William Stafford of Window Business: Writing Beyond Genre
Musicians spend a surprising amount of time trying to explain what kind of music they make.
Rock, Blues, Folk, Alternative, Singer-songwriter?
Eventually, the description can start taking up more space than the music itself.
Our conversation with William Stafford of Window Business offered another way of looking at it.
Instead of trying to become a particular type of artist, Will talks about being liberated from genre. He follows the influence, mood, lyric, or story where it wants to go and then builds the song around that.
That does not mean genres are meaningless. Blues has a history. Folk has traditions. Pop has structures that work for a reason.
But knowing those traditions is different from treating them like rules about who you are allowed to be.
For independent musicians, that distinction can be freeing.
William Stafford and Window Business
Will Stafford is the songwriter behind Window Business, a recording project built around his songs and a long-running collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and engineer Tim Karplus.
According to the project's official history, Will and Tim have worked together since 2014. Will writes the songs, while Tim has filled numerous musical and engineering roles across the catalog. Over the years, they have also brought in a large group of musicians playing everything from drums and bass to cello, horns, flute, pedal steel, violin, accordion, and more.
That rotating cast makes sense when you hear Will talk about music.
He does not seem particularly interested in making every song conform to the same sonic template.
Window Business has become a framework that can stretch.
The project's latest listed album, Lower the Bar, was released in December 2025, continuing a catalog that includes Before the War, Six Apart, Holidays Are Hard!, and earlier recordings that eventually became part of the Window Business identity.
Modern Blues Without Becoming “The Blues Guy”
One of the most interesting ideas in our conversation was Will's relationship with blues music.
He can make a blues record.
That does not mean he needs to turn himself into "a blues guy."
There is a difference.
Will grew up with the musical landscape of the 1990s and Seattle, but he also noticed the enormous cultural presence of artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan. What attracted him was not the idea of dressing up as an earlier era. It was hearing blues that felt alive in its own time.
That question still matters.
How do you respect a musical tradition without treating authenticity like a costume?
Will separates blues as a label from blues as a musical language, emotional experience, history, and community.
I think that is a useful distinction for musicians working in almost any genre.
You can learn a twelve-bar structure without deciding every song you write needs one.
You can study old records without pretending it is still 1955.
You can borrow something from blues, folk, punk, hip-hop, or pop because it serves the song rather than because somebody told you what category you belong in.
The Desert Vibe episode itself centers on that idea: a blues record can be honest without forcing the artist's entire identity into the label.
Genre Can Be a Tool Without Becoming a Cage
Genres are useful.
They help listeners discover music. They help venues understand what they are booking. They give musicians a shared vocabulary.
The trouble starts when the category begins dictating the creative process.
Will's approach is closer to chasing influences.
Maybe one song needs blues.
Another needs something closer to pop.
Another song might benefit from folk-style storytelling.
That does not necessarily make the project confused.
It can make it interesting.
Will described an almost mixtape mentality toward making records, where individual songs are allowed to have different personalities. Different singers can even step into the lead role when the song benefits from another voice.
That requires giving up one of the assumptions artists sometimes carry into recording: that consistency means everything needs to sound the same.
Consistency can come from somewhere deeper.
It can come from the writing.
A Lyricist-First Approach to Songwriting
Will describes himself as a lyricist first, and his list of influences makes the point better than any genre label could.
Kendrick Lamar. Leonard Cohen. Harry Chapin. Kurt Cobain.
Those names do not belong neatly inside one Spotify playlist.
But there are things a songwriter can learn from all of them.
A line from one artist might teach you something about imagery.
Another songwriter teaches storytelling.
Someone else shows you how a melody can make a difficult lyric accessible.
Another reminds you that something ugly and something beautiful can exist in the same sentence.
Will's approach to listening is almost like building a toolbox.
Take the lesson, not the costume.
I particularly liked the discussion about allowing beauty and ugliness to coexist in a lyric.
Real life usually contains both.
Writing becomes less interesting when every emotion is cleaned up before it reaches the page.
Sometimes the uncomfortable detail is the thing that makes the beautiful part believable.
Learning Blues History Without Repeating the Mythology
Will also talked about reading about Robert Johnson, whose story has accumulated so much mythology that the mythology sometimes overshadows the actual musician.
Most music fans have heard some version of the crossroads story.
It is memorable.
It is also a good example of why musicians should occasionally go beyond the famous story and learn about the person, the recordings, the time period, and the musical tradition surrounding them.
Studying roots music should involve curiosity rather than simply repeating folklore.
That matters when talking about authenticity too.
If you are going to borrow from a tradition, learning something about where it came from gives you more to work with than imitation ever could.
The goal is not to pass an authenticity test.
It is to understand your influences well enough that when they come back out through your own writing, they have become something personal.
Independent Music Production Works Better With the Right People
The Window Business story is also a useful example of independent music production that does not depend on constantly reinventing the entire team.
Will has repeatedly returned to trusted collaborators.
His partnership with Tim Karplus goes back more than a decade, and the official Window Business credits show Tim repeatedly appearing as producer, engineer, instrumentalist, and musical collaborator across different releases.
The recordings have also involved established relationships with other musicians and studios, including sessions made in Portland.
For independent artists, there is a lesson here that is less glamorous than the idea of some huge career breakthrough.
Make the creative process repeatable.
Find people who understand what you are trying to do.
Learn how each other works.
Make another record.
Then another.
Will's catalog shows how that kind of consistency can support experimentation rather than prevent it. One project involved remote tracking with musicians contributing parts from different home studios, while other releases were built through concentrated studio sessions.
The recording method can change.
The trusted relationships remain.
Making Music Fit Into Adult Life
We also talked about something that rarely makes it into the romantic version of the musician story.
Life.
Will is raising a family. He described being a stay-at-home dad while his wife, Rachel, works as an engineer in the renewable-energy field.
Music has to exist alongside the rest of adulthood.
That might sound less exciting than disappearing onto a tour bus for nine months, but it is probably more relevant to a huge percentage of musicians.
Most independent artists are balancing something.
Children, a career, a spouse, Bills, a business, aging parents, or several of those at the same time.
Creative consistency does not require pretending those responsibilities do not exist.
Sometimes the sustainable path is to build music around the life you actually have.
Will keeps writing, recording, and returning to collaborators who know the process.
The output accumulates.
That is not hype.
That is a body of work.
Why the Name Window Business Works
The project itself eventually evolved from recordings under Will Stafford's name into Window Business.
The official project history says the name change came before the group's first tour in Montana in 2018.
I like the metaphor because a window can do several things.
You can look through it.
Someone can look back through it.
It frames something.
It lets light in.
And creatively, the name does not trap Will inside one musical identity.
That flexibility also leaves room for work beyond the traditional album-and-stage model, including possibilities such as film.
For an independent musician thinking about branding, there is something worth considering there.
A good project name can tell people enough to remember you without explaining so much that you have nowhere left to go.
What’s Vibin’ Across the Arizona Music Scene
After our conversation with Will, we moved into What's Vibin' in the Desert, where our rotating regional representatives look around Arizona for places musicians can actually participate.
This week's trip around the state included opportunities in Sedona, Glendale, Tempe, Florence, the White Mountains, Tucson, and Yuma.
That can mean open mics, recurring music nights, jams, community events, or other opportunities where musicians can get involved rather than simply watch from the audience.
The details matter.
What time does sign-up start?
Is there an age restriction?
How many songs do you get?
Should you arrive early?
Is it weekly or monthly?
Those little details can be the difference between somebody walking into an open mic prepared or arriving after the list is already full.
That is why we built this part of Desert Vibe into the show.
The Arizona music scene is large, and no one person knows what is happening everywhere.
By connecting musicians from different parts of the state, we can make those opportunities easier to find.
The Desert Vibe Podcast describes What's Vibin' in the Desert as a statewide roundtable where regional contributors share live shows, open mics, jam sessions, festivals, and other opportunities for Arizona musicians. Check out the website for detailed blog reviews about open mics around Arizona, and the map directory to find open mics 7 days a week.
Walt’s Wisdom: “It’s Nice to Be Nice”
This week's Walt's Wisdom does not require much explanation.
It's nice to be nice.
Music scenes depend on relationships.
You do not have to love everybody's music.
You do not have to agree with everybody.
You do not even have to collaborate with everybody.
But being decent to the people around you costs very little, and music communities become considerably better places when enough people remember that.
Writing Beyond Genre
My biggest takeaway from William Stafford was permission.
Not permission from the industry.
Not permission from an audience.
Permission from yourself.
You can love blues without becoming only a blues artist.
You can learn from Kendrick Lamar and Leonard Cohen in the same afternoon.
You can write something beautiful next to something ugly.
You can make one track sound different from the one before it.
You can build records while raising a family.
You can keep the collaborators who make the work better.
And you can let a musical influence become part of your vocabulary without letting it become your entire identity.
Maybe that is what being liberated from genre really means.
It is not rejecting musical traditions.
It is learning from them well enough that you no longer have to be afraid of crossing the lines between them.
Listen to the full Desert Vibe conversation with William Stafford to hear more about songwriting, modern blues, recording, authenticity, and the thinking behind Window Business.
About the Authors: Emma & James Mattison
James Mattison is an Arizona guitarist, musician, and blog writer for the Desert Vibe Podcast. He is one half of Emma & James Music, a husband-and-wife Arizona music duo performing original music and select covers while helping connect musicians throughout the state's independent music community.
Emma Mattison is the other half of Emma & James Music and manages the Desert Vibe website, social media, marketing, promotions, and online distribution. Her work behind the scenes helps make the podcast, its guests, and the musicians featured throughout Arizona easier to discover online.
Together, Emma & James use the Desert Vibe Podcast to help document Arizona musicians, venues, open mics, creative opportunities, and the real stories behind the people making music across the state.
REFERENCES
Window Business Official Website. Artist history, album credits, collaborators, recording information, and catalog.
The Desert Vibe Podcast. “We Can Chase Influences Without Getting Trapped By Genre,” Season 2, Episode 4, featuring William Stafford.
Apple Music. Window Business artist catalog and lower the bar release information.
Window Business, Before the War. Album credits and recording information.
Window Business, Six Apart. Album credits and remote recording information.
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