With their fourth studio album on the way, we caught up with UK synthwave duo, W O L F C L U B, to talk a bit about their music and what’s next. Since forming in 2014, the Nottingham and London-based duo have steadily climbed their way to electronic prestige. After charting on both Billboard and iTunes, W O L F C L U B landed six tracks in the 2020 film, Infamous, starring Bella Thorne. Their new single, “A Sea of Stars”, pairs retro synths with Dora Pereli’s airy vocals to create a lush sound deserving of a sunset on the beach. Check out what W O L F C L U B had to say below!
BTS: Your music embodies feelings of nostalgia and warmth, which isn’t always associated with where you’re based in Nottingham/London (I don’t mean this in a bad way!), what drove you two to create music in this style?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: Our love of 80’s films and soundtracks heavily influenced us, and made us delve into the retro wave genre. The movie Drive sealed the deal, that soundtrack and the film blew me away. The visuals and the sound and how they work together is a massive inspiration for what we try and do.
Steven:
I was a huge fan of the Valerie Collective and Newretrowave for a long time, and when Chris got into the genre too, we started to move more into an analogue synth soundscape, while trying to maintain the melodic vocal elements we had been working on in older tracks from before we formed W O L F C L U B.
BTS: You recently had six of your tracks featured in the movie, Infamous, what was it like seeing your work accompany a major motion picture?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: To be featured in a film was always one of those dreams we had that we never thought would happen. It was a huge challenge to write for the film but we loved every second of it. To see and hear our tracks in the movie was totally surreal and I definitely got a little emotional when I first saw it.
Steven: Completely agree, it was a dream come true. I used to make mixtapes on cassettes, and made up soundtracks to films as a kid, so to be able to create songs for an actual film was incredible. Working with Josh (Joshua Caldwell the director) in order to get the sounds he wanted in the movie was a great experience, we would love to do it again one day.
BTS: How did the collaboration with Dora Pereli come about for your new single ‘A Sea of Stars’?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: We’ve been huge fans of Dora for a long time. When we wrote Sea Of Stars we immediately thought of Dora and we asked her if she would sing on the track. We have some more tracks coming out with Dora soon too.
Steven: She’s my favourite vocalist, her voice is just perfect on the songs we have recorded with her.
BTS: With your 4th studio album on the way, how do you feel you’ve grown as a duo since your debut album?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: I think we’ve just got better as songwriters and producers. We are constantly trying to find new and different ways to write. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but we put the hours in.
Steven: I really enjoy the way we write, sometimes we work really closely together, and sometimes we take things away to work on by ourselves and bring it to the table. Having those different methods of writing, and then being able to bounce off one another and keep pushing one another definitely helps to take things in new directions and to explore more.
BTS: What should we expect from your forthcoming album?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: Lots of nostalgia driven synthwave pop. We’ve tried to create a bigger more epic sound with more elements than we have ever used before. Lead guitars, some heavy analogue synths and big sax.
Steven: We’ve tried our best to create some anthemic euphoric tracks, that would fit into an imagined soundtrack to a film, and hopefully the album feels cinematic and takes you on a journey.
BTS: If you could choose an ideal place for someone to listen to your music, where would it be?
W O L F C L U B:
Chris: Ideally driving through a sunset on the west coast of America with sunglasses on. The ocean around you with your troubles behind you
Steven: I’d say at a music festival, in a field, as loud as possible surrounded by your friends and some strangers, enjoying the sun and the music all together.
BTS: Are there any artists / songs that you’ve been digging lately?
W O L F C L U B:
Steven: Recently I’ve really loved going to a youtube channel, my favourites being New Retro Wave, Italians do it better and Majestic Casual, and just let song after song wash over me. There’s an overwhelmingly large amount of amazing music being made right now, and having someone curate it for you helps to hone in on the sounds that you love.
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