We first heard from Justin Wack back in January 2020 upon the release of his single “Faded.” That song introduced us to a multitalented, multi-instrumentalist singer, songwriter and producer from Vancouver, Canada. A lot has happened in Justin’s career in the past year. He has enjoyed a number of successful singles and made connections throughout the music industry. He has worked with the same heavyweight LA producers as artists like Katy Perry, Jason Derulo, John Mayer and others.
Due to his distinct personal circumstance, the 21 year-old artist has a unique perspective on music. Justin was born totally blind. Additionally he has both perfect pitch and a neurological condition known as synesthesia, which causes the brain to cross signals between the senses. Many people with synesthesia will see colors when hearing music. However, in Justin’s case the music becomes a three dimensional mental image. He “sees” the music in his thoughts.
“Wrong Time” is the latest single from Justin Wack, released worldwide to all major streaming services on March 26, 2021. On this new song he has taken a detour from his normally lush electronic R&B productions in favor of a simple, organic acoustic guitar Pop duet. Guest vocalist and co-writer Darla Fox joins Justin for a heartbreaker of a breakup song. Both singers are excellent as each explains to the other why now is just not the right time. The song’s infectiously catchy guitar part is at the heart of the tune with minimal bass and percussion accompaniment. The clean production is beautiful in its simplicity and leaves plenty of room for these two talented singers to shine.
Check out “Wrong Time” below. You can also hear the song on the Deep Indie Dive and Deep Indie Songwriters playlists. We had the opportunity to chat with the artist about his past, his future and the new single. Check out his answers to our 8 questions. And follow the links at the end of this article to connect with Justin Wack. Get in the loop on all of the upcoming projects from this fast rising star.
8 Questions with Justin Wack
Where are you from?
I am from Vancouver, BC. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and moved to Vancouver at 18.
How long have you been making music?
I’ve been writing music for 14 years (since I was 7), and producing for 5.
Who are the musicians involved in your project?
Myself, Justin Wack, Darla Fox, the co writer and featured artist, and Dan Bereza, the mixing and mastering engineer. He also helped with the production.
Who are your biggest musical influences?
Post Malone, Martin Garrix, Nirvana, Kygo, Calvin Harris and a lot of others. I listen to literally every genre. For smaller artists, Bryce Vine, Saint Jhn and Kim Petras.
What is your greatest non-musical influence?
From an artistic perspective, I read a lot, I constantly have a book on the go. I think that it’s really helped my writing because I’m always thinking of new words to use that I may not have thought of otherwise. In terms of business, being an athlete that has competed for team Canada in the past in judo, it’s taught me the meaning of respect and working hard, which has benefited my career in a big way.
What inspired you to create this project?
I was on a writing trip to LA. We booked the session with Darla, because my manager at the time saw her at an open mic night and thought we’d be a great fit. The song almost didn’t happen, the Uber driver dropped me two blocks away from the studio. I’m a blind dude, in the middle of LA, and I have no idea where I was going. It took me 20 minutes to find it. Darla was in the process of leaving because she didn’t know that I was blind yet, and thought that I had no-showed. Thank God she stayed.
In terms of the inspiration behind the song, the writing process was really interesting. Darla had part of the hook and the guitar riff, I helped fill in the other half of the hook and we worked together on the verses. We created two characters with really basic names, Tom and Jamie I believe.
We figured out that we wanted to write a song around the concept of these two people being madly in love with each other, but just not finding each other at the right time. This has happened to both me and Darla so it was really nice to add our own personal experience to the story as well. In terms of time, it all came together in about an hour. Everything just flowed so naturally. It was something really special and Darla and I are now close friends because of it.
What are your plans for the future (musically)?
I have an EP coming soon, but I can’t give too much away yet. Me and my team have just been overwhelmed with the response to “Wrong Time.” I will say that we have some more collaborations coming. Darla and I have continued to work together as well. I’ve been working hard during Covid and have probably a dozen more songs written in the past year alone that I am going to be releasing. There’s talk of a music video for “Wrong Time” as well 🙂
Is there anything else you would like to say?
Please don’t hesitate to follow me on all social media, @JustinWackMusic. Thank you for reading this, and don’t hesitate to share the single. I’m just out here trying to spread as much love as possible to the whole world.