Wilderado with Timmy Skelly

When Wilderado began writing songs for their second album, Talker, the idea of chasing after their debut records success including pair of Top 10 hits on alternative radio couldnt have been further from their minds.We were coming off 265 days on the road, and we all felt a little broken, says frontmanMaxim Rainer. We had to ask ourselves if we still wanted to do this, and we decided that the only way to rejuvenate the band was by making new music that we love. That was our only rule.The result is Talker, a dynamic record that finds Wilderado reframing their purpose andbroadening their perspective. Recorded with producers Chad Copeland (Sufjan Stevens,SYML) and James McAllister (Gracie Abrams, The National) in Norman, Oklahoma, its the sound of three musicians shrugging off the allure of success and, instead, embracing the thrill of the unknown.This record was a process of rediscovering the things that made us excited about our band at the very beginning, back when we were writing songs for nobody but ourselves, says Rainer, a Tulsa native who co-formed Wilderado in 2015. When youre a brand new band, you have no expectation of anyone else hearing you. We wanted to go back to the beginning and revisit that excitement.Like all of Wilderados releases, Talker blurs the boundaries between genres, creating a multi-sided sound soft-hued and subdued one moment; anthemic and buoyant the next that defies categorization. Weve always had an eclectic catalog and an anything goes mentality, where the only thing that matters is the song itself, Rainer says. Appropriately, the songs are the real stars of Talker. With Sometimes, Rainer pulls back the curtain to expose the skeletons in his own closet, including the coping mechanisms that most keep under wraps. Sometimes I hide it when Im high, he sings in a Midwestern drawl, contrasting the vulnerability of his lyrics with bright acoustic guitars and sunny, singalong hooks. He gets personal during Tomorrow, too, turning a hypnotic guitar pattern from bandmate Tyler Wimpee into the launchpad for a song that tackles big topics like religion and being trapped in a search for God. Tyler used to play that riff every night during soundcheck, he explains. It helped me write something Ive always wanted to write, which is about my relationship with the Church, my experience growing up in a Christian family, and where its left me now. It felt very freeing to say those things. A lot of our first LP was about being on the road, and I didnt want to regurgitate that same idea on our new album. Instead, I decided to get confessional andvulnerable.Wilderado arent chasing after hits. Theyre just being themselves and enjoying it. With Talker, theyve hit a new stride, fueling themselves up on sharp songwriting and adventurous arrangements before setting off toward some new horizon. This is Wilderado at their best: inspired, invigorated, and answering to nobody but themselves.

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