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When Wilderado began writing songs for their second album, Talker, the idea of chasing after their debut record’s success — including pair of Top 10 hits on alternative radio — couldn’t have been further from their minds.
“We were coming off 265 days on the road, and we all felt a little broken,” says frontman Maxim 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 and broadening their perspective. Recorded with producers Chad Copeland (Sufjan Stevens, SYML) and James McAllister (Gracie Abrams, The National) in Norman, Oklahoma, it’s 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 you’re 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 Wilderado’s 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. “We’ve 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 I’m 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 I’ve always wanted to write, which is about my relationship with the Church, my experience growing up in a Christian family, and where it’s 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 didn’t want to regurgitate that same idea on our new album. Instead, I decided to get confessional and vulnerable.”
He got collaborative, too. In addition to writing songs with his two bandmates — guitarist Wimpee and drummer Justin Kila — Rainer also teamed up with the British band Flyte, whom Wilderado had met in London while on tour in 2022. Together, they created songs like “Longstanding Misunderstanding,” writing the track during a 25-minute burst of creation in the recording studio. “A big part of my growing process with this album was learning to ask for help, which isn’t easy for me to do,” he admits. “But it turned out so beautiful, every time I did.”
Equally beautiful were the new album’s mellower moments. “Everyone in Wilderado had fallen in love with music that was softer on our ears, and that influenced our writing,” says Rainer, who sings Talker‘s songs in an unforced voice that occasionally gives way to a gentle, high flying falsetto. “We began asking ourselves, ‘What if we keep the drive and the groove that’s always been part of our music, but dial back the approach of both the vocals and the drums?'”
The strategy worked, filling songs like “Bad Luck,” “Tomorrow,” and the title track with a mix of laidback swagger and calm, collected energy. Talker still finds moments to get loud, too, building its way toward atmospheric crescendoes with “Waiting On You” and “After All.”
Wilderado aren’t chasing after hits. They’re just being themselves — and enjoying it. With Talker, they’ve 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.
The title of Sam Burchfield’s latest album, Nature Speaks, is both a statement of belief and an instruction: to listen carefully, to feel the world move through you, and to heed its loving nudge.
Recorded in just five days at Studio 1093 in Athens, Georgia with co-producers and collaborators Ryan Plumley and Jason Kingsland (Delta Spirit, Youth Lagoon, Deerhunter), the upcoming album is Burchfield’s most stripped-down and spirit-forward to date.
“Just before we recorded, I was in New York City on tour,” Burchfield shares. “My wife was at home, pregnant with our second child. I was taking a walk through Washington Square Park, feeling this hyper-vivid awareness of the beauty of the city, and at the same time, this intense pain of being away from my family.” In that moment, a man sitting at a public space piano began playing the song Burchfield’s partner walked down the aisle to at their wedding. Coincidence or cosmic wink, it stirred Burchfield’s soul. “It felt like walking through a portal.”
For Burchfield, like many of us, it took a moment of poignant distance to illuminate his place of utmost belonging—back in the Blue Ridge Mountains, among his family. And with that radical clarity came a revitalized artistic confidence, a turning point in accepting and trusting his own musical intuition, the intuition from which Nature Speaks beautifully emerges.
Burchfield grew up in serene Seneca, South Carolina. His instinct to write was there from the start, his itch to share was unrelenting. He spent his childhood setting speakers up in parking lots and coffee shops, playing with whomever would join him on “stage” to whomever would listen. At college in Athens, Georgia, he found the scene he’d been trying to create for himself. Opportunities emerged in rapid succession. Burchfield won a songwriting competition, recorded his first EP, and found himself suddenly entangled in sparkly offerings from network television and major labels, chances that ultimately felt more like a detour than a dream come true.
“It was honestly insane,” says Burchfield. “Things felt a little out of my control. I had to really lean on people I respected, whose wisdom I trusted—teachers, friends, family.” Burchfield recognized early on the indispensability of creative autonomy, and the sources of support that kept him grounded. “My community gave me the courage to walk away from paths that didn’t feel right.”
He’s been building a catalog since 2014—originals, concept works, and live recordings. “I think there are like, four or five albums out there at this point?” Burchfield questions, endearingly unprecious. He is as sincere and unassuming as his guitar-playing—earthy and affectingly to-the-point. “Truthfully, it’s been a long journey toward artistic identity. I’ve learned a lot about living into yourself, discovering who you are by simply being.” Nature Speaks is no doubt Burchfield’s best offering to date, largely due to that resonant sense of self.
The album came together during a momentous new phase of fatherhood. “There is always something to sacrifice in the present in order to create a future,” Burchfield says. “And in many ways, I used music to parent myself through all the changes.” Burchfield impulsively penned and tracked the stunning album closer “Morning Light” at home, around three o’clock in the morning. The song softly buzzes with the white noise of a sleeping household, a lullaby of its own kind. “I was writing a message of comfort to myself when I needed it,” he says. His vocals are hushed and heavy with the weight of profound transformation, a soothing surrender to the life that lay ahead.
The theme of commitment glitters throughout Nature Speaks. Standout single “Stay (Betty Blue)” is a tender and arresting tune of devotion, a vow of stability against wavering mental health and the general fragility of life. Burchfield wrote it for his wife—a musician, painter and poet—on their anniversary. “You don’t know what you’re going to have to confront when you enter a relationship. We all have different battles to fight.” In his sandy, evocative vocals, he makes the colorful promises that account for real love: And if you get lost on the other side, I’ll plant roses in your mind / If you go mad and hurt yourself, I can lick your wounds until you’re well.
Burchfield’s sixth release is a source of sacred calm in an overwhelming world, a generous invitation into a rooted life: a family’s unconditional love, a hometown’s soothing mountainscape, a sturdy salvation in knowing who you are. “Capturing and connecting with humanity is why I make music,” says Burchfield. “This album is more human than anything I’ve done before.”
Doors at 6pm. No lawn chairs. Event Rain or Shine. No refunds.
