Waylon

Waylon

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Waylon (Willem Bijkerk) was born in 1980. When he was 18 years old he received a phone call from his hero, Waylon Jennings, who invited him to come and work with him in Nashville. Unfortunately the country singer died in 2001, after which Waylon returned to The Netherlands.

Waylon came to people's attention during his Hollands Got Talent performance in 2008. One year later he became the first Dutch artist to sign to the Motown Label. Wicked Way was his first single on his debut album Wicked Ways. Both were extremely successful and won several awards. 

In 2011 Waylon released his second album, After All, and later he was voted Best Vocalist by 3FM. While working on his third album word got out that Waylon and Ilse DeLange had formed a one-off band, The Common Linnets, and were going to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. It became a reality, and in 2014 The Common Linnets placed second in the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen and sold over half a million copies of their album worldwide. In that same year Waylon's third solo album Heaven After Midnight was released and went straight to number one in the Dutch charts.

In 2016 Waylon was a jury in the TV programme It Takes Two and became a coach on The Voice of Holland. At the end of that year his fourth album, Seeds, was released and Waylon performed twice in front of thirty thousand people in Rotterdam's Ahoy. 

Last year he was a coach and jury member for a second time on It Takes Two and The Voice. He rounded off 2017 with three sold-out concerts in Rotterdam's Ahoy. In that same period the announcement was made that Waylon would again represent the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest.

2018 is going to be a busy year for Waylon. From April onwards he will be performing in thirty venues during his The World Can Wait Tour. The album of the same name is also going to be released that month. His Eurovision entry, Outlaw In ‘Em is an ode to his own authenticity, as well as to his many heroes who dared to be different. He grew up with a love for music by rebels such as Freddie Mercury, James Brown, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Waylon's motto, ‘It’s okay to be different,’ is summed up perfectly by Outlaw In ‘Em.

About the song writers and composers 

Ilya Toshinskiy was born in Obninsk, Russia. He started playing guitar when he turned ten years old. In 1998 he signed a record deal as a band member of Bering Strait and moved to Nashville. Ilya received a Grammy nomination in 2003 for the best country instrumental recording performance. Since 2005 he became a top Nashville session guitar player, won eight Music Row awards and two ACM awards for playing guitar, banjo, mandolin and dobro on top selling country records. He has appeared on hundreds of recordings including Taylor Swift, StevenTyler from Aerosmith, Shakira, James Blunt, One Republic, Florida Georgia Line and Rascal Flatts. His production work includes Eric Paslay, Thompson Square and Waylon.

Jim Beavers grew up in east Texas. His educational background includes a BBA from Baylor University and a MBA from Vanderbilt University. Beavers moved to Nashville in 1991 to pursue a career on the business side of music. His pre-songwriting work experience includes stints as Director of Marketing for Capitol Records and Virgin Records, touring musician with Lee Ann Womack and professor at Middle Tennessee State University. Since 2002, Beavers has focused primarily on songwriting has had dozens of songs recorded by dozens of artists such as Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Gary Allan, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Josh Turner, Billy Currington, Trace Adkins, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley and Faith Hill among others. Beavers' compositions have received multiple nominations, awards and since 2008, he has co-written nine number one songs.