Remi Wolf has spoken to NME about her “gritty, emotional” third album ‘Mud’, as well as her viral appearance in romantic drama Off Campus and the chances of a collaboration with Hayley Williams.
Following two funk-driven albums of party-starting alt-pop (2021’s ‘Juno’ and 2024’s ‘Big Ideas’), Wolf wanted to change things up for album three. “My first goal was that I wanted to be able to play every song on an acoustic guitar around a campfire, and it still hit you in the gut,” Wolf told NME from a hotel room overlooking New York City. “And because of that, the songs just ended up feeling more confident.”
The Californian artist also teamed up with people she trusted – regular collaborator Jared Solomon, long-time friend Jack DeMeo, and friend and sister-in-law Gigi Grombacher – to create ‘Mud’, which she described in a press release as a “very cleansing record” to make.
“I wanted to write songs about the way I was feeling, and I needed to heal,” she told NME. “I wanted to do that surrounded by people that felt like home to me, because I’m happiest when I’m with my friends, playing guitar and singing together. Luckily, a lot of my friends are also incredible musicians.
“Because I made this album surrounded by people that made me feel really comfortable, it never felt difficult. It only felt natural. Now that people are starting to hear the songs though, I’m realising that I have put some big feelings out there.”
Before going into the studio, she took inspiration from country rocker Lucinda Williams, former War On Drugs member Kurt Vile and America (“one of my favourite ever bands”), as well as Paul McCartney, Wings and Neil Young. Once she was in NYC’s famous Electric Lady Studios, she was drawn to music that felt rooted, earthy, and raw. “There’s a lot of acoustic guitar on the record, and a lot of gritty electric guitar,” Wolf said.
Wanting to make each track as strong and distinctive as possible (“I have ADHD so I never want any song to feel too similar to another, and I hate redundancy”), she ended up writing around 130 songs for ‘Mud’.
The ones that made the cut felt “emotionally muddy” but also achieved what Wolf and her collaborators call “SpongeBob Ascendance”, a reference to the meme where the animated sponge is listening to music so good, he’s literally floating towards heaven. “If a song didn’t have both of those feelings attached to it, we didn’t put it on the album,” she told us. “It’s the muddy SpongeBob record.”
“For me, when I hear a song that I really relate to, it helps me through my life. I hope people can allow this record to soundtrack the highs, the lows, their breakups and their triumphs.”
Check out the full interview below, where Wolf also talks about processing the shame of alcohol addiction, her experience of “raw dogging the hell out of life”, the healing power of making ‘Mud’, her “dream” of voicing a Pixar character in the future, and more.
NME: Hey, Remi. What inspired the different approach to ‘Mud’?
Remi Wolf: “I really wanted to turn a page for myself, make something new and keep experimenting with my shit. I’ve lived almost the entirety of my 20s on tour and by the end of it, I felt this disconnect between the music I was singing on stage and how I was actually feeling, which was very lost and very tired. When I started writing this album, I’d also just gotten out of a relationship that wrecked me. There was just so much that had gone unprocessed.”
