Wilderado with Illiterate LightWednesday, Oct 1, 2025

When Wilderado began writing songs for their second album, Talker, the idea of chasing after their debut record's success — including pair of Top 10 hits on alternative radio — couldn't have been further from their minds.

"We were coming off 265 days on the road, and we all felt a little broken," says frontman Maxim Rainer. "We had to ask ourselves if we still wanted to do this, and we decided that the only way to rejuvenate the band was by making new music that we love. That was our only rule."

The result is Talker, a dynamic record that finds Wilderado reframing their purpose and broadening their perspective. Recorded with producers Chad Copeland (Sufjan Stevens, SYML) and James McAllister (Gracie Abrams, The National) in Norman, Oklahoma, it's the sound of three musicians shrugging off the allure of success and, instead, embracing the thrill of the unknown.

"This record was a process of rediscovering the things that made us excited about our band at the very beginning, back when we were writing songs for nobody but ourselves," says Rainer, a Tulsa native who co-formed Wilderado in 2015. "When you're a brand new band, you have no expectation of anyone else hearing you. We wanted to go back to the beginning and revisit that excitement."

Like all of Wilderado's releases, Talker blurs the boundaries between genres, creating a multi- sided sound — soft-hued and subdued one moment; anthemic and buoyant the next — that defies categorization. "We've always had an eclectic catalog and an 'anything goes' mentality, where the only thing that matters is the song itself," Rainer says. Appropriately, the songs are the real stars of Talker. With "Sometimes," Rainer pulls back the curtain to expose the skeletons in his own closet, including the coping mechanisms that most keep under wraps.

"Sometimes I hide it when I'm high," he sings in a Midwestern drawl, contrasting the vulnerability of his lyrics with bright acoustic guitars and sunny, singalong hooks. He gets personal during "Tomorrow," too, turning a hypnotic guitar pattern from bandmate Tyler Wimpee into the launchpad for a song that tackles big topics like religion and being trapped in a search for God. "Tyler used to play that riff every night during soundcheck," he explains. "It helped me write something I've always wanted to write, which is about my relationship with the Church, my experience growing up in a Christian family, and where it's left me now. It felt very freeing to say those things. A lot of our first LP was about being on the road, and I didn't want to regurgitate that same idea on our new album. Instead, I decided to get confessional and vulnerable."

He got collaborative, too. In addition to writing songs with his two bandmates — guitarist Wimpee and drummer Justin Kila — Rainer also teamed up with the British band Flyte, whom Wilderado had met in London while on tour in 2022. Together, they created songs like "Longstanding Misunderstanding," writing the track during a 25-minute burst of creation in the recording studio. "A big part of my growing process with this album was learning to ask for help, which isn't easy for me to do," he admits. "But it turned out so beautiful, every time I did."

Equally beautiful were the new album's mellower moments. "Everyone in Wilderado had fallen in love with music that was softer on our ears, and that influenced our writing," says Rainer, who sings Talker's songs in an unforced voice that occasionally gives way to a gentle, high-flying falsetto. "We began asking ourselves, 'What if we keep the drive and the groove that's always been part of our music, but dial back the approach of both the vocals and the drums?'"The strategy worked, filling songs like "Bad Luck," "Tomorrow," and the title track with a mix of laidback swagger and calm, collected energy. Talker still finds moments to get loud, too, building its way toward atmospheric crescendoes with "Waiting On You" and "After All."

Wilderado aren't chasing after hits. They're just being themselves — and enjoying it. With Talker, they've hit a new stride, fueling themselves up on sharp songwriting and adventurous arrangements before setting off toward some new horizon. This is Wilderado at their best: inspired, invigorated, and answering to nobody but themselves.

About Illiterate Light:

It’s dangerous to put Illiterate Light in a box, especially with the release of their new album, Arches. Are they a guitar-driven indie rock duo? Kaleidoscopic neo-psychedelia? Synth-kissed, harmony-laden folk? What does one do with an album beginning with “fake tits and diet coke,” then pivoting to train derailments in rural Ohio and never-ending black holes? These prolific farmers-turned-rockers have captured the energy of their live shows—fans crowd-surfing, moshing, crying, and crooning—and infused it into their latest release.

“We’ve always been shape shifters, moving between heavy, dark distortion and gentle sweet fingerpicking, writing aggressive songs, introspective songs, and love songs, exploding and embracing,” reflects singer-guitarist Jeff Gorman. “Smashing it all together used to feel strange, but now there's a glue between everything we do. Our fans get it. They care less about genre. All they care about is feeling. And that’s all we care about. Are you alive or not?”

Illiterate Light’s third album, Arches, is not a passageway but an arrival. “We’re no longer striving to define a sound,” said drummer Jake Cochran. “We’re leaning into sides of ourselves that have felt off-limits, sticking to what feels right rather than concerning ourselves with comparison.” Out November 1 via Thirty Tigers, the record is bursting with thunderous anthems, biting lyrics, and lush harmonies.

The band originated in the Shenandoah Valley in 2015 when multi-instrumentalists Gorman and Cochran began playing music together while working on an organic farm. Eventually, they left the farm to focus on music, adopting the moniker Illiterate Light from a Wilco lyric. After several years of non-stop touring, they signed with Atlantic Records and released their eponymous full-length debut in late 2019. Two years later, they signed with Thirty Tigers and, in 2023, issued their critically acclaimed LP, Sunburned. Shortly after, they released two additional EPs, making Arches their fourth release in two years.

Arches was recorded in two very different locations: small-town Appalachia at Gorman’s home studio and Hollywood, CA at Sunset Sound with producer Joe Chiccarelli (The Strokes, Beck, The Killers). “We wanted the best of both worlds,” says Gorman. “We spent several days with Joe at Sunset. To record vocals in the same live room as so many of my heroes—Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Dylan—was unreal. I knew I was in a holy place.” The LA session was paired with sessions in Virginia, where Gorman and Cochran co-produced the bulk of the record with longtime collaborator Danny Gibney. In their hometown, they experimented with soaring instrumental journeys and had friends sit in on the sessions to keep things lively.

“Having our community stop by the sessions kept us on our toes—we haven’t been able to do that in the past. It helped connect us to the feeling of our live show,” recalls Cochran. Illiterate Light’s live performances, described by the Washington Post as “massive,” feature Gorman on one foot, hammering bass on a foot-pedal synth, shredding big guitar riffs, and spitting out song after song while Cochran matches Gorman harmony for harmony, dancing with his standing drum kit, teetering on the edge of the stage only to dive head first into his next solo.

Arches is the closest you can get to their live show, with heavier songs like “I Ride Alone” and “Bloodlines” encapsulating the best of the writhing, uninhibited front-row experience. The keystone of the album, “Norfolk Southern,” crashes in with Gorman belting, “Here comes the Norfolk Southern / It's off the tracks / and heading for you,” with Cochran chanting, “break, break, break, break” to the ghost of the train that derailed in 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing 10,000 gallons of hazardous materials into the atmosphere. The song also serves as a metaphor for Gorman’s own turbulent feelings. “I certainly wanted to shine a light on the environmental catastrophe. But strangely, some days I feel just like that Norfolk Southern, barreling out of control at warp speed.”

Gorman lets the lyrics take control. Showing up relentlessly, day after day, to his home studio dubbed “The Bookhouse” (a tribute to David Lynch's Twin Peaks), he can’t predict what will arise. For the album's first track, “Payphone,” the opening lyrics were a surprise to Gorman: “Fake tits and diet coke / Full of undefeated hope / You are the only one I trust.” The jangly and groovy album opener is a pep talk between a woman named Big Red and her man as he faces crippling self-doubt and is self-medicating. She comforts him during a time of despair on a phone call that continues to drop.

Another relationship study, “Montauk,” is a cold beachside dance under the full moon inspired by the central question in Gorman’s favorite movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. “Do we go for it again—even though we're destined to fail?” he asks. “For me, the answer is a resounding yes.”

“All the Stars Are Burning Out” continues in that reflective vein. “It’s a throwback song, about getting high, going for a drive, dreaming up your future. You’re looking at that wide open black sky of bright stars, and they’re so beautiful and inspiring, and they make you want to follow your dreams. And yet all those stars eventually burn out. It’s a song about going for it even though life is impermanent and full of change,” Gorman said.

The saying goes, “arches never sleep.” Designed to distribute weight evenly, arches naturally rebalance as the structure around them shifts over time. Illiterate Light’s Arches exists within this metaphor in many ways. The album marks a period of artistic strength, a balancing act of identity and possibility. To listen to Arches is to plant yourself within the arch, to stand in the threshold between two worlds and gaze into Gorman and Cochran’s constant motion forward.

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