INTRODUCTION

Wil Nef is a swiss songwriter and composer of music for dance and film. Originally started as pure rhythmic electro pop it soon evolved into a larger variety of music styles such as Disco, Indy-pop, hard rock, orchestral, dance music and lounge music.

EARLY LIFE

Born and raised in the Swiss town of St. Gallen, the fascination for music arose early. Listening to the Swiss and international charts, registering with the tape recorder all the cool music and always getting mad when the moderator talked in the middle of the song. For many years, with the transistor radio behind my pillow I  enjoyed the daily french top 30. The 1980th , what a beautiful time with all the great rock bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Queen and so many cool Disco tunes. Later on, I developed preferences for bands using synthesizers (at that time brand new) like Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd and Electric Light Orchestra.
At the age of 16, I formed with some friends a mobile discotheque call “Fireball”, me as the DJ. We had quite successful times, playing in concert halls and eventually in hockey stadiums, we called it  “Eisdisco”.  Eventually life took different ways among my friends and the Discotheque was sold; albeit I kept all the discs and music equipment till today. 

CAREER

As a trained mechanical engineer, thanks to my employer I had the chance to live for many years in different places of the world, namely: Neuchâtel (French part of Switzerland); Monroe, Connecticut; Long Beach, California; Bangalore, India; Singapore; and now for the last 14 year in Lugano (Italian part of Switzerland). Exposed to different cultures, different food, and of course also different types of music to be listen to. 

SONGWRITER AND COMPOSER

Over the last years the wish grew slowly but surely to create some own songs, albeit not really knowing how to proceed. So I bought a piano, a computer software and participated at synch summits to learn how to go forward.
At the same time I was reading the sci-fi books by
Cixin Liu – The 3 Body Problem, and read about the Netflix plan to create a series. It was immediately clear to me that I will make an album based on this fascinating story. My inspiration came from the books, the Chinese episodes and finally also the Netflix series with its 8 episodes.
Eventually I figured out who is the music supervisor and could through a synch session organised by Mark Frieser, present one of my songs. The comment was, “wow, very powerful” but no need for the moment as music was already done for the film, but he and Mark motivated me to go on creating more songs as there is a huge need in film, trailer and publicity.  And that’s what I did. It took only four month to come up with 12 songs very different in style, rhythm and lyrics, so its not the typical sci-fi sound but a vast variety of different music styles. It is fun to listen to. Release was on June 15 2024 and the Album is called “400 Years”.

ACTUAL PROJECT

Some time ago it was announced that Netflix will do a 2nd series, so I started to work on the second album, based predominantly on the 2nd book.
Expected release will be around April 2025.

PERSONAL LIFE

Wil Nef lives with his wife in Lugano, Switzerland.