What made now feel like the right time to look back and build a tour around the music that started everything for you?
Honestly it just felt like the moment. I’ve been doing this for over 15 years now and I realised there’s this whole body of work tracks that shaped everything I became as an artist that I’ve barely touched in my sets. Fans who’ve been with me from the start deserve to hear that music properly, and newer fans deserve to know where it all came from. The timing felt right to honour that.
When you listen to your early tracks today, do you hear nostalgia, or do you hear a completely different version of yourself?
Both honestly. There’s definitely nostalgia I can hear the bedroom, the late nights, the excitement of just making noise and not really knowing what you’re doing. But I also hear someone figuring out their identity.
Melbourne bounce became a global sound — did you realise at the time you were part of something that big, or did it happen without you noticing?
I wouldn’t say it happened without me noticing. It was really a unique moment and period for me growing up. One day I was in my bedroom on shitty speakers then you feel like the next day you’re playing it overseas and people know every drop and you think ok something big has happened here.
You’ve been in the industry for over a decade now — what’s something about the music world that people don’t see from the outside?
How relentless it actually is. People see the shows, the travel, the highlights but they don’t see how much goes into sustaining a career year after year. The music, the business decisions, the relationships, the mental load of staying relevant while staying true to yourself. It’s not glamorous the whole way through, and the artists who last are the ones who genuinely love it enough to keep going through the hard parts.
How different is the way you make music today compared to when you were producing in your bedroom in the early days?
Night and day in terms of tools and knowledge but the core is the same. I still start with a feeling of how do i want people to people when they hear this. Back then I didn’t have the technical skills to fully execute the vision. Now I do. But if anything, I try to protect that raw instinct.
Do you think electronic music moves too fast now, or do you like the pace the industry is evolving at?
It moves fast but I think that’s part of what makes it exciting. The challenge is not chasing every trend and losing your identity in the process. The artists I respect most are the ones who evolve on their own terms. If you’re just reacting to whatever’s hot this week, the music shows it. I’d rather be authentic and just on my own course.
If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice when you first started, what would it be?
Trust the process and don’t worry about peoples opinions. I wasted a lot of energy early on caring what people think. The only version of this that works long-term is the one that’s genuinely yours. Everything else is noise.
What keeps you motivated after so many years of touring, releasing music, and being constantly on the move?
The people, honestly. You can have the longest travel day of your life, run on no sleep, and then you walk out and the crowd is going off that resets everything. And I still genuinely love making music. The day that stops feeling exciting is the day I’ll know something’s wrong.
Your new single Teardrop feels like another step forward — where do you see your sound heading over the next few years?
I’m not sure really all the music coming out now I made is from 6-12 months ago. I love making more emotional records but also love records that you know when they’re played live at a festival the crowd is going to go crazy.
After celebrating the past with this tour, what do you think the next chapter of Will Sparks looks like?
It’s actually one of the most exciting periods I’ve had in a while. More music than I’ve ever released, a collab with Orkestrated that I’m really proud of, Tomorrowland again, and potentially a surprise EP that I think will genuinely catch people off guard. The Classics tour is about honouring where it started but everything else I’ve got lined up is firmly about where it’s going.
