As a sound designer he won Australian Film Institute awards for his work on The Beat Manifesto (1996), Vietnam Nurses (2005, as composer) and Rare Chicken Rescue (2008).

Over the next three years Willsteed played bass in a number of Sydney bands ranging from country (Tender Mercies) to quirky pop (Machines That Walk).

[6] In 1986 the Australian band The Go-Betweens lost their bass player Robert Vickers, moved to Sydney from London, and began searching for a replacement.

Willsteed continued to play in Australian bands, including Plug Uglies, The Drunk, The Monk and the Spunk, Disgraceland and The Apartments on their 1992 album Drift, and is currently a member of Halfway.

In 2021, Halfway collaborated with Aboriginal activist Bob Weatherall and musician William Barton to produce the concept album Restless Dream - a story of repatriation - which was nominated in the 2021 ARIA Awards.

Willsteed has also composed music for the children's stop-motion animated television series Kitu and Woofl for Henderson Bowman Productions and ABC TV in 1997.

Willsteed has won three Australian Film Institute Awards for Sound Design (Vietnam Nurses, The Beat Manifesto and Rare Chicken Rescue).

Willsteed began teaching in the tertiary system in 2000 at Griffith University in Brisbane, and has since taught at Bond, SBIT, and a number of private schools.

In 2016, Willsteed won the Letty Katts Award and held a presentation at the State Library of Queensland on the role of posters in the Brisbane music scene from 1975 to 1995.