Model may be Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston’s third studio album as Wallows, but it is the product of lifelong collaboration, the culmination of childhood exploration, several forgotten band names, and years of mastering a creative symbiosis perhaps only possible through the trust of friendship. Since meeting as children in an LA-based music programme, the three musicians have taken their sound from playgrounds to high school parties to international tours (figuratively speaking, I’m not sure they actually performed on playgrounds). From their official 2017 debut single, “Pleaser” to 2019’s Nothing Happens and 2022’s Tell Me That It’s Over, Minnette, Lemasters, and Preston have been perfecting the funky and experimental-yet-comforting alt-rock-pop sound of Wallows. And with their third album Model, out now, we can safely say they’ve nailed it.

“The original outlook for this album, when we were talking about our goals for this album, was 12 songs, no skips — the easiest Wallows album listen we’ve had yet, one that you could just put on,” Minnette tells Wonderland as we connect a month or so before the release of Model. Striking a balance of easy listening with intricate, clever musicality and sincere lyricism, the project is optimistic and confident without asking for too much from its listeners. “I think it’s the most Wallows we’ve ever sounded.”

“And we left off some of our best songs,” Minnette teases. “But we will give them to people at some point when the time is right. And when you hear those songs together, it makes sense they’re not on this.”

Read the interview…

So how did you initially get connected at such a young age?
Cole Preston: Dylan and Braeden met through acting and they both moved to LA at sort of the same time. You guys were nine years old? And then they bonded over their love of music like The Beatles and Zeppelin, stuff that your typical nine-year-old may not like. And then they signed up for this music programme in the valley in LA literally called Join the Band, where I also was. So I was grouped into a band with them and we played covers. And then once that was over, I remember in the parking lot they were like, ‘do you want to join our band?’ So we just started doing it on our own and here we are!
Throughout being teenagers, we sort of played a million shows, were writing songs, and it just kind of kept going and going. I don’t know what it is about it that made us do it for so long, I think it was just what we did and we were young enough when we started where it was almost routine at a certain point.

How did you transition from kids playing music together to Wallows as we know it today?
Braeden Lemasters: I feel like that has to do with literally just growing up. I think once you hit a certain age, you realise, wait, is that band name we’ve been playing as and the songs we’ve been writing actually what we want to play? Then you change the name, write new songs, you go, ‘wait, is that really the name we want to play under?’ It’s almost like you stop going to soccer practise one day because you get older and then it’s like, ‘how did that happen?’ We got older and things changed. Your mindset changes. You go from watching Saturday morning cartoons to Breaking Bad. The band name was a conscious decision, but I think writing music is always just an evolving thing. You never consciously decide to change the writing style, you just start listening to new music, try to write a song you’ve never written before, which naturally means you’re not going to write what you wrote three years ago in a way. So I feel like it was pretty much a natural progression.

Dylan Minnette: Also, we had recorded music growing up under our different band names — we just never released it. I don’t know why we didn’t, I think we just didn’t really know what to do or what we were doing, really. And I think it is good we didn’t because if we would have, maybe we would have stayed on that train and decided, well, we have music out, we should stay with this band name. It was just meant to be.

BL: I remember, Dylan, you used to annoy me when we were kids, because we would be like 15 or 14 and I would be so passionate about wanting to be a band right now. And Dylan was like, ‘dude, no, we got time, our favourite band is like 20,’ and I was like, ‘dude no, what are you talking about? We gotta make these songs big now!’ Looking back, it was for the best that we found ourselves later on.

Thinking with that knowledge of longevity at such a young age is impressive. How did you know this is what you wanted to do for the rest of your life and have that foresight to make it happen?
BL: For me, my dad was a musician, so I always grew up listening to him play and it just seemed so normal. And then it was just my love for watching all my favourite bands on Youtube as a kid or buying their vinyls and being immersed in that world. I was like, ‘oh yeah, I’ll be a part of this thing!’ It seemed pretty natural to me to want to be a musician because it’s what I loved so much. I was just in my room for eight hours a day practising guitar and writing songs as a nine or ten-year-old kid. I was young enough to not know that there was an outside world, I was just like, ‘this is it!’

CP: I don’t know what motivated me or us to just stay a band other than I think somewhere I knew it meant something or it was meaningful for some reason… maybe just because it was the most fun thing that I had going on. We were all such good friends, and I just didn’t imagine myself doing anything else. I don’t know how to do many other things and it felt like the only thing I wanted to do or could do.

DM: I have a similar story to Braeden where my dad also played music and played in a lot of bands growing up, so I was around that all the time. I think over time, as I got older, I kept finding more and more success in acting, all simultaneously while we’re doing music and had the band on the side — I’d been working consistently in acting for since I was eight years old all the way up until a couple years ago — and I feel like I knew deep down, I always had this pipe dream one day of being in a successful band. It was just what I wanted. I never thought about how it would work, I never thought about it intertwining with acting. I just knew I wanted to do it. After a while, acting started to feel just like a job, not a passion or a creative outlet. And then Wallows simultaneously starts going off and it’s like, ‘well I’m only going to be the best I can be in music and this band’s only going to thrive the best it can if I, and all of us, are putting 100% energy into it. So I just decided, for me, if I’m going to be doing something, I want to put all of my energy into that and only that. So, we’re just rocking Wallows until we feel like we need a break and we don’t really feel that yet. I feel lucky and fortunate that the things we’re doing now are what I pictured as a kid.

Over the years, how have you found your artistic process? Do you have a typical structure or does it differ for each song? Your music feels very cohesive — perhaps because you have been connected as friends and creatively for so long.
BL: I feel like it’s different for each song. We all could present an idea to the table and we usually work on that together, maybe at Cole’s place. Say I have an idea that’s in my voice memos or on my computer, we usually go to Cole’s and make a demo of that. I’ve always said, pretty much 95% of every Wallows song wouldn’t exist without the three of us, which I think is really cool. There are some occasions where maybe one of us writes a whole song and it’s done but I’d say 95% of it we wait for each other’s ideas because we know it’s going to be the best version of the song. And I think that’s an exciting thing. It’s fun to have an idea and be like, ‘I want to wait to see what Cole and Dylan think,’ and you’re right, that only happens because there is some sort of cohesion and trust in the other people. Usually, I wouldn’t want to show my unfinished song to anyone, but with Dylan and Cole, I look forward to it. I think that’s part of being a band. The artistic process is collaborative pretty much every time.

When did you start working on this new record and what were sort of some of your early inspirations?
CP: I feel like the process for us, and stop me if I’m wrong, Dylan and Braeden, but, I feel like, save for our first record — because we hadn’t made an album prior to that, so those songs came from all different sorts of times — for the records following that, and the EPs and whatnot, I feel like we were just always writing. And there was a period of time where we were doing writing sessions with producers all the time. Our process typically is that we have a bunch of demos and then at a certain point, it’s album time. It’s never, like, ‘we’re going to start writing album three.’ It’s sort of just like, we’ve been writing, and now it feels like there’s an album that we feel ready to start going into to record. Then obviously, as soon as you start recording, it kind of changes, and there’s new ideas that get written, or old ideas come back up, and they totally transform. We didn’t go into recording Model with… we had ideas, of course, and we felt like we had enough demos to make another album.

What about this project feels different to you versus your previous projects?
DM: The original outlook for this album, when we were talking about our goals for this album, was 12 songs, no skips — the easiest Wallows album listen we’ve had yet, one that you could just put on. It’s equally as exciting, if not more exciting than the albums that came before, but is the easiest to listen to, the least demanding, least challenging, while still being forward-thinking and progressive for us and experimental enough at times. And I think we really struck that balance.

You asked about inspirations and it wasn’t like there was a thing that we were listening to that was an inspiration, it was more about the feeling we wanted the album to evoke. I wanted it to feel like a Phoenix album or, when Arctic Monkeys made their statement with AM, something that’s a moment, the easiest one to put on yet.

I do feel like we did that, and it sort of was by accident because we went into the studio and went crazy. We recorded around 25 songs, basically. We left the studio with, like, 27 recordings total. And we’ve never, ever done that. And we had the longest process that we’ve had yet of deciding a track list and going through options. For a while we were debating 15, 16, even 18 tracks. At first we were like, ‘never mind, we’re going long, epic Wallows album.’ But then we ended up rounding back, John — our producer — brought us back to earth a little bit. We loved all the recordings, we thought it would be impossible to choose 12. There’s no way. It can’t be any less than 14. There’s no way. You just get so obsessed with these recordings and you love them so much. But then you realise you can give those songs to people at any point. We just decided to pick the track list that works the best together and needed to be there, so that there’s not a repeated moment. I think we ended up landing on the most perfect track list that we could have. I think we really sort of rounded back to what we originally set out to do. I think it’s the lightest list that we’ve had. I think it’s the most optimistic we’ve sounded. The most confident we’ve sounded — not only lyrically, but musically, it’s a lot smarter, a lot more intricate, a little sharper and more precise. And I think we did that, too, at times. And, yeah, it’s very much a Wallows record. I think it’s the most Wallows we’ve ever sounded. And I think that you hear it. It’s definitely Wallows, but the differences are there for us that we set out to do. And I’m really proud of it.

And we left off some of our best songs. We really did. But we will give them to people at some point when the time is right. And when you hear those songs together, it makes sense they’re not on this.

You said that Model sounds the most confident and sure and precise. Do you feel that right now, in your career, you’re feeling the most kind of sure of yourselves and your sound as ever before?
DM: I’d say so, yeah. Even on the lyrical side. When I was finishing the lyrics for this in the studio, I was pretty freshly in a new relationship, very in love, and that’s where a lot of the lyrics come from. I was writing from a very optimistic perspective and outlook and that definitely shines through in the album, I’d say. And also, I feel very confident with where we’re at, in our abilities and music right now. I feel very confident in this album and I hope it translates. I hope people listen to it and hear it in the same way.

But every time we put something out, we think it’s better than the last. I think every artist is always going to feel that way. It’s funny, every one of our projects I like more than the last. I think we’ve only gotten better with time. I do like our last album better than the one before. And I like this one more than the last one. So in my mind, we’re only getting better. I feel confident about that. And I feel like we’re going to go play the best shows we’ve ever played. And I feel really good about everything right now.

Lastly, do you each have a song that you’re most proud of from the album?
BL: I’d probably say “Only Ecstasy” is the one that I’m most proud of. I think that one really found itself. And I’m really happy with all the parts and Dylan’s lyrics are great. I just really like that song.

DM: I’m proud of that one, too, because I remember we were in the studio talking about how it’s hard to write a good love song that’s not corny or something. And I wrote the lyrics for that and I sang it in the booth and then I came out and John, who’s the most cynical, pessimistic, no bullshit guy, he was just like, ‘congratulations, Dylan, you wrote a great love song.’ I was like, ‘whoa!’ So I’ve always felt very proud of it since then. And I love that a lot.

Otherwise, I’d probably go with “She’s an Actress.” I always tend to be most proud of the songs that I don’t know what to compare them to. I don’t really know what that song sounds like, I don’t really know how the song came to be that way, it just did. And I just think it was really cool, very sort of left field, happy accident, that song. And even lyrically, I’m proud of that song. Cole, what about you?

CP: I’ll mix it up. I’ll say the song “Canada” because it’s a song that sonically sounds different for us, it’s a little more hazy and dreamier than I think we usually are, in a cool way. And it’s in C major, so it’s all white keys. Usually, when you hear a song that’s all white keys, you can tell for some reason. But with that song, it doesn’t bother me that it’s technically very basic.