All throughout his band's forthcoming record, Wilderado singer Max Rainer expresses the need to unburden. He wants to move weight from his chest, push it anywhere else, see if he might even leave it suspended in mid-air.
Before the weight can shift, Rainer sets the tone — and listener expectations — with an opening statement. "I ain't much of a talker / Oh but I get by," he sings on the title track for "Talker," due out in September.
Birthed from fits and starts within the writing process, that line and the song which follows establish a quick — though never cheap — intimacy. Listeners wanting to be there when Rainer finds his voice need to stick around and sit closer, "Talker" suggests. If you want to go, Wilderado won't keep you. But if you stay, you'll be rewarded, pushing past the superficial to the real stuff.
"I’m not here to preach at you. I’m not here to teach you anything. I’m here to observe," Rainer said of what he wants to convey with "Talker."
A Columbia audience can live in the observations with him when Wilderado headlines a date at Rose Park next week.
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Checking the pressure of a sophomore release
"Talker" will be the Tulsa band's second full-length album, following their 2021 self-titled offering.
On that first record, smash singles like "Surefire" — and even the album art itself — established a certain alt-rock aesthetic. Grand, anthemic choruses live close to the firelight, each note basking in blue flame. Atwood Magazine's Mitch Mosk recommended the record to fans of Mt. Joy, Noah Kahan and Kings of Leon and dubbed the set "a charged n’ charming rock record through and through."
Turning to face the prospects of their sophomore effort, Rainer and his mates — guitarist Tyler Wimpee and drummer Justin Kila — faced twin pressures. The first, quite naturally involved pleasing Wilderado fans and growing the audience, Rainer said.
The second sort of pressure burned them from inside out.
"From the very beginning, the largest pressure was us liking it, us feeling like it was evolved, us feeling like it was our very best work or nothing," Rainer said.
Satisfying the latter pressure allowed the band to "cancel out" the former, he added. And Rainer won't let himself be chastened for the satisfaction "Talker" brings him. But, as the release date approaches, he carries weights and measures for any outside praise; he wants to celebrate, not overindulge in, what listeners find through the music.
"It’s a very different thing to appreciate someone’s appreciation than it is to seek after it," he said.
Saying the hardest words out loud
Aiming at their best album, Wilderado's members embraced challenges on both the musical and lyrical sides of their coin. Rainer wanted to avoid a retread of their debut's sound, to steer clear of painting anything by the numbers.
"Talker" arrives not as a rejection of that sound, but a maturation of the band's musical ideals. The record somehow manages to be both earthier and more expansive than its predecessor.
"Talker," the album opener, follows Rainer's plainspoken thesis into a floating chorus. Track two, "Bad Luck" mingles varied guitar tones to create real texture. A later standout like "In Between" blossoms from acoustic arpeggios and insistent drums, framing one of Rainer's most maverick — and compelling — vocals to date.
Lyrically, Rainer felt both an urge to express difficult sentiments and the fear that so often accompanies singing out. He placed one foot before the other "using my hesitancy as a guiding force," he said.
When anxiety attended lyrics about his cannabis use or his faith, or even his truest loves, he jumped into a sea of why.
"If the answer was ‘I just don’t want people to know this about me. I’m afraid how they’ll view me,’ ” Rainer said, “if that’s the answer, I was able to lean into it as ‘Just do it then.’ ”
Making hesitancy work for, not against him yields real lyrical delights throughout. Seemingly effortless lines like "I would like to meet my maker / If she's around / Take me up the elevator / Tell her I'm heavenbound" (from "Simple") loom large.
And the opening line from "Sometimes" — "Sometimes I hide it when I'm high" — forms a crucible. Rainer perhaps feared this line most, what younger listeners and close family members might hear in the turned phrase. Not a single soul responded with judgment, he testified.
That reality reinforces one of Rainer's core practices: to analyze his fears and record his anxieties, then return to see if they held water. Seeing where you were wrong about a given situation proves powerful when other fears announce themselves, he said.
And sometimes great anxieties become great joys. "Sometimes" exists in three stanzas, the first spilling out of Rainer with serendipity, he said. He didn't want to only write about chasing, or being chased by, a high. What started with an admission led to a second stanza and a "conclusion," he said — he is, in truth, prone to run away.
Working with trusted friends as co-writers, he completed the folk-rock triptych, digging to the level of desire; he longs to be with those he loves, the third verse conveys, and knowing that brings sweetness.
On and off the road
You hear Rainer and his mates working out tightrope tricks in real time on "Talker." You read the same on social media.
In a June Facebook post, Rainer wrote about the end of one tour leg and the next beginning of a grounded life. He both shies away from the "amount of concentrated attention" paid a touring band and revels in lovely conversations with listeners, the sort of human connection touring affords.
Checking himself, fumbling toward balance, Rainer said he prizes humility. He never wants to define himself with others' adulation, but also wants to honor the real difference a song makes in a stranger's life.
"It would be a tragedy to me for someone to come to one of our gigs and see me be lighthearted about it or not care about it," he said of that import.
The road has also showed Rainer how common our lives are; so many of us bear similar scars born of kindred desires. If his lot in life is embodying, through song, what it takes to flourish, not growing hardened amid life's messes, "I’m open to being an example of that," he said.
And as Rainer and Wilderado sound that example from the stage, the audience becomes a choir of people unburdening themselves of their own hard words and plaguing fears.
Wilderado plays Rose Park at 8 p.m. Wednesday with Harbour and Windser. Tickets are $25. Visit https://rosemusichall.com/event/wilderado/ for more information.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
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