Frontwoman Jenn Wasner On Her 'Unhealthy Connection' To Music

Encouraged by a prominent placement of Civilian’s title track in season two of cult zombie drama The Walking Dead, the modern, autumnal folk of Andy Stack on drums and keys, and Jenn Wasner on guitar and vocals clicked and Baltimore duo Wye Oak broke through.

"It’s just sort of in different surroundings and different trappings and different arrangements, but the heart of it is still the same"

“Civilian came out and it really took off for the first time,” says Wasner in the midst of a touring dinner break in Nashville. “We’d been working and working and for whatever reason that was the album that connected with people, and so we started getting more opportunities and decided to say yes to everything. We played 220 shows in a year… We didn’t live anywhere – we just toured and toured and toured. From a career standpoint that was probably the best thing we could have done. But it was really challenging personally… I sort of just detached and the team had a very unhealthy connection to the music and to myself. I drank a lot and I really didn’t enjoy the mercurial at all. And so after that time it really burned me out on being a band and playing music in general, and I found that I was having a really hard time writing; I went through a period of really intense writer’s block – I couldn’t really figure out how to make myself wanna do that again. And so Shriek is essentially the result of a complete reboot. In order to make anything, I had to start from scratch, and throw everything out the window and just really give myself a whole new palate of sounds…” Wasner says. “I always tell people it’s not the record I chose to make, it’s the only record I could make. And that’s sort of the explanation as to why it is indeed so very different.”

“[Andy] previously would sort of play keyboards – low, droney, bassy keyboard parts – and I would play guitar on the upper register on top of that. So we were basically inverting what we were responsible for. I’m playing bass now so that frees him up to do the more upper register stuff. We took the same shell and made an entirely different band out of it.” Old fans and those who fell in love with the Wye Oak that soundtracked a hopeless, post-apocalyptic world needn’t be too alarmed – Wasner says they’re still the same duo underneath.

“I think the essence of what we do and what we’ve always done is exactly the same. It’s the same style of songwriting, it’s just sort of in different surroundings and different trappings and different arrangements, but the heart of it is still the same and I think that’s why people who have liked us in the past – more often than not – like this record as well.”