Wallows’ third album model should come with a trigger warning: ‘will remind you of every relationship you’ve ever had.’ Love/lust, ecstasy/agony, across the twelve-track record, vivid stories of relationship thrills and falls are conjured by dreamy synths, euphoric key changes and louche riffs with a sort of pseudo-nostalgia; a longing for an experience that wasn’t yours, but certainly feels within touching distance.

From their 2019 debut, Nothing Happens, through 2022’s Tell Me That It’s Over to Model, Wallows’ sound is evolving into something deeper and dreamier than ever, building a soundscape that matures in tune with their own experiences. This summer, the LA three-piece hit the road on the tour of their lives, including headline slots at iconic venues; New York City’s Madison Square Garden, London’s Alexandra Palace, and – an LA homecoming – the Forum. With their new record in hand, Wallows are preparing for the biggest stages of their career.

Alex James Taylor: Hey, where are you guys right now?
Cole Preston: We’re in a town called Bristol just outside Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s pretty chill. Do you play a board game called Catan? Literally every moment we aren’t playing [music], we’re playing Catan.

ALT: Who’s winning?
Cole: Well, we’re keeping score and we’ve bet money. Braeden is currently in the lead but we’re all pretty close, except we’re destroying our tour manager Gabe [Kerbrat]. [all laugh]

AJT: I clocked your guitars in the images for this feature, you’ve got some nice gear! What are you currently playing?
Braeden Lemasters: I’ve got a green Rickenbacker, which is actually a one in twenty-five British racing green special, Rickenbacker always put out special editions. I saw that and thought, “I need to get that, it’s so cool.” It’s a 330. Then I also have a black Rickenbacker 360, and I’ve just got this Telecaster I really like, it’s this really cool, off-white custom Tele from our guitar wizard. That’s what I’m rocking right now.
Dylan Minnette: I just got this custom-made Strat by the same guy Braeden was talking about, Eric, who has helped set up a lot of our guitars and pedal boards. He built this crazy looking Strat that’s kind of sparkly but has a black pickguard. It’s really cool. I haven’t played it with an amp yet but I’m excited.

AJT: Oh man, I’m jealous. Let’s chat about Model. It’s a great album, it’s very accomplished and smooth. Can you take me through the initial conversations you had around the album, were there words, images, sounds, feelings being thrown around in those first discussions?
Cole: We’re the kind of band who are writing all the time, there’s this pile of demos from over the years we’ve sent to each other, or worked on together, that we always keep. With this record, we knew that we needed to get off the road and make another record, but we’d also finally amassed a large enough pile of demos where we could be like, “OK, we can imagine something now.” It usually happens where Dylan or Braeden or both of them will have a spark of an idea, and then there’s a moment where they’ll bring me in on the phone as a third and then we all mind-meld and get on the same page about the project and talk out loud about it for a while. That doesn’t necessarily mean that what we say in that moment will be on the album, per se, but it’s just about getting into album mode and speaking our ideas.

AJT: I love the album cover, do images come to mind when something clicks and the album begins to come together? Do you work that way?
Dylan: The visuals have always come last for us, first and foremost we find the songs that best represent the record. We had an abundance of material we’d recorded so it was the first time we’d had this good problem of having so many different versions of an album. Then picking and choosing which songs go together and best represent the theme we’re trying to make right now as a band – what’s the best flow. That always comes first. Then we think, “OK, what do we picture listening to this?” Maybe it’ll happen some day where we have an album cover, concept or vision in mind first, it’s not ruled out or off the table. We’ve really scrambled in the past, but with this one it was a more fluid process of having someone to work with [for the album artwork], Aidan Zamiri, who is an incredible photographer, and acted in a sort of creative director role helping us really build the world out. We only had the title of the record super, super last minute as well. We locked into it and told Aidan who came up with six different concepts and we all aligned on one.

AJT: Musically, how would you say this album has seen you evolve from the previous records? I especially notice the subtle transitions within each track between the verse-chorus structure – each song has a really cool and unique flow.
Braeden: We were trying to make certain choices that were, on the surface, a little more subtle. That was a common goal discussed early on when we first started making the album: simplicity, less layers, and making sure each sound is best represented without too much going on. It’s tough to say how that affected the process compared to previous records, but I think there’s always a common goal of, where hasn’t our music been yet?
Cole: I don’t know if this directly relates, but I did notice that when we did Nothing Happens it was pretty much drums, bass, guitar, and then we had all these synths we never really used. Then when we toured, we got a synth for the first time. We recorded Tell Me That It’s Over by throwing so many ideas and sounds at the wall, then we had to build these very psychotic keyboard rigs that were able to represent a trillion sounds. We had to step up the amount of gear we had live and add another person. Then on this record, we used what we had – which, mind you, was more tools than we’ve ever had in the past – but when it came to rehearsing the tracks it was seamless because we’d kept it in our wheelhouse. We wanted to maximise each part.

AJT: You worked with John Congleton on Model, and he also produced your debut, Nothing Happens, how was it working with him again after five years or so?
Dylan: We have the most context in our career with him. It’s easy to tap in with someone like that and immediately know what you haven’t done and what you can achieve together. What’s great about John is that we had a conversation with him pretty early on when we started talking about our third album and what the best album for us to make right now would be, and the way he started explaining it was exactly where we were at and what we were thinking. That was a lightbulb moment for us like, “We should just do it with John.” We know we can make something great with him and he’s basically speaking back to us about how we were picturing our third album. We know that John is invested in Wallows and he cares. We’ve found it’s so important to work with people we know care about making a great album with us, and care to move the needle forward for Wallows in an exciting way. We felt really safe with John in that everyone understood the assignment.

AJT: Did you record Model in the same place as Nothing Happens?
Cole: Sort of.
Dylan: Our EP, Spring, was recorded at the same space but there are three studios there and it wasn’t the same one.
Cole: Yeah we were in Studio 1 at Sunset Sound, which is where The Doors recorded and also a lot of the Disney scores, which is really cool. Studio 3 is where Prince famously recorded vocals in the control room. I love the studio history shit, it’s so cool.

AJT: Can you feel that history in a place like that, do you find that the setting affects the sound?
Dylan: You can definitely channel that in some way. What’s interesting is that we recorded there with John before, but our first album was recorded in a studio in a house, then our second album, Tell Me That It’s Over, was – except for drums – recorded at Ariel Rechtshaid’s home studio. So both our first two albums just so happened to feel very home-recorded – in a very professional way, but they were in home settings. I don’t know if I can explain exactly how, but I do think it influences how we make the music. For Tell Me That It’s Over, I think it added a bit of a leisureliness, it felt like we were making music at Ariel’s house [at our own pace] and when it was done it was done. But this time, we really wanted to record double the amount of music in four times less time. Sunset was perfect for what we wanted to do, to get in, work fast, work hard, and get out. Not to overthink things. A professional studio setting that is expensive to record in makes you do that. It’s almost like working a 9-to-5. It’s also an inspiring place because you know the incredible music that’s been recorded there – it makes you want to bring out your best ideas.

AJT: Jim Morrison’s aura still floats in the atmosphere.
Cole: [laughs] It is, his molecules are there.

“We were in Studio 1 at Sunset Sound, which is where The Doors recorded”

AJT: I’ve been listening to a Spotify playlist you guys made for your Tell Me That It’s Over tour and I’m assuming that was also around the same time you began writing and thinking about Model. So it’s interesting to hear what you were listening to and which musicians were on repeat. It’s a great mix, The Cars, The Cure, Best Coast, Happy Mondays, and then there’s a bunch of fun dance tracks like Paul Oakenfold, Kool & The Gang.
Cole: Yeah, that was the pre-show playlist, so that’s what would play before our opener, it was the house music basically. Our music taste is always changing, but I feel like those are all songs we just really liked and fit that setting. Now you say it, it is true that we were listening to those songs over and over again for so long without even realising it. [laughs] Every song in that playlist I know so well now. That Paul Oakenfold, Shifty Shellshock song [Starry Eyed Surprise] is so fire to me, it’s hilarious. I’m pretty sure there’s a Phoenix track in there and Phoenix were a big inspiration for this record, just how precise, clean and simple they can be, but also when you go to learn the song on guitar it’s extremely complicated. I actually listen to that playlist all the time because I had to download it onto my phone – some venue wifi is really bad, so sometimes I’ll go onto that playlist on planes because I forget to download shit and I have that.

AJT: And you immediately get PTSD.
Cole: Oh yeah. [laughs]

“There’s always a common goal of, where hasn’t our music been yet?”

AJT: I’ve spoken to other bands previously about choosing the house music and how it’s cool you can almost subconsciously set the mood of the crowd depending on what you pick.
Dylan: Yeah, I wonder what we’ll do on the next one.
Cole: What do they call it, binaural beats? Where it’s like frequencies?

AJT: Yeah two frequencies together. Speaking of being on tour, you’ve got some huge gigs coming up – Madison Square Garden! How are you preparing for that level of venue?
Braeden: You saying that reminds me – like damn, we have to get our shit together. It’s definitely insane. I think a lot of bands like us have some experience of opening for someone in those venues. I think the biggest venue we’ve ever played was Alexandra Palace, we did two shows with Vampire Weekend there back in 2019. I can vaguely remember what it felt like backstage, it felt so much more exponentially legit. When you play a venue like that, there are way more crew people and one big change is the screens and cameras, so people way back will watch the show on the screen because otherwise you’ll just look like ants on a stage. There was a director backstage and it was like a full sports broadcast booth back there, [laughs] it was crazy. So to be doing that ourselves and amassing this large crew, it’s pretty insane. I’ve noticed the prep has been a lot longer because we have to make a lot of decisions about production way in advance. It puts into perspective just how much goes into your favourite band’s show. So it’s been a lot, but I’m excited. We have a few more things to iron out about the show we’ll do when we get home, then we pretty much steamroll into touring.

AJT: Are there any particular gigs you’ve each seen which really resonate as being a game-changing experience?
Cole: What’s just came to mind is, in 2011 me and Dylan went to go see Arctic Monkeys at the Hollywood Palladium and The Vaccines were opening for them. It was around the release of that first Vaccines record. At the time, the Arctic Monkeys audience in LA was super rowdy and they were a big band obviously, but they weren’t the arena band they are now in the States. We were so young, like fifteen, and for me it was just like, this is a real concert. People going crazy, a hot, sweaty [venue], I hadn’t really experienced a concert quite in that way.
Dylan: Ironically, the oldest one that comes to mind is when I went to The Forum, which we’re playing in LA, to see Kings of Leon when I was twelve or thirteen. It was a really big deal to me, I was so excited. Whenever I think about playing The Forum I always think about that moment. Most recently, I saw Black Country, New Road at Coachella and I already knew they were incredible, but given their line-up change and the new music, I hadn’t had an experience like that. Like, it was actually better that I didn’t know the songs yet because it was so captivating. Their musicianship is unbelievable – that’s the best band I’ve seen live in years. I’m so eager to see them again.
Braeden: For me I think it was just going to Coachella for the first time as a fifteen-year-old. Not even seeing a specific band, but just the feeling of being at a show where a bunch of bands are playing, it was such a crazy feeling. Something about seeing all these bands in one place and being in a band but not at that stage yet, the longing for that sort of experience was really inspiring.

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