Wallows: In search of new sensations

Wallows appear on the cover of the Summer 2024 Issue — head to the AP Shop to grab a copy.

“It’s the most Wallows that Wallows has ever been,” says Dylan Minnette, one-third of said Los Angeles indie-rock trio, as he stands on the Bowery Ballroom stage alongside childhood friends, and now bandmates, Braeden Lemasters and Cole Preston. Tonight at midnight, the group will release their third album, Model.

Since their preteen years spent poring over Kings of Leon records and learning chord progressions — each of these men has entered adulthood, and undertaken his own personal pursuits both in and outside of music. And though they’ve seen success in these endeavors, the triad have always found their way back into the world of Wallows, in a seemingly ongoing pursuit to perfect a specific sound, one that expresses an even more specific emotion. Music for Wallows is less about exercising technique and more about allowing an audience to feel something — and whether there’s been heartache or happiness, growing pains or pink clouds on the horizon, the feelings they can best articulate are always their own. The result is a mutually cathartic experience. 

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Through each album, we’ve surfed waves of early aughts indie with Wallows — riding on wistful, romantic music that surges from bubbly mirth and crashes into despondent blues, only to rise again. It’s both soft and energetic, with the smirking cadence of the Shins, while other tracks taste more like early Phoenix, a swirl of addictively quirky anthemic pop. Wallows offer us a whiff of an era where iPods were full of steady, joyful rhythm, witty lyricism, and Oxford Commas — though their brand of the sound is uniquely thoughtful, solidly in the present, and has plenty of personality, three times over. 

For these triumphs, the trio have amassed an eager audience, who’ve been awaiting their third full-length, Model and its accompanying world tour, with bated breath. Days before its release, Minnette, Lemasters, and Preston sat down with me to unpack the growth and trajectory of their band from the beginning through today, as well as their own. The indie-rockers explore the shifts in their craft and their goals over the years, how they have truly achieved the latter through their effervescent latest album, and how they’ve found not only their stride but true self-confidence — and gave me a teaser as to what might be coming next. “I felt like I identified with myself the most than I ever have in my life,” Minnette says of making Model. “All of that goes hand in hand with how we wanted the music to sound.” 

Model is almost here! But before we start talking about it, in doing press around an album, I could see an artist experiencing a few things. One being getting really stuck in a script, and another, talking about the project so much that your thoughts and feelings around it start to change entirely. Have you experienced either of those things or something on the spectrum in between?

COLE PRESTON: I think my thoughts toward it all have, if anything, become slightly more refined. I’ll find a different way to say the same thing, and then in doing so, I realize, “Oh, I’m actually homing in on the meaning a little more.” We’ve also been trying this thing where, no matter what the question is, we answer it in a predetermined order. So Braeden will answer the first question. I’ll answer the second question. Dylan will answer the third question.

DYLAN MINNETTE: I suggested this last night because we were doing interviews for Japan, so it was nighttime — and a lot of the time we’ll start to answer, and then we’ll look at each other like, “Oh, nope. You?” To avoid that, we’re challenging ourselves to answer whatever questions are thrown our way. Hopefully it doesn’t influence your questions at all. You can direct them at all of us.

I appreciate that, as an interviewer. So have you begun to feel any fatigue at all around the album at this point?

BRAEDEN LEMASTERS: No fatigue, honestly. I feel excited about it, and even more so for people to hear and experience Model. 

MINNETTE: Same with me. Everything just feels right. I’m confident in what’s coming. It’s a good feeling. Normally there are more nerves — and it’s not that I haven’t been confident in putting on an album before, but I just believe in this one a lot. But also, it’s funny. We’re going to be in New York on the night of the album release. Typically we’d have a dinner, to celebrate, but we’re doing a show on the night of the 23rd at Bowery Ballroom, and then the next morning we have to be at the Today Show at 5 in the morning. So when the album comes out at midnight in New York, we’ll ideally be asleep. It’s going to be interesting, but it’s all going to be fun. 

If we’re looking at your discography from a big-picture point of view, spanning from your debut full-length to your second, through Model, now being your third — what happens in between the gaps? I don’t necessarily mean that literally. How is that time spent, personally and creatively, and what do you look for that leads you to the next project? I’m curious because there can be some noticeable shifts in the tone and sound across Wallows albums. 

PRESTON: Oh, my God, that’s such a good question. My mind immediately is like, “Well, we tour and we do the things,” but that’s totally on the surface. In reality, we’re living our lives, and things are organically changing. There’s always this quest to try — and I don’t know if it’s to improve yourself — but somehow outdo what we’ve done. On the other hand, you also have to take care of all your business, your personal life, your friends, family, relationships, everything. We’re just constantly taking in the world and trying to figure out what the next thing is going to become as a result. That was my stream-of-consciousness answer.

That’s a really good answer. Getting more specific, when it comes to this album, you’ve said Model is lighter, less insecure, and you mentioned confidence. What got you to that place? Is it organic, life is the guide, or is it an intention-setting exercise, like, “We want to do something different. We’re going to sound different and say different things.”

MINNETTE: It is all of the above. From a lyrical standpoint, narratively and thematically, this album, at least in my case, did come from a more self-assured, positive, and natural place than I was writing from with previous music of ours. I wrote the songs that I sing last minute in the studio — I’d wanted to go in the studio with every word written, and it just didn’t work out that way. But I do tend to work best under pressure. It forces me to say something honest and not overthink it. And when I got to the point where I’d finished writing this time, I felt like I identified with myself the most than I ever have in my life.

All of that goes hand in hand with how we wanted the music to sound. We did want it to sound more confident and smarter and more precise, focusing only on necessary parts. Things like that that I think a band like Phoenix does very well, and they were one of our North Stars. Their albums are to the point, addicting, really thoughtful but also really enjoyable. They’re still so smart and so good. That was an inspiration for us. It was a conscious decision to sound that way, and I do think we accomplished that.

The third point is that naturally the older we get and the further we get into our career, we become more comfortable with ourselves, and as performers. Especially when we’re in the studio working with John Congleton, who we know so well at this point. We just went in with like, “We’re going to lay this down, and we’re not going to overthink it, and we’re just going to do our thing.” I think you can hear that.

This “smart” approach is an interesting way of talking about music. It’s especially difficult to pull off without the sound registering to the listener, too, as overthought and overworked. But you’ve found a balance here, with this stripped-back sound that feels intentional but never overly analytic. That’s where I hear this honesty you’re talking about.

MINNETTE: That’s exactly how we wanted it to be heard. 

PRESTON: It reminds me that John would often bring up this zen term, “the beginner’s mind.” That idea rings true for our music a lot of the time. On one hand, having a beginner’s mind could sound like a really nice way of saying that I don’t how to play the piano. But for us, it’s about just figuring it out along the way and this naiveness that we still possess. We’re not the most excellent players. We don’t read music or know any scale music theory. We operate based on instinct — “first idea, best idea” — and just follow what feels good to us. Oftentimes, it ends up being the most simple keyboard chord I’m playing, or Braeden writing this really complicated guitar part for “You (Show Me Where My Days Went),” which I don’t think that he would’ve written had he known the music theory rules or study. It’s a healthy balance of knowing how to play our instruments enough to get our ideas across.

That naivety idea reminds me — when I was first listening to the new album, it took me back to a specific time, some of my first years of true autonomy, growing up and going to festivals and seeing MGMT and Animal Collective, listening to the Shins. That late 2000s to 2010s era of indie-pop and indie rock was truly about having fun, free from any imposed irony. I feel that in your work, and it comes across really fresh and bright. It’s harder to find music like that these days. I’m curious about the album title and, honestly, your band name. They’re vague enough words that there could easily be multiple definitions and interpretations. What are the origin stories?

LEMASTERS: The band name is actually a skate spot in Hawaii called Wallows. It’s an old storm drain embankment that people used to skate back in the ’80s and ’90s — which I discovered by playing one of my favorite video games, Tony Hawk’s Underground. So it’s a word I’ve had in my vocabulary since I was a kid. But basically, naming a band is the toughest thing about being in a band. 

PRESTON: We had a bit of a harder time naming this record. We had gone into it thinking it would be called “Anytime, Always,” which is a song that’s on the record, but we didn’t want to have a title track. It didn’t really feel like it had enough meaning to encapsulate all of the songs. It was around the time we had already finished the songs and the tracklist when Dylan brought up Model. He says it on the song “She’s an Actress.” 

Like you said, there are multiple definitions of that word that we think work really well in tandem with music. There’s a person as a model, someone trying to be some version of what they think the best version of themselves is, constantly. Then you have figurines, crafted models of something. You have a model citizen, being good for society and the world. On this album, for the first time ever, we worked with Aidan Zamiri, a creative director, to do the art on this project. When we told him the title, Model, he had a bunch of ideas, and a phrase he kept using was “constructed spaces,” which really resonated with us. 

Being in a band today is often like trying to construct and present the best version of ourselves. It feels a bit like eyes behind your eyes — there are so many opinions and people to please that you end up accidentally putting yourself together instead of just cutting out all the middle bullshit. We ended up doing that, until realizing at some point along the process that it’s actually up to us. We can make the decisions [and] decide what we are. We are the ones who are on tour seeing our fans. We know what is best for us. So yes, the title is pretty vague, but ultimately it casts a wide enough net to house all of the music and our intentions for this record.

MINNETTE: There’s a bit of an irony in the title being Model, as well, which Cole touched on, because we felt that the more music we gave our label, and more and more — which we’ve never done before — it became harder for anyone to see the big picture, and see our vision of what the album could be. It started a lot more of a commentary and discourse than ever. Meanwhile, we were in the studio having a great time and really believing in ourselves and just following our instincts.

It was all coming out of us so quickly because we were firing on all cylinders. It all happened in two months, and then, even though we were giving so much and we’re feeling so good about it, it almost felt [like] the hardest we’ve had to fight for our vision. In the end, we really have had to continue to trust our gut, because only we know where it’s going to end up. My point is, the irony is in this perfect model of this perfect band and this perfect model of an album that is perfect for groups A, B, C… But what is a perfect album to you, to me, to that person? 

I love how everything you guys each said tied back in with each other, so organically. It reflects everything you’re saying about the album, that following of instincts. You have to really trust and know each other well to pull that off. How do you think that the relationship between you three as band members, as friends, has developed throughout the last decade, and in the process of each album? 

LEMASTERS: Something that’s been really amazing is — Cole’s going to love me saying this — Cole has really blossomed with guitar, songwriting, and, in general, genuinely. When we first started, on a lot of early stuff, Dylan and I wrote a lot of it. Then all of a sudden, Cole started writing, coming in with all these ideas, and was playing guitar as good as me. I know, Cole, you can plug your ears. But that’s been the most exciting evolution. An obvious answer would be that we trust ourselves, our opinions, and have grown this camaraderie where we listen to each other, and don’t hold back about what we want to change. There’s vulnerability, and it’s all great. But the big one for me is how Cole has elevated his musicianship and songwriting. When did you start playing guitar, Cole? It was just out of nowhere. 

MINNETTE: Plus, you want to know who’s mostly responsible for our biggest hit? Cole. He wrote music and melody for “Are You Bored Yet?”

So in the songwriting process, do you all sit in the same room? Do you pick up different instruments while working in that space?

MINNETTE: A lot of the time one of us has an idea, and they’ll send it to a chat. When we get together and write, one of us will bring up one of those ideas, and we’ll just try it out and see what happens. We definitely write in a very demo-making format. When we’re together, we can put songs together by imagining what they could feel like. We’ve also done a lot of writing sessions with people — which was something we tried out a few years ago. But a lot of it is soul-sucking. 

What we’ve found is that we work well in that environment when we’re being inspired. We’ve narrowed the people that we like to write with, one being Nate Mercereau. That’s the reason that we have a lot of co-writers on our songs — we get inspired by someone else’s space, the equipment, and the sounds they’re able to create with us.

I have a two-part question. One, when you met as kids, what was the kind of music that drew you together? What were you listening to at that time that formed an initial connection? Second part — what music were you listening to over the last two years, before and during the making of Model, that got your creative gears going?

LEMASTERS: I feel like I can see the road that it started on. When we were kids, like 10, 11, it was the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys… All ’60s and ’70s bands. Then there was the moment Dylan introduced us to Arctic Monkeys. It was Kings of Leon, Strokes, Arcade Fire, Interpol. That was one thread, which led us to all the other artists that we love, like Frank Ocean and Alex G. But it definitely started with those bands. Now, Dylan and Cole listen to so much stuff, constantly finding new music. Then they show it to me, and I love it. But I tend to linger around the music that I’ve always listened to and dabble in new things. 

MINNETTE: Aha Shake Heartbreak by Kings of Leon was the game changer. That really helped shape how we were making music as kids. Hearing “Taper Jean Girl” is why I wanted to make music. I remember hearing it and going, “I have to do that. I need to beat these guys.” That discovery moment in your life is so important.

But approaching this album, I had this “LP 3” playlist on Spotify. I’d add to it whenever I’d hear a song I wanted the album to feel like. I wanted the next album to feel like the lightest, most easy to listen to album we’ve made. That playlist consists of a lot of Phoenix. There’s MGMT, the Cure, Empire of the Sun, New Order — very specific songs based on how they make you feel. There’s some Strokes, too — music that isn’t heavy but feels larger than life somehow. The LP 3 playlist is very particular. The playlist I’d make as a vision for LP 4 is already a much different playlist. 

Give me a couple of songs. 

LEMASTERS: I don’t even know if I know, Anna.

MINNETTE: Well for a potential LP 4, I’m thinking about how certain chords and songwriting can make me feel. There’s something about “Going Home” by Alice Coltrane feels or “Blue Sky and Yellow Sunflower” by Susumu Yokota, specifically. That is a very broad answer… I want to focus on whatever’s next. I already know I’m not even in the same brain space or mindset as LP 3. I don’t have the same goals. We achieved those goals, and now I’m thinking about other things, searching for inspiration. 

So you’re thinking about LP 4 while touring the results of LP 3 — how do you balance that?

MINNETTE: It’s always that way for us, or at least me. I’m never expecting anything huge to come out of a project, and by not expecting things, it’s worked out for us well so far. Maybe it’s an inherent, “What if this falls on its face? What’s the next thing?” Maybe it’s a fight response or that I’m never going to fully believe that what’s about to happen is going to change lives or our lives. But overall, I think it’s my adrenaline, and it’s OK. I need to get ahead of this. That’s what drives inspiration, the hunger for it.

I really believe in this album, and I think it’s cool, and I feel like our fans and our peers will hopefully appreciate it more than what we’ve done before. But I already want to be like, “Well in just a short period of time, here’s another one — and it’s even better.” Check this out, too. We can’t be stopped. I would love to achieve that at some point. And I feel really hungry to keep going.

Photography by Cloudy Thoughts

Styling by Tabitha Sanchez

Hair and makeup by Leticia Llesmin

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