Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories involve me dancing around my childhood home with my dad to all kinds of artists ranging from Madonna to Earth, Wind & Fire to James Taylor. Actually, my affinity for music goes back further than that. To this day, my mom loves to tell me that when she was pregnant, she would turn on the radio and I’d immediately start dancing in her stomach (it sounds absurd, I know, but she swears this is true). As I grew up, I began to develop my own music taste. My first favorite band was Train, and at just eight years old, I listened to “Hey Soul Sister” on repeat as if my life depended on it. I’d play lyric videos to “Drops of Jupiter” on YouTube and pretend I knew what real, heart wrenching pain felt like. 

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Looking back, all of these signs pointed to me becoming a diehard fan of one musician or another at some point. Sure enough, the band Wallows became “it” for me. So much so that since I first discovered the band in 2019, I’ve attended 13 of their concerts, some of which required travel to states (and countries) just to watch them perform.

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Before I get carried away any further, let’s give a brief summary of Wallows for those of you who have never heard of them before. Wallows is a Los Angeles-based group of childhood best friends: Braeden Lemasters, Cole Preston and Dylan Minnette. (If you’re thinking Minnette’s name rings a bell, he played Clay in the Netflix hit television series 13 Reasons Why. Yes, that’s him, and yes, he’s in a band.) Formed in 2017, these three men have rightfully earned an abundance of rapidly-growing success. Their sound, inspired by all-time musical greats such as The Beatles, Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes, evokes an indescribable sense of nostalgia. Beyond that, however, their lyrics are what keep fans like myself coming back for more with every release. 

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Lemasters, Preston and Minnette perfectly depict common issues every teenager or twenty-something year old grapples with: the departure of childhood, self-doubt, ups and downs within relationships, loneliness and more. With their third album Model set to release on May 24th and another worldwide tour on the horizon, it’s safe to say that it’s still only the beginning for the indie-rock and pop trio.