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Remi Wolf is booked and busy. After opening for the European leg of Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS World Tour this past spring and making her Glastonbury Festival debut in June, the singer-songwriter now has some Big Ideas she wants to share with the world.
Inspired by the last two years of her life on tour, the 28-year-old's sophomore album Big Ideas is out today, July 12. The second studio album is a project that Wolf says was “cathartic” to create.
“The whole album was written on and off tour because from the end of 2021 to the middle of 2023, I was touring,” Wolf tells Teen Vogue over Zoom. “I would be on tour, and then I'd come home, and I'd go to the studio for a week, and I would write essentially about what was happening in my life at that time, processing all these experiences that I was having on the road — then writing about them when I came home, and then just going right back out.”
The album-writing process was one that has helped her grow both sonically and holistically as an artist. Compared to her 2021 debut album Juno, Wolf says Big Ideas has more of a mature sound, which you get a glimpse of in her single “Motorcycle,” a velvety slow jam that explores the conflicting feelings of wanting to settle down or live life freely and independently.
“It's my second go at it, so I've already had a little bit of experience under my belt putting together an album. Sonically, I've developed a lot,” says Wolf. “I've created more of a broader palette, which I think was necessary for me to do on this album.”
Ahead of the release of Big Ideas, Remi Wolf spoke with Teen Vogue about her musical inspiration, her dream collabs, the upcoming Big Ideas tour, and more.
Teen Vogue: Congratulations on Glastonbury! I watched a couple songs from your set on YouTube. Was that your first time playing the festival?
Remi Wolf: Yes, first time, and it was marvelous. I loved it. It was so fun.
TV: What was it like playing some of the newer songs from Big Ideas?
RW: It's really fun. It's nice to finally have new music to add to my live set. I feel like I've been on tour for years and years and years and with no new music out, so it feels good. And people seem to really like the songs and know all the words, and that's encouraging and fun.
TV: The new tracks are big summer vibes. You have such a unique sound — do you have any musical influences that inspired you for this album?
RW: Yeah, I am so all over the place. Whenever I'm making music, I pull from everything, whether it be consciously or subconsciously. I can't point to one single artist that inspired this album in particular, but I was listening to a lot of Flaming Lips, The Strokes, Chaka Khan. I had a little Motown phase.
I listened to a lot of stuff, but honestly, when I'm making music, I tend to not listen to anything else besides the music I'm making, and that helps me get into my own world and create that palette rather than relying on other songs or artists to guide me. I try to guide myself through, and I find that to be helpful.
TV: How do you think this body of work compares to Juno, and how do you think you've grown as an artist within this new era?
RW: It's definitely more of a mature record in all senses. The first album was made during COVID, and we used what we had, which was not a lot. We weren't in studios. We didn't have a lot of gear. I was relying on myself and my voice as a main instrument. That's one of the themes throughout Juno, it's really vocal-heavy, a lot of vocal arranging and lots of vocal details.
On this album, because we were able to go to these studios and have more gear, I started focusing a little bit more on the sonics and the sounds because I was able to rely on other instruments and some really awesome producers. Because of that, I think my sound has started to evolve. I still do so much vocal stuff, but I let myself strip it back a little bit more, so you can hear that throughout the record… I've created more of a broader palette, which I think was necessary for me to do on this album.
TV: Can you share more about what the journey was like creating the album, and if there were any inspired themes that you wanted to explore in Big Ideas?
RW: Essentially, the album was written in four different chunks. There were two weeks at the beginning of 2022 that I had worked in LA. There was a week that I had worked in New York in August 2022 at Diamond Mine Studios. Then there's a two-and-a-half week chunk in January and February of 2023 where I worked at Electric Lady. And then the final chunk of writing was done in LA, maybe in May of 2023. The album came together [through] all those sessions.
Within all those sessions, I probably wrote 40+ songs, which was narrowed down to 13, but it came together like that. [There] was no overthinking. I was just in the throes of chaos at all times. I was totally destabilized, honestly, and I think the writing was able to focus and center me on my time off. That's how I was able to return to myself after these tours. So the story of the record is this two-year journey of me being on tour and learning about myself, learning about the people in my life, my relationships, and how I relate to them all.
TV: It sounds like it was therapeutic to process it all in real-time.
RW: Yeah, it was cathartic. It was cool because the fast pace of it all and the fact that I didn't really have that much time between tours [meant that] I had a very finite amount of time to write.
It made it so that I didn't overthink anything and it was very off-the-cuff, and that's my style anyway, [but] the insane schedule enhanced my writing style. I didn't have any time to get in my head or be anxious about sh*t because I was just going. I was on the conveyor belt to get to it all.
TV: You were going through it.
RW: I was going through it, but in a good way! It was a lot, but it was good. It was really good for me. I'm happy that I now have a little bit [of time off]. Now, I don't really because we're launching into an album release, which is always a crazy time, but at the beginning of this year I had some time to process the album, and that was nice. I do enjoy some time off.
TV: You deserve that time off! You mentioned that you wrote 40+ songs. Do you plan on releasing any of those other songs, the ones that didn't make the cut, in the future?
RW: Maybe. There's a lot of them that I really like, but they just didn't fit with what I was trying to portray sonically and lyrically on this album, but I could definitely see some of them coming out in the future, for sure.
TV: Do you have any dream collabs that you would want to do in the future?
RW: None on the album, but I would love to collaborate with some people eventually. I would love to do something eventually with Clairo, because we're album date release twins… That's been fun for us. We're like sisters in album release, so it [would] be fun to do a collab with her at some point. We also have been working with the same producer, Leon Michael, so it just feels like our worlds would work together right now.
TV: You released a couple of music videos for the new album, which are all really cool visuals. Do you have a favorite music video in particular that you're most proud of?
RW: Yeah, the “Motorcycle” video. I love all the videos, but making the “Motorcycle” video was really fun. Also, what I was saying [about] the sonic palette and how I let myself expand in that way, “Motorcycle” was a departure for me from Juno, where we used a lot of green screens and special effects.
“Motorcycle” was cool because it was one of my first narrative-based music videos. The song is such a narrative in my mind. I was trying to tell this story of myself, about this modern-day housewife who lives this split life with her girlfriends and then her prop husband.
It was really cool being able to convert that story that had been in my head since I started writing it to actually making it into a full video that came to life. I also liked working with my friend Dora Jar, and then Victoria Justice was so fun and iconic and random, but we just had a great day that day, and it was fun to let myself embody that character.
TV: That one is my favorite, too. “Motorcycle” is relatable for a lot of people — the idea of wanting to be with your friends, living life, but also wanting to have a partner and settle down.
RW: Yeah, it's a fun, good song. The instrumental was recorded in one take. My vocal was recorded in one take, and all my background vocals were just stacked on top, and that was a cool moment for me. I feel I don't do that a lot. Doing a single vocal and not doing anything over it feels very vulnerable to me, and I'm proud of myself for not touching it and just letting it breathe and letting it just be its own untouched, unedited thing.
TV: Do you have any other favorite tracks on the album, or any favorite lyrics?
RW: I feel it changes all the time, but there's a song called “Kangaroo” that I really like right now, and a song called “Soup” that I also like that I've been playing live on tour, but it's not out yet. [It’s] been fun to see people's reactions to that. It's my arena song. I wrote it for the arena, which is cool because I was [only] playing arenas these past two months.
TV: Are playing these new songs making you excited for your upcoming Big Ideas Tour?
RW: Oh, yeah. I honestly am very juiced. I'm ready to put together a new show because I haven't had the opportunity to do that in a long time. I'm excited to put together the set list, all the visuals, the lighting… it's going to be really cool.
I'm touring with a bigger band than I've ever toured with, which is really exciting for me because I love playing with a live band, and I'm trying to make this tour as live as possible because it allows so much more freedom when you're able to play with musicians — especially when the musicians are all my friends. It's just really fun and free. I'm trying to create a live space that feels free and welcoming, and fun for me and for the audience.
TV: I'm excited for you. To play with your friends, I feel like that just makes it less scary. I don't know if it's scary for you, but it would be scary for me.
RW: Yeah, it feels good when you can share those moments with people that you have cared for for a long time, and it's rewarding and fun when it works out like that.
TV: If you could describe your new era for this album in one word or two words, how would you describe it?
RW: Progressive nostalgia.
TV: Is there anything you're most excited about for fans to hear or experience with the new album?
RW: All of it. Everything. I want everybody to listen and watch everything, honestly. There's a lot of stuff that's about to come out around the album, more music videos, merch, shows, festivals, acoustic stuff, there's going to be a lot of stuff coming.
I'm excited to be there with everybody and finally get to meet and see everybody face-to-face again, which I haven't done in a long time because I haven't been on a headline tour in a year and a half. That's going to feel really nice for everybody to get together and explode.
TV: Last question: Are there any artists that are currently on your radar that people should know about?
RW: I mean, Brat by Charli XCX is really f*cking good.
TV: So, so good.
RW: Yeah, that's just a very, very good album, so if people haven't listened to that yet, they should. I just went to a Reggie Watts show last night, and he's so talented and awesome. He's been around for a long time, but he is hilarious and an amazing improviser. So, if anybody gets the chance to see Reggie Watts, I'd do that as well.
Remi Wolf's sophomore studio album Big Ideas is now available on all digital streaming platforms.
