You may have already heard earlier today that October 2nd is the official release date for when no one’s watching, the debut full-length from Los Angeles alternative rockers wilt… who you may have seen opening The Foundry for Remo Drive in 2024… or maybe you caught them at Kung Fu Necktie last November… Well, earlier this week, the quartet – comprised of vocalist Chelsea Rifkin, guitarist Aaron Liebman, guitarist Andrew Vance, and drummer Dan Bermudez – kicked off a run of dates supporting Jutes, which includes an August 28th stop at Theatre of Living Arts, where they tell me during a recent Zoom chat they’ll be premiering quite a bit of their upcoming album, in addition to their first-ever light show…
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: Since this is a Philadelphia publication, I have to ask if you have any thoughts on the city, as I know you’ve played here a few times now? I’ve always missed you, but I will be at the upcoming show!
Chelsea Rifkin: Yay! What’s the cheesesteak place we always go to? Joe’s?
Andrew Vance: Yeah! It’s right by The Fillmore.
Izzy: This time you’re playing The TLA, which is literally about forty feet from Jim’s Steaks, which is incredibly famous, so you’ll have to check that out!
Chelsea: Oooo! We will be trying that!
Andrew: We love music from Philly, too. So many sick gazey bands. Chelsea’s literal favorite artist…
Chelsea: Two of my favorite artists! Mannequin Pussy and Alex G! There’s such a good music scene in Philly!
Aaron Liebman: I think, spiritually, Philly is a Midwest city. There’s so much Midwest emo out of there. The one thing that is burned into my mind about Philly is how insane the tap water tasted in the Philadelphia International Airport!
Izzy: That’s interesting!
Aaron: That was crazy tap water. Not good or bad, just crazy…
Izzy: You’ve been working with Carlos de la Garza, who produced your album, and he’s done stuff with so many of my favorite people in music [Destroy Boys, Man On Man, Becca Mancari, Wolf Alice…], so I’m curious how it’s been working with him?
Andrew: Up until this album, we had done a lot of self-producing. Carlos, as soon as we met him, it was an amazing vibe; we just knew it was a great fit. I think he really gelled the band together in a way that we’ve never been able to achieve ourselves. He is the father of a band, The Linda Lindas, and he felt like a father to us as we did this album. We couldn’t have imagined working with a producer more generous with his time and effort.
Chelsea: He truly cared, and he also took the time to get to know all of us. He’s bestie!
Andrew: It was such a good transition for us. We were used to having a lot of creative control, and he definitely allowed us to keep our impulses and was super collaborative with it. We were used to recording in our homes, and it just felt like we got to go to a little home away from home and work on an album in a style that was very much what we were used to. At the same time, he really elevated us in a cool way by recording so much live in the room, which we had never done together, and bringing us to NRG, where so many legendary ‘90s and 2000s records were made. It was an absolutely surreal experience to be the ones playing the guitars, banging the drums, and all singing at the same time in such an iconic place where great music was made. Carlos really pushed us to do that, and it was an absolutely awesome experience.
Izzy: On a similar note, how do you feel like the album compares to your previously released EPs and singles, in terms of the sounds and inspirations, in addition to the recording process kind of being a new thing?
Chelsea: It’s definitely going back to our roots. When we started wilt we were all very inspired by ‘90s alternative rock and grunge, so the songs on the album are definitely leaning a little heavier. You’ll hear my first screams and a peak into heavy music, which we do love. We drew inspiration from a lot of the bands that made us want to start wilt, like Nirvana and Weezer and Radiohead and Hole, along with the heavier stuff, like some hardcore bands and Deftones and stuff like that.
Aaron: I would also add that we always called ourselves bedroom-rock up until this point, because self-recording was done in a shed in our backyard. I say the word “shed” liberally because it’s our home studio, but it’s in a backyard, and we recorded a lot of it just in our bedrooms. And we tracked this album in a giant room… We leaned into bedroom-rock as a genre, a little bit as a crutch, but mostly like, “We have to record here! Let’s make it sound nice and crunchy and lofi.” But now we have access to this high-fidelity sound, and I think it’s like a punched-up version of the stuff we were doing, with a little bit of extra heaviness.
Izzy: On a related note, because you were talking about some of your biggest influences, I’m curious if you’ve noticed patterns amongst your biggest fans? Because, like you said, you’re into a lot of ‘90s alt-rock and I’m guessing a lot of your fans were not alive during the early-mid ‘90s, or what I call “The Lollapalooza Years.”
Chelsea: We kind of have two groups of fans. We have the younger, more indie crowd: indie, shoegaze, emo. And then we also have a good amount of Millennials with nostalgia for their childhood. That’s a big part of our demographic.
Izzy: Considering that you have done so much already, despite the fact that you’re just about to release your first full-length, what are some of the personal highlights of the band so far?
Chelsea: I think I can speak for all of us when we say that when we went to Europe earlier this year, that was a huge, huge dream for all of us that we never thought would happen so quickly. It really did change our lives, literally. It gave us so much confidence as a band. It’s so amazing to be able to say, “We’re an international rock band,” [laughs]. And also the fact that we get to go back in November and do our own headline tour, and people across the world are selling our shows out. That, for me, is like super, super insanity [laughs].
Izzy: On that note, you’ve got a bunch of upcoming dates with Jutes and Mothica [who won’t be at the local date]. What can be expected of the wilt live show when you’re here in the very near future at The TLA? Like I said, this will be my first time and I’m so excited!
Chelsea: This’ll be a good first time to see us because we’ve definitely punched it up. This’ll be the first time that we’re not touring with a bass player, so we’ve integrated tracks into our set in a way that has the bass and also really brings it to life more and helps it sound like the record, which is really cool and we’ve never been able to do before. We also added lights, which we’ve never had. We’ve never had any kind of set dec. And we’re playing a bunch of the new songs that are gonna be on the album that we’re really excited about. Maybe not as many classic wilt songs, but songs that…
Andrew: Songs that will be classics!
Chelsea: Songs that will be classics, and also that can win over the Jutes/Mothica audience. The heavier stuff!
Izzy: Since you mentioned it, not to detract from your new music, but I’m actually spinning “puberty” on the next episode of my radio show, Philthy Radio [August 21st, 9-11pm ET on Y-Not Radio], during a block about growing up, dedicated to all the kids about to go back to school, because I’m a college professor… So, I’m curious if you have any memories of that early track, whether making it or even just performing it?
Chelsea: Honestly, that’s probably the song that we’ve performed the least, just because it’s quieter, so it’s not really right for every show. But it’s definitely our most emotional song and the one that I think is nearest and dearest to our hearts. It’s about my dad. I had written it with our original bassist, who I don’t think we actually ever played a live show with. We wrote it on the beach in Malibu, and this was like a year or two after my dad had passed, and I remember wanting to write a song about how it felt losing someone and going through the world alone and what that felt like to me. There was a song I was listening to a lot at the moment, “the Pull” by The Microphones. That song has an amazing, super long, quieter beginning, and then all of a sudden a very gut-wrenching, super hitting full-band moment. And I really wanted to incorporate that with wilt. I think that’s the most powerful part of the song, because it’s a very emotional song, and it’s one of our only quieter, acoustic-y songs. But that last part is like, “Fuck! Here’s all the emotion that I just sang about!”
Izzy: Finally, what’s next for you? What are you hoping and planning for after or around when the album drops?
Chelsea: Well, we’re excited for our Europe headline. We’ll do a headline for the US at some point next year, hopefully early in the year. And we’re just hoping that [the album] resonates with people in the way that we believe it will. This is definitely the best music that any of us have ever created, and we’re really, really proud of it. I think just seeing how it affects people will be the main thing. But also, like we said, it is like a level up of wilt, so hopefully people will be impressed by our growth, too!
*Get your tickets here.
