“You know what I wanna see? A different hybrid of people, like a golfer band guy. I’m gonna try to be a pro golfer just so I can be like, ‘Yeah I golf, but I’m in a band’,” opens Braeden Lemasters.
You’ll probably be more acquainted with Dylan Minnette as Clay Jensen in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, but his musical ventures are more than ‘just’ a side project. The boys in Wallows – Dylan (guitar/vocals), Braeden (guitar/vocals), and Cole Preston (drums) – have been playing together for nearly a decade.
“I’ve seen random comments online about how ‘oh this band is formed because of 13 Reasons Why, they’re trying to get fans like that’, and I just think it’s kinda funny. Knowing that that’s not the case, knowing that we just love music and we’ve been playing together for so long in general,” Cole says.
“We both act, Dylan and I, and we both knew that one day if something really hit, that it’d be helpful in a way, but we were never striving to make that happen. That was like the last thing we wanted; we wanted to separate them completely and always, you know what I mean?”
Fresh off the back of their support slot at Vampire Weekend’s comeback shows, the guys have just finished tracking their debut album.
“Vampire Weekend is one of our favourite bands of all time,” Dylan enthuses, “and honestly one of the biggest inspirations for us. We couldn’t have asked for a cooler or more exciting artist to open for. We’ve been playing to a thousand of us. Like, we were going to go to one of those shows.”
That influence is felt on Wallows’ EP ‘Spring’ – released earlier this year – as well as a little Phoenix, Mac Demarco, and New Order.
“Those artists have played huge roles in our lives growing up,” says Dylan. “It’s just in there without really trying to go for it. It’s like when we wrote ‘Pictures of Girls’ and recorded it, we weren’t attempting to make a Joy Division/New Order type of song, but a lot of people perceive it that way. That’s cool because those bands mean so much to us and we love those bands, but we weren’t actively trying to make it sound like that at all. I’m just happy that people can hear that stuff within it.”
So far, there’s no word on when the album will arrive, but there’s a bunch of tracks rolling out to keep you occupied. As for the boys, it sounds like they’ll be polishing up their golf skills – mind you, Niall Horan is already breaking into that business.
“If Niall makes it pro then he’s in,” they say. “He hits that ball in one direction.”
Taken from the September issue of Dork. Wallows’ debut EP ‘Spring’ is out now.
Words: Abigail Firth
