Biography
About William Kuklis
Canadian singer-songwriter William Kuklis has been commanding stages with his powerhouse vocals and lyrical emotion, as a musician and an actor for over 20 years. Musically, Kuklis takes his inspiration from a wide array of genres and has been compared to artists such as Matt Andersen, Van Morrison, Steven Page, and John Popper.
William’s music has been featured on international radio, film and television and he has performed live throughout Canada and internationally including a show at the Hard Rock Café in Reykjavik, Iceland. He has shared stages with such artists as Alicia Witt, Craig Cardiff, David Ross Macdonald, The Be Good Tanyas, and John Bottomely. William is also a founding member of indie folk band The Ebbs.
In addition to his music, William continues to pursue his other passions as a professional actor and writer. He has numerous on screen acting credits in several film productions including A Great North Christmas (Barker Street Cinema), The Way to the Heart (Princ Films), and Cold Meat (Featuristic Films) with Allen Leech and Nina Bergman, to name a few. Kuklis has also contributed writing and music compositions to other projects including X Spots the Mark (Vancouver Film School), Quickies (Moviehouse Pictures), and The Distance of Truth (Pageturner Productions). You can also see William’s voice acting work in LEGO Jurassic World – The Legend of Isla Nublar and LEGO Jurassic Park – The Unoffical Retelling as the voice of Dennis Nedry which contine to air world-wide.
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In the early 1990s William’s life in music began as a founding member of the Vancouver-based eclectic folk band Cultured Cowboy. Over eight years the band released two full-length studio albums Cultured Cowboy and Cultured Cowboy Live at Orphan Studios. In 2001, Kuklis branched out on his own releasing his first solo album titled The Price We Pay which was received with great acclaim for the depth and composition of his performance and writing.
Cultured Cowboy was reformed in 2004 under the new name Willie Kuklis and the Disappointments releasing their 2006 album The Hand That Pays. The band enjoyed many successes including shows for the Vancouver Grey Cup, and the Vancouver Sun Run playing for audiences of over 50,000 people.
In 2014, William Kuklis released his second solo album I’ve Heard That Before. The album was lauded by fans and media for its honest lyrical content and powerful vocal performance, receiving radio play in both Canada and the United States. After the successful launch of I’ve Heard That Before, Kuklis was invited to play on the main stage for the 2015 Canada Winter Games. Kuklis’ third solo album, Save Me, was released in 2017.
He describes the process of making this latest LP as “a grueling experience,” spending the last two years creating and blending every component of the album, writing, recording, and selecting every line to capture “the un-edited feeling in each track.” In 2019, William Kuklis released his highly anticipated fourth solo album I’ll Be Alright.
In 2019, Kuklis along with fellow singer-songwriter Joe Shea (Trundled) teamed up with fiddle virtuoso Finn Scott-Neff to form the band The Ebbs. Based out of Prince George British Columbia, trio brings their years of experience creating and performing music to the stage and combine a range of instruments and vocal harmonies to create a new and inescapable sound. Receiving rave reviews for their energetic live shows, The Ebbs have recently toured north western BC on their Northern Roadshow tour and are releasing a full-length album of original material later this year.
In 2021, William Kuklis along with The Ebbs, and Ellen Braun together to created single entitled The Train for the soundtrack of an upcoming film Ariel Alpha. The single earned support from Creative BC and the Province of British Columbia which awarded a grant for the production of a music. Set in a dystopian world besieged by economic depression and environmental depredation, The Train takes place a decade or more before the events of Barker Street Cinema’s upcoming science fiction short film, Ariel Alpha, and is visually rooted in the early-20th century aesthetic of a collapsed civilization that has yet to fully experience the game-changing effects of advanced robotic and artificial intelligence research integral to the storyline of ARIEL ALPHA. Throughout the story, it is implied that the protagonist (William Kuklis) is a rough-sleeping, cybernetically enhanced humanoid on the run who is looking to keep his existence a secret from the rest of society while desperately trying to find a mysterious woman who is trapped, alone, on The Train.
William Kuklis relocated to Northern British Columbia in 2009 and continues focus on multiple projects including music for film and television production. Kuklis owns and operates his boutique recording studio, Vinyl Deck Studios located in Prince George, and continues play live shows, write, record, produce, act, both solo and with The Ebbs.
