Welcome to Wunderland: How Wunderhorse got it together for their second album

When Wunderhorse decamped to Pachyderm Studios in Minnesota with Grammy winner Craig Silvey to make their second album, there was a moment that completely blindsided the band shortly after recording had begun. As they laid down the title track ‘Midas’ in the same storied complex where Nirvana recorded 1993’s In Utero, Silvey left the tape running for what the band believed would be a scrappy take too raw for the final cut. When that take ended, Silvey unexpectedly told the group that they had struck gold and that this seemingly unfiltered, looser version of the song would be the one that ended up on the record. 

It was an unexpected move, the group say, but one that would end up defining the creation of this remarkable second album from the London band. “I think we knew we wanted that from the get-go, but you end up getting in the studio and becoming perfectionists about stuff,” recalls drummer Jamie Staples. “Craig just kept us on track and said, ‘No, fuck the mistakes.’ We needed that.” 

Midas sees Wunderhorse grabbing their opportunity to become generational greats with both hands. It’s a classic guitar record that may have initially pushed the group out of their comfort zone, but it feels like the sound of a band in the place where they were always meant to be, with polished production eschewed for a whole lot of raw power. 

“I was brought up on a lot of records that did have a lot of inflection, and if you look at it historically, it’s because studio time was expensive, and they were under rigorous time constraints,” singer Jacob Slater reflects. “But I think there’s something really special about that rawness. Modern technology means that people can spend more time in home studios, and it’s this space where you can just hone something down to a place where it’s perfect and smooth all the edges off.  

“I just think that deep down we all made a conscious decision that we wanted the second album to not be that, because it would have been very easy for us to go in and make a very polished, commercially produced second record to further our own careers. But in my opinion, the first record sounded a bit safe and a bit middle of the road. We wanted to do something that wasn’t the obvious choice and just make it a bit more uncomfortable.”  

Another difference from the first record is that it could still be considered a debut album of sorts. Cub, the band’s 2022 debut, sounded very much like Slater venturing out as a bold solo voice after the unpredictability of his teenage years as the frontman of electric post-punk trio Dead Pretties, who imploded in a flash of chaos just as they were about to get started. But while that record was deeply personal in forensically dissecting the pains of youth and very much felt like a solo album, Slater explains that album two represents the arrival of Wunderhorse as a full-bodied band. 

Alongside Staples on drums, Slater’s joined by guitarist Harry Fowler and bassist Pete Woodin. “The first record was under Wunderhorse and was a band record in many ways,” says Slater. “But at the same time, there were these moments where it was just me sitting in a room writing alone, whereas this feels like the first Wunderhorse record as a band. It’s strange in that sense. It feels like us. The last record was a collection of songs from one person, whereas this feels like a time stamp and a really authentic representation of how we were all feeling at 
the time.”  

“We were under each other’s feet when the second album came around and there together experiencing the same things,” adds Fowler. “It’s inherently giving me more of a connection to the music than I ever would have before.” 

Adding to this, Slater explains, was a desire to bring the rawness of their live shows to the record. “We cut our teeth as a live band and put ourselves in situations where one of us will change something up without telling anyone and everyone has to follow along,” he says. “That’s scary because when you’re playing in a big crowd, it’s a thing where none of us know what the other one is doing, but it forces you to engage your brain and listen. It’s so easy to go through the motions of being in a band, so it’s nice to throw the puzzle pieces up in the air sometimes and see where they land. We wanted that to come across on the record and I think we’ve achieved that.” 

There is also the small matter of the fastidious commitment that the band made to album two. For Slater, that meant a conscious choice to switch off his phone for a month when recording began and fully embrace the raw experience that Silvey had laid out. Doomscrolling on phones was largely out; listening sessions to classic albums such as the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones were very much in. “I just felt so much better, and it makes me more creative,” explains Slater. 

“I remember being a kid without a phone and I could disappear into a world where I could dream things up, but if you have anything that takes you out of that — even for a second — it risks diminishing your creative output. If you’re lost in a world and a notification pops up, you disappear down the social media hole and lose your place in what you were thinking. It’s not worth it. 

“You don’t want that bullshit world breathing down your neck when you’re trying to record because it’ll compromise what you’re doing and might even make some horrors of horrors come out in the music. Ninety-nine per cent of it is a waste of time.” 

This commitment pays off massively on their latest album. There’s a bluesy, Bob Dylan-flecked groove on the title track (the band say they listened to Blood on the Tracks), but it’s to their credit that it never feels anachronistic. Instead, it feels like a band knowing exactly where they’re supposed to be — the result is an album that could well cement Wunderhorse’s place as guitar heroes for a new generation. 

“We’d sit down in the morning when we were recording and enjoy a classic album like Beggars Banquet or Rubber Soul,” adds Fowler. “There was a feeling that it gave you something in a way you wouldn’t get if you’d just picked that album from Spotify.”  

Midas is also an album defined by the sheer strength of Slater’s pen. A large portion of it was written in Minnesota — and the record is all the better for this sense of spontaneity. The wild and untamed ‘July’ evokes the raw spirit of Nirvana, but there’s also a track that Slater tells me is “the saddest song I’ve ever written”. That song is ‘Superman’ — a heartbreaking yet beautiful call to arms for the perennially misunderstood people of the world. 

“It’s not supposed to be hopeful at all,” reflects Slater. “It’s supposed to be a snapshot of somebody who’s gone through their whole life living by the things they haven’t said and the things they haven’t done and that’s their sad little secret.” Even more remarkable is the fact that Slater penned it in just 10 minutes. “It was one of those songs that just happens in 10 minutes, the whole thing is two chords, you write some words down and it just kinda happens. 

“Most of the songs that end up sticking are the ones where you don’t know where they came from. They write themselves and you’re amazed. There’s a great Leonard Cohen quote where he says, ‘If I knew where the good songs came from, I would go there more often.’ That’s what happened with a lot of this album.”  

If you need proof that the message of Slater and co is finding a captive audience, their live shows are the ultimate reflection of this. Weeks before we speak, Rolling Stone UK sees the group in full flight at an intimate show at London’s Moth Club. The front rows are largely populated by late-stage teenagers and people in their early twenties for whom Wunderhorse’s music and Slater’s knack of looking back at tough times with remarkable clarity have clearly struck a chord. It’s enough to silence the arguments of eternal naysayers who say that there’s little magic to be generated from a six-string anymore. 

“I think people have been saying guitar music is dead for ages, but we played three nights at Hammersmith Apollo supporting Fontaines D.C., so it can’t be that dead!” affirms Slater. “That felt like a moment where we could make it work. And besides, if it was dead or not, I think we’d still be doing it regardless, because it makes us feel good. If people want to come and share in that and come to our shows, then great. People have been saying it’s dead for a while, but it always keeps rolling along in some form.” 

“The rock’n’roll attitude and the personalities maybe aren’t what they used to be,” adds Fowler, “but I think it’s been accepted as something more niche. Guitar music doesn’t need to be this massive public spectacle of Liam and Noel Gallagher going at each other’s throats.” 

Instead, at its heart this is an album that could make even the most stony-hearted of cynics believe in guitar music again. Slater says, “Nothing on this album got to the point where we knew it so well that it became dead. It was still alive and raw. That became an overarching sonic and musical theme for the record, and it keeps it all in the same world, which is really special. It’s like magic — you can’t really aim for that, it just has to happen. And for us, it did.” 

Taken from the August/September issue of Rolling Stone UK – you can buy it here now.