Wilderado’s Max Rainer on new album ‘Talker,’ music business, more

With indie folk band Wilderado about to launch a headlining summer tour this week, frontman Max Rainer managed to describe his life and the weather in Tulsa, Oklahoma, all at once.

“Well, it’s literally the calm before the storm,” Rainer said Monday. “It’s storming outside; it’s about to. It’s all good though. It’s never really not this way.”

The band’s tour starts Friday in St. Louis, with a stop two days later on Sunday at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale. Wilderado’s new album, “Talker,” is slated for a Sept. 20 drop, but they’ll be playing the four songs that have been released so far.

“It’s always a little daunting just because you just know when you start rehearsing them that they are gonna sound like (crap),” Rainer said, “so you have to just kind of get over that first initial wave of disappointment and keep your head down and keep going, but they’re all sounding awesome now. They’re just fun to play, and it’s fresh in the set and it’s really fun.”

Their latest single, “Talker,” is actually the first song on the record, and its placement there was purposeful.

“(The inspiration is) mostly the task of writing a whole ‘nother record. I kind of got into that where I needed to just get to a place where I could tell myself, it’s OK if you can’t do this, and start there and then begin working really hard,” said Rainer, who sings and plays guitar. “That’s kind of why we put it at the front. I wanted us to come at this record with some serious humility and humanness of I’ve got the responsibility of writing a whole record, but I don’t feel like I have anything to say to you. So stick around if you want, but let’s be up front.”

Wilderado, which also includes guitarist Tyler Wimpee and drummer Justin Kila, scored two Top 10 alternative radio hits with “Head Right” and “Surefire” off their self-titled debut from 2021. But they wanted to keep growing with this new effort.

“It was a huge hurdle to not make the B-sides to the ‘Wilderado’ LP,” Rainer said. “That was just like my biggest thing; I refused to do that.”

Working with producers Chad Copelin and James McAlister, the new album touches on alt rock, folk, country and more.

“It’s exactly what we wanted to make. And I feel like that’s our biggest responsibility as a band,” Rainer said. “It’s like nothing else impacted this record other than who we were and who we are right now, what we wanted to put out to the world, what we wanted our next iteration of Wilderado to be.

“And we just 100% accomplished that goal. We’ve tried to stay true to just make sure we love what we’re making and everything else will take care of itself.”

The new album also showcases the evolution of the band, which started back in 2015.

“Man, big time, especially our growth right now. It’s just a more grown-up record in my opinion, from the decisions we made sonically and the way we allowed the songs to really kind of be what they wanted to be, as opposed to trying to make them into something,” he said. “We applied a lot of restraint. We applied a lot of intentionality more so than we ever have before. And then the thing that makes it the most mature is we’ve never worked as hard at anything as we did on this record. So I think that’s just kind of the biggest staple of, are you learning? Are you growing? Are you learning to work harder? We did.”

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Although “Talker” won’t be released for more than three months, the band will stay busy with shows through the summer — including a slot at Lollapalooza — into the fall.

“We’ve got a lot of touring. And then, as everyone knows, you’re just kind of responsible for marketing your own (crap) these days,” he said. “So it’s like, how are we going to get people to hear this thing we spent two years making? And just a lot of stuff to make. It’s a lot of figuring out to do. And time just goes so fast.”

Rainer, who recalled playing the Funhouse and the Theatre at Mr. Smalls in the past plus last year’s WonderWorks Festival, acknowledged the work bands have to put into the music business beyond the music.

“We’ve just kind of made that mistake before thinking that, oh, we’ve got a team, we’ve got a label, we’ve got management, so they’re going to figure out how to introduce people to this, and that’s just not the case,” he said. “All the work falls on the artist, and you either accept that or you don’t. So we’re trying to just make sure we’re doing that part of the job as well.”

Rainer can still recall a dinner in Los Angeles not long after the band signed with Creative Artists Agency in 2015. His wife’s friend had worked at that talent agency and helped brace him for the realities for a new band.

“She looked at me with, like, the most daunting expression, and she was like, ‘Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?’ And I remember thinking, (jeez), I guess not. But she was so far the only person who ever really let us know,” he said with a laugh.

Despite the struggles, Rainer thinks Wilderado is “winning” because they’re still growing while staying true to themselves, however the band is labeled.

“Well, I think a folk band is one that tells stories, so yeah, of course, I would say we are. I’m not sure what we are, man,” he said. “It’s hard to say. We’re kind of all over the place. We’re just totally ourselves, and that’s all we want to be.”