Wavves is the way-hyped home-recording project for Nathan Williams, a 22-year-old Californian whose grungy, catchy tunes —as heard on 2008's Wavves, and 2009's Wavvves— are steeped in references to teenage ennui, getting stoned, and summer. In May 2009 at Barcelona's Primavera Festival, Williams infamously self-destructed on stage whilst under a cocktail of alcohol, ecstasy, and valium. The incident became the indie world's most blogged-about story of 2009.
Interview: 3 September 2009
When did you first realize that Wavves was going to blow up?
"It really quickly snowballed from a friend of mine talking me into sending out a couple of demos to just going crazy. In February of last year, when Fat Possum flew me to New York to talk about signing with them, that's when I realized that things were gonna be different. I'd played hundreds of shows in San Diego with the band I was in prior to Wavves, Fantastic Magic. But this is a whole other thing; I've never been on the radar in this way, had so many people talking about the music. It's been a very crazy experience, and it still is a crazy experience."
Were you worried at all that, when things started snowballing, that the stigma of 'hype' would overwhelm the music?
"Those are things that I would s**t myself about all day if I worried about them. What other people do doesn't really have any effect on me. The hype and those sorts of things are completely out of my control; whether people say they love me so much or whether people say they hate me so much."
Does all of that blog hate bother you?
"Yeah, but I can't do anything about it, so, I just have to let it go. I really don't think about it, too much, I would say."
Was letting that stuff go something that you learnt along the way?
"Yeah, I mean, I feel like everything I'm doing is a learning experience. I'm young, and trying to have fun, but there's a lot of weird music business-y things I'm learning, politics to do with big websites and magazines, and people who claim that they're indie, and what that word 'indie' even means anymore, if anything. Along the way, I'm not going to do everything the right way, and I'm gonna make mistakes, probably every day, and that's just a part of it. And I'm welcoming it at this point. I don't want to do everything right; I'm human and I'm going to make mistakes."
Both Dean Spunt from No Age and Cassie from Vivian Girls have told me that, to them, the gossipy bitchiness of the blog world is like the indie version of TMZ. Do you feel something similar?
"Oh, yeah, definitely. The indie TMZ, that's what it is. That's what these websites feed off, now, because people are so interested in it, the story behind the music. Whether or not it's true doesn't even f**king matter anymore. It's something to talk about, to start these comment wars. It's just a story and you can just get it out right away. And other people can read it and say what they think about it right away, and, generally speaking, 100% of these things are totally off. To get involved in it, and care about it, I feel like it'd just be a waste of my time."
Obviously you're talking about the Primavera scandal. How did it feel being at the center of that online storm?
"It was f**king weird. Primavera was just completely blown out of proportion. The backside and the inside of that story, with the people kind of involved in it and writing about it, is really interesting. The emails they sent me, and the stuff that people don't know about it, really shows me, at least, exactly what the music business actually really is. It's really sort of disgusting to me."
What's disgusting?
"Just all the misinformation, and the lies, and what people say to your face, then say behind your back. There's lots of stuff I could tell you, but I don't really want to care about it. All that s**t is just out of my hands. What can I do about it? I'm just some f**king douche from Southern California trying to have fun. That's kind of the end of it for me. I can't live my life around blogs and websites and people making something out of nothing. First they glorify you as some weird God, then they bring you down like some sort of devil. It's never what it is; it's never that extreme. But that's what you get reduced to. It's f**king... I don't know. People are always gonna talk; everybody's got a f**king opinion. Once you get wrapped up in and worried about that stuff, you're just going to be unhappy. And I certainly didn't start making music to make myself unhappy."
A lot of your music has a really nostalgic quality, of remembering even the s**tty parts of your adolescence as happy times.
"Yeah, definitely, that's the kind of vibe I was going for. The songs are all about remembering growing up, kind of commenting what you went through, and what that time was like. Looking back on it maybe it looks great, but at that time it was maybe a piece of s**t. And, maybe, one day I'll look back and think that about this time. The songs are just about generally about growing up and feeling whatever you're feeling at that point in time. Some of it's dark, some of it's not."
What kind of bands and records were a source of solace for you back when you were growing up?
"A lot of Beatles, a lot of Motown, Fleetwood Mac, and Beach Boys. The kind of stuff my parents were listening to. As far as stuff that influenced my records, that was a lot of American hardcore, old Trojan Records reggae stuff, Sonic Youth, and the Wipers, and Nirvana. I'm kind of all over the board."
So, you're not coming from some noise or garage-rock background?
"No, I feel like the most important thing to me is the sonic qualities of the songs, whether or not they're interesting, and the melody. Those are the two most important parts."
Are you planning on making future recordings more hi-fi? Or is that lo-fi sound as much a part of Wavves as anything?
"I don't want to continue to do the same thing that I've always done, by any stretch. I've just finished recording the third record with my friend Zach Hill, and it definitely sounds different. Which I'm happy with. It's not a Lil Wayne record, with vocoders and AutoTune and these perfect productions. But it's a lot more cleaned-up than the previous stuff."
