Willis Earl Beal

Willis Earl Beal (also known as Nobody) is an artist and musician.

Early years Willis Earl Beal was born on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. In his early twenties Beal joined the U.S. Army, moving to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Beal was medically discharged from the army due to intestinal and visual problems. He then returned to Chicago where he worked at Sears Tower, following a five-month hospital stay.

Early career In 2007, Beal moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here Beal spent some time homeless, and working entry-level jobs, notably as a night-shift security guard. During this time Beal began to record music, leaving CD-Rs in public spaces around Albuquerque. Beal would also leave self-illustrated flyers around the town in the hope of finding a girlfriend. One of these flyers was discovered by Found Magazine who put Beal on the cover of their magazine. Through these flyers and the subsequent coverage in Found, Beal was contacted by more than 100 members of the public. In 2012, Beal signed a recording contract with Hot Charity, an imprint of independent record label, XL Recordings. Beal's first single for the labels, "Evening's Kiss" was released on February 17, 2012, and the accompanying music video was illustrated by Beal. Beal's debut album, entitled Acousmatic Sorcery was released on April 2, 2012. In 2013, Beal was the star and subject of the musical drama film, Memphis, directed by Tim Sutton. The film screened at the Venice Film Festival and Sundance, and was distributed theatrically through Kino Lorber in 2014.

Discography Albums Acousmatic Sorcery (Hot Charity/XL Recordings, 2012) Nobody Knows. (Hot Charity/XL Recordings, 2013) Experiments in Time (self-released, 2014) Experiments in Time: The Golden Hour (self-released, 2014) Noctunes (Electric Soul Records/Tender Loving Empire, 2015) Turn (cdbaby/TMB Limited, 2017) Turn, Circle, Sun & Moon (cdbaby, TMB Limited 2017) ALMS (Bandcamp, cdbaby 2018) Morningstar (Bandcamp, Eyeless Records 2020) ANTISTAR (Eyeless Records 2025) EPs Principles of a Protagonist (BitTorrent, 2012) A Place That Doesn't Exist (self-released, 2013) Curious Cool (self-released, 2014) Hourglass(Bandcamp,2021) Blue Dawn(Bandcamp, Eyeless Records,2021) Flying So Low / 12 Midnight (TMB Limited, 7", 2015) Through The Dark (Tender Loving Empire, 2016) A Chaos Paradigm (Tender Loving Empire, 2016) Circle (self-released, 2017) Sun & Moon (self-released, 2017) Sad Sam (Extended Player) (self-released, 2018) "Feel/You" (7" single, 2017) "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (cover) "3 ANGELS" (collaboration with Druidance)