Wilder Woods is the solo project of NEEDTOBREATHE co-founder/frontman Bear Rinehart. On February 12th, Wilder Woods will release its third album, titled Curioso, via Dualtone, cementing a carefully excavated sound and live show feel that Wilder Woods has built up through touring with a full band. It’s also a collaborative album that not only builds on the groove of musicians working in the studio together, but features contributions from My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Maggie Rose, and Anna Graves.
From a songwriting perspective, the elements of Curioso come from a period of great personal creativity for Rinehart, where having multiple creative projects has allowed him to write for Wilder Woods in a very direct way. Interestingly, the collection’s sound is as intentional to Rinehart as its lyrical and thematic content, capturing a kind of wild abandon that he’s noticed building in live shows during certain songs and sets. Drivingly energetic, each track also goes in search of a highly emotive feeling that Rinehart has noticed in his observations of life. Together, those elements make Curioso very much a Rock album purpose-built for a high energy experience. I spoke with Bear Rinehart about Curioso’s subtle underpinnings and big sounds.
Did you get to play any of these new songs live before recording them?
Not really. We have played some of the songs, did a couple of one-offs before the proper tour starts, and got to try out the songs. I would love to do that. But, interestingly, the way that we record the songs is very much like a live thing. This stuff really is like drums, bass, and guitar, with piano maybe, in a room. So much of the groove stuff is so important for the Wilder Woods feeling, overall, the aesthetic. Because of that, I feel like I get to push it around a little while we’re tracking it. Very rarely is there a stacking kind of thing with the Wilder Woods stuff. It feels like the room we played it in, so it’s easier to translate.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if you told me that you had played these live first, because they do feel like they have a relationship to live performance.
I don’t know if it’s right or not, but I think I feel like the live side has to be a piece now. The way that people listen to music, so seldom is it a headphone experience. That’s the way that I grew up listening to records, in my car on the way to school, or whatever. It’s got to have other lives to it, and I feel like the live concert is the way for me to put a visual to it, more so than music videos. I feel like it’s really hard to experience the songs until you play them live, and having that relationship with the audience where they know that you’re going to come out every couple of years, is such a huge thing. I don’t know if you can be a musical act these days without doing that.
The financial model is so much tied to live performance, but not only that, it’s a big part of creating and releasing physical merch.
Yes. It’s interesting, I was watching the Road Diary that Springsteen put out recently on Hulu. Most of the bands that I love or have loved for a long time have a different language live than maybe they do on their live records. They develop that way that they do things live, and I feel like I’ve done that with Wilder Woods, to create this feeling and a way of expression in a live show. That’s just hugely important to me. I agree with you, obviously, that people are making money live, but it’s been the opposite with this. I’ve done two tours where the goal has been to break even. It’s more about what kind of band I want this to be in ten years. That’s what shapes this drive to be the best band live that we can be.
I can see that this project is a more creatively “free” project for you, and that probably contributes to an atmosphere of productivity. But does this album reflect your current life to you, when you look at it? I can see that it has a lot of soul-searching.
For sure. I’ve thought about this a lot recently. When you go in to write, you can try to take aim in a way, or try to get better at something that you feel that you’re not good at, but even though I gravitate towards listening to them, I never wrote your classic singer/songwriter story songs. Those are the ones with so much detail and atmosphere. For me, it was always about a certain type of feeling. I grew up the son of a preacher with Gospel music. Gospel and Rock mixed was always something that I loved. Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Joe Cocker, and The Black Crowes.
All this stuff was not about the message, but about the spiritual feeling that carried you. I think that’s what I grew up trying to do as a writer, and now, it’s still the thing. If something feels transcendent in that way, I catch myself laughing out loud if I’ve made something like that. When I’m walking around the room by myself, doing a playback of a demo, if I’m sort of taken away in it, that’s when I feel the best about the writing. So what I’m talking about [in songs] serves that. I think I’m looking for connections between that feeling and what I’m going through.
My favorite thing about Springsteen, Dylan, or any of those guys, is that you could pull the line from the second verse, and it would mean something completely different to you than it did to anyone else. There’s a power in the phrasing of a thing, and really that comes out of it being true, you know? People say that all you have is your perspective on the world as an artist, and I think I’ve gotten more trusting of that, or at least relented about the fact that I don’t have to have everyone’s perspective.
I feel like there’s a questioning feeling in these songs, a lack of certainty, and that’s relatable. But I think you do take a stand, emotionally, to express how you’re feeling.
I think that’s, ultimately, what relates to people, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do. I think most artists are trying to have a connection with someone, and hopefully it’s inspiring to them. The phrase I use always is “the dark certainty”, meaning the worst thing that we could do is to think that we have it figured out. I think everyone approaches that differently, but for me the most connected thing has been a sense of wonder about the world and feeling like I’m unsure. There’s a feeling of working it out as we go, but also not being embarrassed about the blessings of life. One of my proverbs that I go back to is that the worst thing is to have something and not be able to enjoy it.
Oh, yes. Or to downplay it to yourself or to others.
Yes. I think that’s where some of it comes from, realizing that it’s okay say something’s great. I think that feeling is true of the record.
Do you feel like, with the songs, that you’re pushing yourself to be a little more audacious? I think these songs go pretty far down that road.
Yes, I think my guard is down with the Wilder Woods stuff, and that feels freeing, but I don’t think I intellectually think about it very much. I think I’m chasing something that I feel and I’m allowing that to not be scrutinized. There’s very little feeling of trying to sell it. That kind of magic, that all writers have a hard time describing, is something that I find by asking, “What makes you cry?” I try to notice those things in life, and it’s sort of the same thing with the music. That feeling is what I’m chasing. It obviously could be joy, or it could be sadness. It could be thankfulness. It comes from a lot of angles. Since I have kids, you see something that they do that’s really sweet, or that you’re proud of, and there’s a tear behind your eye that starts to well up. As simple and silly as it sounds, that’s kind of what I’m after.
It’s a kind of moment of realization. It’s not very spelled out, but it’s recognizing significance.
Yes. I think that’s true.
I saw a reference to tempo and rhythm being something you were thinking about with these songs. There’s a tremendous energy to them, that’s for sure. It’s full-throttle. Is that part of the same thing that you’re talking about, in order to capture that feeling and energy?
Yes. I remember the first shows that I ever played in a band and the things that felt the best. It was the abandon. I still feel like that when I see a young band play, if they are not too calculated, and they are into it. Even if they are playing the same chord for a long time, it has this power to it. [Laughs] I think I wanted to channel some of that for the record and not curate it beyond what it needed to be. I think the live show definitely inspires that. I can really channel that feeling of what it’s like to be on stage in front of a lot of people and for the crowd to go into a sort of fervor at the same time.
We had a song on the last record called “Maestro” and we played an 8-minute version of that at the end of the show every night. When I walked off, and it didn’t matter where we were, the whole room was humming at the same frequency. When I was making this record, I thought, “I need more of those moments. It would be great in the live show if we could have several songs like that in a row.” I think that drove some of the more Rock elements.
Then some of this stuff relates to this band Supergrass that I was into when they first came out. I went back and listened to that stuff, and how raw that sort of Brit Pop energy was with the Rock. I thought, “I love this and I don’t want to be ashamed that I love it.” That’s part of some of the stuff on the record that we referenced. We’d ask, “Are the drums wild enough? No, they are not.”
