Indie band Wallows releases debut album
After years of seasoning, Wallows finally releasing first album
In their early days, the Beatles were called Johnny and the Moondogs and Coldplay went by Pectoralz. The rock band Wallows is no different.
Over the years, the trio has had a number of names, from The Feaver to The Narwhals. Now they’re taking a big step to help people remember the band: A full-length album.
Wallows is made up of 13 Reasons Why star Dylan Minnette, fellow actor Braeden Lemasters (his credits include Amazon’s The Romanoffs) and Cole Preston. They’ve released singles independently, toured and recorded an EP in 2018. Now they’ve just released their debut 11-track studio album, called Nothing Happens.
They’re launching a tour through North America and parts of Europe in April at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. It includes two Canadian stops — Vancouver on April 23 and May 12 in Toronto. It’s been a long time coming for the trio but they agree the timing is right.
“Had we been doing well when we were kids, it would’ve been a completely different thing,” said Preston.
The trio talked about their introduction to music, choosing an album cover and finally releasing their album. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q You’ve been together since you were kids. When you think back to those early days, do you feel like you were good from the start?
Minnette Oh, we’ve definitely got better over time, but I’d say we were pretty badass when we were 13. Preston We were way more confident then.
Q What does it feel like to have what you’ve been working toward finally come out?
Minnette We’ve always known we’re going to be an album band. We wanted our records to be cohesive, make a lot of sense and be projects that stand on their own. And I feel like we definitely reveal a lot more than we ever have in our songs.
Q How did you get this knowledge of music as kids to even start a band?
Lemasters For me, it was my dad. He was in bands when I was growing up and I would go to his gigs. And he showed me the Beatles when I was, like, nine and it blew my mind. It just kind of happened. I started playing guitar for eight hours a day in my room at around 10 and then formed (this) band. That was it.
Preston I remember when Guitar Hero and Rock Band were really big and I became obsessed. I decided I wanted to play a real instrument, so started playing the drums. But I was like a nerd for Guitar Hero and posted my high scores online.
Minnette You did? Preston Scorehero.com. I’m sure they’re still up there. Drumbum1096 was my handle.
Minnette My dad was also a musician, so we’d sit at dinner and he’d be like, “Who’s this again, Dylan?” “Stevie Wonder.” Then I started discovering my own music, like Kings of Leon. Also from streaming music. I know a lot of people can say a lot about the digital age of music, but I feel like it’s so easy, in the best way, to discover music now. You can discover incredible artists all day long.
Q Your album cover looks like a simple piece of fabric. Talk about that.
Lemasters Album covers and band names are the hardest thing to think of. We reached out to a lot of artists and they sent us really good stuff but it didn’t
connect. And our manager was texting us like, “Guys, where’s the album cover? This is two days late. You’re not going to have a vinyl for the release.” And I took out my phone and took a picture of the back of Dylan’s shirt jokingly.
Minnette I was walking. Minding my own business.
Lemasters And I looked at it and was like, “That’s actually really cool.”
Minnette It looks like a cool design with these wavy lines. If you don’t know it’s a shirt, it’s kind of a trippy cover. But there’s also something about a striped T-shirt that’s very youthful and the album is also about loss of innocence and leaving it behind.