeling and the feeling I have achieved something with that song.
What was your motivation behind [ “Living to Die”] or what inspired that song?
I think it was a sort of combination of things for that track in particular. At the time I wrote that, I was in the corporate world. So I was doing a corporate job, and I was actually in London on the tube and I was looking around me and looking at so many people that looked quite unhappy with their laugh and what they were doing and then I realized you only get one shot at laugh and you need to do things that bring you happiness and things that bring you Joy. And I just looked around, and I thought to myself, This is not what I should be doing. My first love is It’s writing music. It’s making music. I love shooting videos; I love visuals. I love the whole Artistry side of things and then I thought it was time to pursue my dreams and what I’m passionate about and it would work out so I just took a leap of faith stopped the corporate thing and decided to do my music full-time.
How do you feel about the industry, and the way it’s changed with Spotify and iTunes?
I think with anything it has its pros and its cons personally. I think it’s really good because it’s so much easier to get your music across to the world, you don’t have to print physical copies and get it shipped overseas. People can just click on a button and listen to your stuff on the other hand. I do miss that sentimental feeling you get when you buy an album and you look at it for the first time and read the lyrics.
What is it like in the day and life of a professional musician?
Sometimes you just go into the studio and you do your thing… sometimes you listen to the track and it all just comes out the way it should… It’s all about the emotion at the end of the day. It has its challenges. There are so many amazing artists out there that are doing the same thing. So there’s a lot of competition but I do feel that if you are passionate about something you do it shows and you don’t need to worry about the rest, just laugh
http://www.nicbillington.co.za/
