interview with Wilmah

photos are by alec ilstrup




 Who is Wilmah?


Wilmah is the future of music. Matt Connolly and will O’connor, originally from Buffalo, ny, grew up making music together in their bedrooms. The two take a unique approach to songwriting, production, and performance. what could be described as “vulnerable existentialism”, they strive to find the meaning of everything in anything to better understand their relationship to the world.


The interview


What's the story behind the track "television"? 


Television is about coming to terms with the fact that maybe a past relationship wasn't as wonderful as you're remembering it and perhaps your loneliness and nostalgia is causing your mind to play tricks on you.


Which of your songs do you like the most and why? 

 My favorite wilmah song is unreleased and it's called "my way". i think i like it so much because it's our ONE hopeful song haha!


What is your process when you have an idea for a new song? 

 

It all starts in the notes app. it's a mess in there. usually a title concept or a few clever lines come to me and we run with it from there. Every song is different.


Who are your favorite artists? 

 

We love John Mayer, Bob Dylan, Father John Misty, Haim, Kacey Musgraves. There's obviously a ton, but those come to mind.


Which albums did you listen the most to last year? 

 

I loved listening to women in music 3, Punisher, Sob Rock, and Little Dark Age to mention a few.


Who is your biggest artistic influence? 

 
I love the way the 1975 approach being a band. we take a lot of inspiration from their creative process.


When have you started doing music? 
 

I started playing guitar and writing songs at a very young age, but will and I started doing Wilmah together about 3 years ago.

 

Tell us something about the story behind the song "Welcome to America".


Welcome to America is about us witnessing and being tired of witnessing hypocrisy and injustice in the world. It's a song about what happens when we don't look out for each other and treat each other with kindness. It isn't political or controversial in my opinion to want kids to be safe in schools, gay people to love who they want to love freely, and for people to practice what they preach.


What message do you want to convey to your listeners with your songs? 

 
Music is a form of catharsis for me and I don't really think about what others will think when i'm creating. I feel our job is to describe how we feel in our lives in a smart and clever way. People relating to the material and applying meaning to their lives because of our music is just an added bonus - a really really incredible bonus.


Who would you love to collaborate with? 

 We would love to do a song with Mallrat!


What's the best advice you've ever received as an artist? 

The advice we follow is to always do what we think is best for our art. It's easy to let people change your creative vision so we do everything we can to be proud of who we are as a band.


Give us some spoilers on your upcoming music. 

We have a ton of really really great tunes coming in 2022. They're all very different and it will be exciting to have a body of work that truly shows everything we can do both sonically and lyrically.

 

Describe both band members in one word. 

We're both very dramatic and negative - as most great artists are haha. if we aren't complaining about being hungover or someone not texting us back, we're just being goofballs. we love to have a good time and be with our friends. our friends mean a lot to us and they're very supportive of our music. we're also pretty funny.


What's your ultimate goal? 

The goal is to survive recording and touring albums we're proud of!


What's your most favorite memory of being an artist? 

my favorite memory of being an artist (and it's happened more than once) is the high you feel after writing a new piece of music you think is special.


Which countries would you love to visit the most for a tour?

I recently became obsessed with emily in Paris so let's get Wilmah to France.


If you could go back to the day you first made music, what would you tell yourself? 

 Trust the process.
 
 
What would you like to tell your fans? 
 

We'd tell them thank you so much for being so kind and accepting our music, and to get excited for new music.

 

What's your favorite lyrics from your songs?

I've recently been thinking "I hope you're hungry, I don't eat my words" from the latest single "good to go" is pretty clever.

 

What's your most favorite memory of being a band? 

I don't have one specific memory. i'm just glad at how close of friends me and will have become. 

We're lucky to have each other.

 

Tell us about your experience of being on stage and performing for the first time. 

I was 7! I don't remember much. I don't think I was all that nervous. someone wanted my autograph.

Tell us about the story of your band name.  

I think I was still in high school. I was leaving for school in the morning and as I was out the door my mom said "you guys should call yourself Wilmah" and I liked it.


Your bio says that you strive to find the meaning of everything in anything to better understand your relationship to the world, so what does the world mean to you? 

I'm definitely still trying to figure that out. I'll let you know when i figure out what any of this shit means.


Thank you for the interview, Wilmah!

25th January 2022


 

Review on singles of Wilmah!


"Good to Go" 

 I honestly want to headbang to this song until the end of the world! The power of this song just sweeps you away.


"Television"

This song is just such a good mood maker with a really cool message behind it. I bet mostly everyone who once broke up can relate to this song!


"Wait Until Tomorrow"

This song is just awesome. The lyrics is just brilliant


"Welcome to America"

This song is so insanely cool. it represents a message that should be heard by the whole world. it's not easy to write a song about such topics but they did it in such a cool way. Definitely give it a listen.