Recent LA Music Academy graduate and former musical prodigy Daniel Willy has recently joined another former prodigy — Paul Anka, in the latter's year-long worldwide tour. Willy, a drummer who played his first professional gig at the age of five, now finds himself backing an industry stalwart whose career has run the gamut from charting at the age of fifteen to being one of Las Vegas' enduring acts to even being the man responsible for the Tonight Show theme. "He tours all year, all around the world. They never really stop." However, they did stop long enough in mid-December of last year for Willy to join the fun. "I was recommended by a percussionist who was leaving the group and after talking to the musical director, I played a gig with them, and Paul liked it and it was like, welcome aboard! We've played in California, Louisiana, Indiana, New Jersey, Mississippi, Nevada... it just keeps going." Willy says he soon discovered he was more familiar with Anka's music than he thought prior to joining the tour. "He's a very important person in the music business. If you're younger, you might not think of him, but then you go down the list of songs he has written, and you're saying to yourself, 'I know that song, I know that song, and I know that song, and that song...'" Willy (and the band) recently earned a brief respite from the tour prior to heading back out for dates in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in June. However, rather than actually rest, Willy is utilizing his time off with some ongoing projects in the recording studio. First, he works as a sound engineer in recording sessions to dub films like the Lord of the Rings series for international audiences. "It's something else that I'm working on and learning every day, and it's fun because sometimes you'll record someone like Christian Slater or you get to work with a beautiful woman like Brooke Shields — that's pretty great." And naturally there is music to work on as well. "I'm producing some tracks for my sister Popi's album." We had a group a long time ago [1989] called the Micro Chips." Music clearly runs in the Willy family. That first gig at the age of five was for his father's rock n' roll band, and after playing with the Micro Chips, Willy formed another group with his brothers called Rock Kids. The following year they had achieved a gold record. And speaking of gold records, what is it like playing for/and with a man who has more than he can probably remember himself? Willy replies, "For me, it's really important to play with someone like that. He's a legend, you know? It's a completely different thing when you play for an artist that just sings and doesn't really know what's going on behind them. But Paul is a musician — he's on top of it every show. You know he's going to be paying attention. So that's a challenge. And if he likes it, it means a little more.".