If Remi Wolf’s earlier records were kaleidoscopes of maximalist, funk-inflected indie pop and surrealist lyrics, Mud marks a shift to something more mature and earthy—quite literally, with the album cover presenting the California-born singer-songwriter beaming through a sludgy mask of literal mud.
After a year that saw Wolf release her terrific sophomore album, Big Ideas; boost her own tour with an opening slot for Olivia Rodrigo; but also suffer a major breakup and become totally burned out, the seeds of the new record were planted during a two-week retreat in Nashville in late 2024, where Wolf set out to blow open her creative world by writing with total strangers. But while Nashville yielded some sparks—including the euphoric, country-tinged standout track “Champagne”—it also made her realize that what she really needed was to create her own sanctuary.
So, Wolf assembled what she affectionately calls her “family band,” an inner sanctum comprised of long-term collaborator Jared Solomon, her songwriter friend Jack DeMeo, and her sister-in-law Gigi. Together, they decamped to a cozy log cabin in Big Bear, California, and later to the expanses of Joshua Tree, writing in living rooms rather than recording studios. Wolf embraced the role of “house mom,” cooking breakfast and dinner for her crew as they worked.
The goal from the outset was relatively simple:
The goal from the outset was relatively simple: every track had to be sturdy enough for singing around a campfire on an acoustic guitar with three-part harmony, but still be an authentic reflection of Wolf’s emotional unraveling. (They would also, naturally, have impossibly catchy melodies—with Mud, Wolf proves once again that there are few artists out there with an ear for a hook quite like her.)
But the real breakthrough arrived at Manhattan’s storied Electric Lady Studios, where Wolf and her crew penned “Covered in Mud” and the euphoric “Bottle,” unlocking a sonic world she sums up as equal parts “emotional sludge” and “SpongeBob Ascension.” Across the final album’s wall-to-wall heaters—from the raw, powerhouse belting of “Jamie” to the bruised, guitar-noodling confessions of “Guess”—Wolf maps the journey of her Saturn return through heartbreak, alcoholism, a breakdown, and back again, eventually discovering an infectious, bone-deep joy that radiates from the wide-eyed wonder of “Moon So High,” featuring John Mayer, or the ecstasy of total surrender on “Covered in Mud.” As Wolf herself puts it: “There’s a freedom in being covered in mud and completely succumbing to how you truly feel.”
Vogue: Tell me a little more about the period during which you started writing the album. From what I was reading, there were some pretty high highs and low lows, and it all began around the time you were wrapping up touring Big Ideas.
Remi Wolf: The first round of writing started
Remi Wolf: The first round of writing started in November of 2024. I was still in the midst of the Big Ideas tour, but I had a little break, and I was feeling really exhausted, lost, and confused within my own life. I wanted to find a new musical path for myself, and writing has always been the most healing and therapeutic thing for me. I felt like I just needed to get in the studio and purge myself of a lot of latent feelings I’d been sitting with for a while. So I decided to go to Nashville, which I’d never worked in before. I always want to approach a new project with a new vibe, so I just went to Nashville for two weeks and wrote with a new person every single day. In that process, I met my friends Jamie and Hank. The very first day I was there, we wrote “Champagne,” which is on the record. They ended up becoming really, really good friends and worked on a lot of the album with me. That trip was like the first seedling of what the album could possibly be.
But when I started writing, I was just very fragile, exhausted, and vulnerable, so I decided I didn’t have the energy to be surrounded by anyone except people who were my honest-to-God best friends. In the process, we created this family band. Being surrounded by my best friends allowed me to really be as fragile as I was without feeling insecure or weird about it. And it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had writing an album. Even though the songs are really deep and sad and I’m talking about real shit, it was so fucking fun to write with them. It felt like an amazing, healing, full cleansing process.
That family band spirit carried through your travels—you guys all went off to Big Bear, spent time in New York, and then took that final trip to Joshua Tree. How did those three distinct environments—the lake, the city, and the desert—shape the final record?
Pretty much always when I’m writing an album,
Pretty much always when I’m writing an album, I intentionally want to get out of my day-to-day environment because it gives you perspective and inspiration. With Big Bear and Joshua Tree, I wanted to leave LA, but not go too far, and I really wanted to be in a house. I wanted it to feel like a homey experience where I could make food for everyone, be in a living room, and not have to drive to the studio every day. We’d all go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time. I’d make breakfast, I’d make dinner—I went full house mom. It created this environment of real comfort while we were writing these intensely emotional songs.
Big Bear I chose because at the time I was really drawn to the trees; I just wanted to feel grounded. We ended up writing in this literal log cabin. We wrote “I Won’t Cry” in that space under these really tall ceilings, and we recorded it in one take—my vocal was one take, too. I think the reason it sounds so vulnerable is because we were literally just playing it together in a room. And then Joshua Tree, I’d never been to the desert before, so being under that vast sky with all the stars was amazing. We wrote “Moon So High” out there, literally just fucking looking at the moon. It was so high! [Laughs.] Then Electric Lady in New York is my home away from home. It’s a studio, but it really is a second home for me. Walking down the street in New York, you just see the most random shit you’ll ever encounter in your life, so I always love working here. But really, traveling around with my best friends was such an incredibly bonding, grounding experience. After being on the road for so long, I was craving a feeling of home and just wanted to feel like a normal person again.
You mentioned that Electric Lady was where you unlocked the sonic landscape of the album, especially this idea of it sounding “muddy.” What did that mean, exactly?
At Electric Lady, we wrote Covered in Mud,
At Electric Lady, we wrote “Covered in Mud,” which is the title track. It felt so free but so real, and it had this storytelling element that I’d been trying to unlock for a while. Right after that, I was like, okay, I know the album is going to be called Mud. It just felt so right in that moment. Then two days later, we wrote “Bottle,” and writing those back to back unlocked this feeling that every song should have this kind of emotional, muddy tone to it, like you’re trudging through these feelings. To me, mud is a feeling you get from the music. And with “Bottle,” we unlocked what we like to call SpongeBob Ascension—I don’t know if you know that meme of SpongeBob rising through the sky with his headphones on? When we wrote “Bottle,” we were like, “Oh, this feels like SpongeBob ascending.” So we decided every song should feel like a SpongeBob ascension through time and space! [Laughs.] They had to fit those two parameters. Unlocking that midway through made the rest of the writing process so much more directed and easy.
How did the John Mayer collaboration come about? Was that really orchestrated over Instagram DMs?
I mean, I’ve been a fan of John for so fucking long—he was actually the first concert I ever went to, co-headlining with Sheryl Crow, who are both just my GOATs. We’d been communicating online for five years, and as soon as we wrote “Moon So High,” I knew that I wanted it to be a duet, and I knew that I wanted it to be John. I was cooking on that for two months, manifesting it in my head, and then one day I just grew the balls to DM him. Luckily enough, he responded in two hours, and a week later we were in the studio. Working with him was fucking awesome.
Looking at the credits, you were in charge
Looking at the credits, you were in charge of the art, you co-creative directed it, worked on package design, and co-directed the “Twiggy” video. What prompted you to take the reins so completely on the visual world this time?
Yeah, I really took everything on this time. I’ve always been very involved in my creative, and I’ve always been a control freak, but because this album felt so deeply personal and vulnerable, I felt like I was the only one who could tell the visual story. Right from when we wrote “Covered in Mud,” I had a really strong image of what I wanted it to look like. I’d always wanted to fully direct videos, but maybe didn’t have the energy or time before, and this time I was just like, “I’m going to go for it.”
I brought on one of my friends, Milo [Nicols], to be my sounding board and help me realize the visual language, and he was incredible. We’re kind of a yin and yang: he thinks about the visual world very symbolically with a really fine-art eye, and I’m kind of like a run-and-gun girlie, where I just want the vibes to be really palpable and strong. I wanted to put the trust in myself, and I’m so happy I did. I wanted to be covered in mud, and we fucking made it happen.
I love the fact that you’re beaming
I love the fact that you’re beaming on the album cover. It’s a breakup record and charts a lot of emotional turbulence, but it’s also a record about your Saturn return and that feels ultimately hopeful. You’re covered in mud, but you’re still smiling.
Exactly. The record was just a year of me healing myself through making music. I went in feeling very lost, and I came out feeling so self-assured and grounded. That’s the beautiful thing about mud as a symbol: it’s dirty, grimy, and gross, but at the same time, there’s a real freedom in being covered in mud and completely succumbing to how you truly feel and owning your emotions. Plus, so many beautiful things grow from mud—flowers, trees, everything is born out of the dirt. I found this image online of a little kid who was head-to-toe covered in mud, but he was just beaming, so happy to be completely disgusting. That’s kind of how I felt, and I wanted that feeling for the cover. After this record, I really did feel like a newborn kid—fresh and happy.
Do you think it will feel strange to get on stage and channel those difficult emotions again when you tour this record?
I think it’ll be fun
I think it’ll be fun! I’m so stoked to tour this record. What I really want for my live show is to take people to emotional church. I want to create a space where people can really let it all go and feel free to scream, laugh, cry with joy, cry with sadness. Concerts are one of the only spaces we have left where we can all experience one thing together at the same time and just be present. I want to really milk the fuck out of that and create a space where people feel connected to each other and connected to themselves in a world where there are so many distractions. It’s my favorite thing about performing. And I don’t think it’s going to be hard to channel the feelings—they’re in my bones, and I’m ready to sing them.
Some of those vocal arrangements, like on “Jamie,” sound like a serious workout. Are you going to have to do some heavy vocal maintenance on the road?
Yeah, I always make it hard for myself! All of my songs are always so fucking technically difficult, and my vocal coach is constantly mad at me, like, “Why do you do this to yourself?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, I guess because I can!” [Laughs.] But as long as I warm up every day, I think I’ll be okay.
Finally, how are you planning to celebrate when
Finally, how are you planning to celebrate when the album comes out? Are you getting the family band together?
We’re playing a little show at the Fonda in LA and Webster Hall in New York, and the live band is pretty much exclusively made up of the people that I made the album with. We’re going to celebrate by playing the record from top to bottom. Luckily, almost everybody who made this album with me is 100% sober too, so we’re all just going to be happy toasting our non-alcoholic drinks to each other. And then we’ll probably find a hot tub somewhere in New York and boil our bones together.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Source: www.vogue.com
