When people think of music cities, Nashville, New Orleans, or Austin usually come to mind, but what about local bands trying to make their mark on non-music oriented cities? Reed Willis is a student at Lafayette high school as well as a member of the alternative rock band ‘The Brothers Will.’

What started as a single show turned into a five-man band that included Reed, along with two close friends. Reed believes that this close knit group of people helped hold the band together and prevented any arguments that commonly arise in other bands. Though most of the band members have moved on to college or other activities and Reed is pursuing solo music, they played numerous shows throughout the peninsula and Richmond in their years together. Surprisingly, these venues weren’t hard to find for Willis. “Our drummer was the biggest promoter, he did a lot of ‘send us your local music’ things, and we actually got to be on the local radio at one point.” He went on to say that people from Warhill, Lafayette, as well as a now closed local venue, “London Underground,” contacted them to do shows. The National, a large venue in Richmond, contacted them for an event where they headlined local bands, but how did they get all this attention? “(You) have to make a name for yourself, like we had for a while, with the genre we were playing. It was difficult to do, it took us two, three years to do that, but once we did, it really set us apart from other groups.”

According to Willis, most of the local scene consists of short lived rap groups as well as adult musicians who had studied music, so an alternative rock group really stood out, raising the question if it would be better to live in a town with more music influence around. Willis doesn’t think so. “I do think if I was living in another city there would be more opportunity, but that being the case, I feel like you could get lost in the crowd. If you’re living in an area with a lot of local venues as a local band, that’s just what you’d become, but in a place like Williamsburg, if you make a name for yourself, that’s a big deal.” Willis says that there is a surprising amount of opportunities in Williamsburg, if you are just willing to put yourself out there to find them. “I remember when we first started, we were all really surprised thinking about the prospect of getting discovered, or going big, that the process is a lot simpler than you think it would be, just do everything you can to get your stuff out there, that’s why social media is a big deal.”