Billy Simpson

Billy Simpson (born 1987) is an Indonesian singer-songwriter, musician, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He was the winner of the first season of The Voice Indonesia.

Early life

Simpson was born in Jakarta to parents who have neither the interest nor background in music that throughout his childhood years, his exposure to music was thus relatively limited. In fact, the closest exposure to music that he had as a child was obtained from watching Disney movies.

Being encouraged by his sister, Simpson's first ‘official’ encounter with music occurred as he began playing bass at a church at the age of 13. A few years later, he moved to Melbourne, Australia to pursue his collegiate studies. There he started to discover his love of singing through his involvement in various musical events organized by Indonesian students. Apart from his participation in musicals, Simpson also acted in Kado Kendo, a student-initiated movie filmed in Melbourne, Australia in 2007.

Career

Early years

After completing his studies in Business and Economics in Melbourne, Simpson returned to Indonesia. He was then asked to join and become one of the lead-vocalists of a band called VoZ for an album called Putus Cinta before the members dispersed and went on their separate ways. He then carried on with his own music career, performing at weddings and a variety of events. Aside from those, Simpson wrote his own music, produce them in his own home-based music studio and create videos based on them. He also ran his home studio as a production house, regularly creating music for other singers, bands and corporations.

The Voice Indonesia

In February 2013, Simpson passed the Blind-Audition of The Voice Indonesia which is aired in Indosiar TV. Singing the song One by U2 gave him a 4-chair-turn and he picked Giring Ganesha from the band Nidji as his coach.^[1]

In the Battle Rounds, Simpson performed "I Won’t Give Up" by Jason Mraz, competing against Andreas Galih.^[2] After seeing the duet performance of both singers onstage, coach Giring finally chose Billy to carry on to the next round of the competition: the Top 24 LIVE show.

At the TOP 24, Simpson presented his own ‘twist’ of "Beautiful", a song originally performed by Cherrybelle, and managed to get to the next stage of the competition.^[3][4]

Fans from all over Indonesia started to follow Simpson and call themselves "Billyvers" ^[5]

Today, Billy Simpson is the first winner of the show.^[6][7][8][9]

Discography

Album

• 2013: "Lukisanku"^[10]

Single

• 2010: "The Best Is What I Will Get"^[11]
• 2013: "Jembatan Pengharapan"^[12] Sabarlah^[13]

Filmography

• 2007: Kado Kendo - (Melbourne, Australia)

Other Media Appearances

• Billy Simpson performing at Java Soulnation ^[14] with Shane Filan a former lead singer of Westlife ^[15]

• Featured artist of OMG Yahoo! Flickr Seleb ^{[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]}

Video Link at : http://www.frequency.com/video/flickr -para-seleb/119481666/-/5-4370342^[25]

• Gebyar BCA 29 June 2013 ^[26]

• HTC One Product Launch ^[27]

• The Grand Opening of The Disco by Edward Suhadi ^[28]

• IPH School, Surabaya graduation ^[29]

Awards and Honors

• Winner of Season One The Voice Indonesia aired on Indosiar TV.
• Artist of the Month by CDBS 94.5FM Radio Bali^[30][31]

• Featured Artist by Radio Nusantara Universitas^[32]

• World Wide Trending Topic in Twitter during the finals of The Voice Indonesia ^{[33] [34]}

Personal life

After returning from Australia,^[35] Simpson joined Jakarta Praise Community Church (JPCC).^[36] A few years later, he started recording LIVE with JPCC Worship - True Worshippers as a singer and songwriter. Also, he became the frontman of True Worshipper Youth.

Simpson is active on Social Media and could be found on Flickr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc for updates. Simpson's website is: www.billysimpsonmusic.com

References