BRETT WILSON (Long Bio 2023) Gravelly-voiced singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and music entrepreneur Brett Wilson is a gifted, socially-conscious artist with a robust platform who works successfully across all areas of the music business. Wilson’s successes are due to his embodiment of that rare mix of big-picture creative vision, spot-on music industry instincts, marketing savvy, leadership skills, and networking and community-building prowess. Most people know Brett as the founder and singer-songwriter of the Billboard and radio chart-topping, award-winning, and international reggae-rock sensation, and touring powerhouse, Roots of Creation. From this mothership, he’s grown his artist profile with a solo career enhanced by his ever-growing looping skills, and his recently launched Grateful Dub project, an epiphanic groove-based take on the Dead’s iconic body of work. “Nobody does as good of a job with your music as you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t hire people and delegate,” Wilson says. “Everything I’ve done has been natural, and has been about figuring things out and leveraging opportunities to create art, and, not just for me, but for others, as well.” Brett Wilson is inspired by entrepreneurial creatives across genres, such as Jay-Z, Ani DiFranco, Dispatch, Sublime, and his buddies in Slightly Stoopid. Behind the scenes, Brett has earned three Grammy certificates through his radio promoter side job with Powderfinger Promotions. He’s worked with booking agencies and management firms. He’s conducted three successful crowdfunding campaigns, and he was an early adopter of Patreon and Pollstar Live stream. Wilson has led Roots of Creation through 9 albums, and 1,000-plus international shows since the band’s founding in 2004. The band’s infectious and genre-expanding mix of reggae riddims, enlightened lyrics, spirited horn lines, adventurous soundscapes, and electronic beats has earned them a loyal fan base, the RoC Family, and an engaged street team, the Universal Soldiers. In addition, Brett is a respected instrumentalist who has the distinction of earning a Martin guitar sponsorship. RoC has had two number one Billboard reggae chart debuts, garnered notable airplay from Sirius XM’s “The Joint” & “Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong Radio,” been featured on numerous Spotify and Pandora playlists, and earned Spotify 3 million streams. On RoC’s genre-bursting release, Grateful Dub: A Reggae Infused Tribute to the Grateful Dead, Brett attracted special guests such as Stephen Marley, G. Love (& Special Sauce), Melvin Seals (Jerry Garcia Band), Marlon "Ganja Farmer" Asher, The Aggrolites, and members of Slightly Stoopid, Reel Big Fish, and Big D & The Kids Table, among others. RoC select live performance highlights include performances in Mexico, US Virgin Island, Jamaica, and Costa Rica; high-profile slots at reggae-rock favorites fests like Camp Bisco, Gathering of The Vibes, California Roots, Jungle Jam, Closer to the Sun, and Wakarusa; and sharing the stage with reggae legends The Wailers, pop star Collie Buddz, Slightly Stoopid, G. Love & Friends, Twiddle, SOJA, Michael Franti, and touring with The Aggrolites. In the post-pandemic alone, RoC have shared stages with Fortunate Youth, Ziggy Marley, Warren Haynes, Lettuce, Mihali, Melvin Seals & JGB, Cypress Hill, moe., and Jason Mraz, among others. Brett’s genuine curiosity about how the music business works has served him well in his nearly 20 years as an artist and music business professional. He’s interned within various branches of the industry, including booking, radio promotion, and management, and each internship has led to a paid gig. His openness to learn has been an asset as an indie artist. From day one, Wilson has been involved in some capacity or another in the production process of his albums. Through working collaboratively, he’s learned firsthand how to take music from the demo stage to the marketplace. “Many of my friends have been mentors—I have an entrepreneurial musical family,” he says with a good-natured laugh. “Community and working together are so important.” Brett Wilson’s journey has been about finding his sense of self within the conscientious ideals he was raised with, and sharing those healing vibes within a music that feels both personal and broadly resonant. He was born and raised in New Hampshire. His family weaned him on a vegetarian diet, which he has maintained to this day, and his mother brought him with her on her enlightenment journey. As a kid, Brett tagged along on visits to Siddha Yoga meditation centers on weekends, and summer sojourns to India, South Fallberg, New York and Boston, Massachusetts following his mother’s guru. “There seem to be many roads to nirvana, but one thing that has really stuck with me is looking within myself for transcendence—the idea that God dwells inside,” Wilson shares. This perspective, and the healing powers of music, have helped Brett with his personal battles with anxiety, OCD, and depression. Brett was destined to be a creative, and his earliest memories are of wanting to be a comic book artist. His parents divorced when he was 6, and he recalls his father sharing formative music with him on drives throughout New England. His dad favored mostly classic rock, but one artist stuck out to him: Peter Tosh’s work with the Rolling Stones. It seems there was something reggae-like wafting in the New Hampshire air calling to Brett. As a kid he attended a local reggae festival, and an influx of Jamaican people in his small town brought the culture and music closer. A friend of Wilson's mom's further guided him on his journey through making mixed tapes of authentic reggae. At the time, he was cycling through punk, ska-punk, ska, and reggae, finding his groove as he went along, but soon enough Brett began to see the lineage from roots reggae to bands like Sublime and 311. Brett Wilson got his start playing music by purchasing a $5 guitar to participate in a high school music program. As a teen, he spent hours in his room learning a combination of riff-based rock like Black Sabbath and Rage Against The Machine, and improvisational music like the Allman Brothers Band and Phish. Slowly, his passion for reggae culture and west coast ska and reggae began to inform his music. By college, Brett still wanted to be a visual artist, but his gigging experiences with RoC began to seduce him away from that path. “Playing sold-out shows with people dancing on tables seemed more fun than stiff art shows,” Wilson laughs. RoC made its first record with the help of the studio where Brett had an internship that included making coffee and cleaning toilets. After Wilson graduated from…, the band got a house together and hit the road, averaging 150 shows a year until Brett had kids and had to be more strategic about his live schedule. Today, Brett Wilson is a single father of two young daughters and supports himself and his girls as a touring musician, a prolific recording artist (he has new music lined up for release every 3 weeks for the next 2-plus years) and as a savvy music biz professional. Reflecting on his path, Wilson states: “I’ve been blessed to learn that my songs have helped people kick drugs and not commit suicide, and that my music has been the soundtrack to weddings and births. Money and social media ‘likes’ and views can’t compare with that—that’s where the true meaning of creating music is for me.“ ### Short version: Brett Wilson is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and music entrepreneur. He is the founder and lead singer of the band Roots of Creation. Wilson has released several solo albums and has collaborated with many other artists, including Stephen Marley, G. Love, and Melvin Seals. He is also a successful music business professional, having worked in booking, radio promotion, and management. Wilson is a single father of two young daughters and continues to tour and record music.