Flood Floorshows presents
Wallows (US – Atlantic Records)
https://wallowsmusic.com/
Best friends since the age of 11, the members of Wallows have spent most of their lives obsessing over music together, steadily gathering a musical vocabulary that’s expansive and erratic and wildly eclectic. On their full-length debut Nothing Happens, the L.A.-based trio puts that vocabulary to work and draws from infinite inspirations: scores to Spike Jonze movies, the Beatles’ most rhapsodic digressions, bedroom pop and lo-fi hip-hop and ’70s post-punk. The result is an album that’s endlessly unpredictable, yet somehow as familiar and deeply felt as the world inside your head.
From song to song on Nothing Happens, Wallows show an undeniable camaraderie that traces back to when Lemasters and Minnette first met as child actors (an endeavor that later led to Minnette’s starring role on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why). With Lemasters hailing from Ohio and Minnette from Indiana, their moms connected via an online group for newly transplanted stage parents, and the boys quickly bonded over their love of music. “I was listening to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Dylan loved all that too,” Lemasters recalls. The two started writing their own songs, linked up with L.A. native Preston through San Fernando Valley-based music program Join the Band, and soon began scoring gigs at iconic venues like Whisky a Go Go. “We kind of grew up on Sunset Strip,” says Preston. “Our friends would come out to the shows, and afterward we’d all walk down to Millions of Milkshakes together. It was very wholesome, like we were all family.”
For Wallows, the release of Nothing Happens marks the realization of one of their most closely held and near-lifelong ambitions. “One thing we’ve said since we were like 14, and first had our minds blown by all these bands who mean a lot to us, is that we’d love to make an album that other people could feel the same way about,” says Preston. “We talked about our debut album so much growing up, and this record really feels like the most honest statement we could make after all these years of
working together,” Minnette adds. “We’d love for people to feel that and find their own meaning in the songs, and hopefully get inspired to go out and make something of their own.”
Presale: 12,- Euro
At the doors: 15,- Euro
