Bill Ward explains the Things That Fools Do

Most seniors will spend their final year taking classes they’ve put off since they were freshmen, and then either applying to graduate school or frantically begging for employment. So Bill Ward (COL ’11), who already has a job lined up at Morgan Stanley, is liable to make his classmates pretty envious. In fact, his future is so secure that he’s committed the final nine months of his Georgetown career to his true passion: piano rock.

Ward began playing piano at six, and at 10 he composed his first song. He continued to compose his own original pop songs throughout high school. As a Georgetown student, Ward takes advantage of all that Georgetown offers its student musicians. He is a singer in the Phantoms and Cabaret, he’s been a staple of the New Student Orientation concert for the past three years, and he has a solo act in the Guild of Bands. And with an upcoming concert at The Tombs’ new Acoustic Night and interest from WGTB in broadcasting a live performance, the self-styled “piano rock” artist is pushing his exposure even further.

Now, as his time at Georgetown is ending and he closes in on a desk job, Ward has committed to going out with a bang. He bought himself a shiny new keyboard this summer, and in August, he released his first full-length album, Things That Fools Do, on iTunes.

“It’s always sort of been a hobby,” Ward said. “For the last three years that’s what it’s been. … I realized this year, this might be the last time I’ll have the time to do this.”

Ward’s story is very much that of the musician in the digital age. He records all of his music himself on Apple’s Garageband, he promotes himself on Facebook, Myspace and Vimeo, and finds venues to play at over the Internet.

“I was like, I need to get a website up,” Ward said. And he did. Ward’s web presence now includes pages on Facebook, Myspace, and Vimeo.

But being a self-sufficient, Internet-based artist doesn’t mean Ward lacks a sense of professionalism, which is probably something he picked up in the corporate world. His Facebook page is clean, he always wears a sport coat, and there’s nothing NSFW about him. Despite his modest means, Ward’s confidence and earnestness is impressive.

“I like to style myself after a Billy Joel or a Bruce Springsteen type of act, in that I’d like a full band, and when I write music I write it with the idea that there’s a full band there,” he said. “I have to creatively go through and figure out how I’m going to make those sounds with the computer and the keyboard and stuff.”

Maybe he’s not up to Springsteen level just yet, but Things That Fools Do does hearken back to the works of successful piano-playing soloists like Vanessa Carlton. Ward definitely has the chops and musical talent to work a song and please an audience, but the album leaves some room for growth and experimentation. He tends to write straight forward piano rock songs, though he does occasionally delve into modern pop. These groovier tracks are a bit more experimental, making ample use of his MacBook’s synthesizer capabilities.

Ward says he isn’t likely to pursue a musical career once he leaves Georgetown, but he isn’t shutting down his right brain. This time next year, Bill Ward might just bring a bit of creativity to corporate America.

Bill Ward will be playing Acoustic Night at The Tombs next Tuesday at 10:30 p.m.