Mangoes, KFC, and Songwriting: A 15-Minute Chat With Wallows

About an hour before the guys of Wallows go up onstage at the New Frontier Theater in Quezon City, their first-ever show anywhere in Asia, they’re hanging out at the green room still fighting off jetlag. Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston just finished a multi-city tour in Europe, spent four days back in their hometown of Los Angeles, and then jetted of to Manila for the first stop of their tour in Asia. 

“We have a lot of extremely dedicated fans from here,” Preston says. “It’s like, the Philippines and then Brazil.

Dylan Minnette

Photo by Manuel Chua / Ovation Productions.

“Our friend Danny, his girlfriend is Filipino,” he adds. “And he plays live with us. And he spent the past week in an island, I think about an hour south of Manila.”

It’s got to be Boracay, I say, which is, of course, one of the Philippines’ best island destinations.

“He showed us pictures and I said I can’t wait to go out there and see what it’s like. He had the best time,” Preston says.

They also like the fruit here. “It’s the best fruit I’ve ever had,” Preston says.

“All the fruit in general but especially the mango,” Lemasters says.

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Beginnings of Wallows 

Wallows have been together as a band since 2017, although all three members have been friends for way longer and have played together in groups under different names. They finally hit it big when “Pleaser” became something of a viral hit, and it’s been one hit song after another released as singles or in EPs until the band finally came out with their debut album Nothing Happens in 2019.

The second album Tell Me That It’s Over came out last year, in March 2022, and the band has been touring pretty much nonstop since.

Photo by Wallows.

“Every time I go to a new country, I always see a KFC,” Lemasters says. “It’s the first thing I always see. When we got off the plane in Australia—KFC. We got off the plane here, I’m like, wow, let’s see what it’s all about. So now I look forward to that every time I get off the plane.

“Other than that, (I like to) just see the people and the culture. The food and the buildings, the trees,” he adds. “The mango.”

“I’m also always excited to see what the nightlife is like,” Minnette says. “We’re not always going out in every city, but it’s like getting a taste of the energy of the city. It’s always exciting to see what the crowd is like, the people, how they dress, what they like to do, that sort of thing. I like to go and observe and just walk around.

Unfortunately, the guys weren’t able to go out while they were here in Manila as they were too jetlagged. They did, however, get to visit Intramuros on Valentine’s Day.

Braeden Lemasters

Photo by Manuel Chua / Ovation Productions.

Writing 'Just Like a Movie'

I first heard about Wallows when their song “Just like A Movie” popped up in my Discover Weekly playlist. With a lilting guitar intro that turns into a loud, persistent call-to-action, coupled with lyrics that speak about youthful impatience and exuberance, the song captures the spirit and vibrance of young people today, minus the arrogance and cynicism. It quickly turns into a personal anthem and eventually became one of my most played songs on Spotify last year.

“That’s a really interesting choice because it’s actually potentially my favorite Wallows song,” Lemasters says when I ask him about it. “I remember being in my bedroom at 1 a.m., and I just took out my computer and opened Garage Band. I was like 17 or 18 years old at the time. And I just started playing the opening riff inspired by Beach Fossils. I was looking at the album cover of their first album and then made a 30 or 40-second demo. It was a weird thing because I remember making that and thinking, for some reason—although it doesn’t really make sense—that the music is like Magical Mystery Tour, like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ which doesn’t sound like it at all. But to me it sounded like there was some kind of mystery to it.”

Lemasters showed the song to the rest of the band members the next day and quickly made a full demo, with Minnette supplying the verse and chorus melodies. 

“Then the song just kind of wrote itself after that,” Lemasters says. “It was super easy to write. It's one of my favorite songs structurally.

“Guess we’re gonna have to play it tonight,” he adds jokingly.

Cole Preston

Photo by Manuel Chua / Ovation Productions.

Wallows live in Manila

I knew, of course, that the song would make appearance on the setlist later that evening, as it has over the course of their ongoing tour (thank you Setlist.fm). Doors opened at 6 p.m. and there was already quite a sizeable crowd that marched straight up to be front and center near the stage.

New Frontier Theater looked to be just about the perfect venue for the band, who, despite not quite being a household name yet in these parts, managed to attract the most devoted fans that Preston had mentioned earlier. I stood next to a couple of young ladies who screamed so loudly when the band finally walked onstage that it sounded like someone was getting murdered. But if you’ve seen videos of Wallows' live performances on YouTube you’d know that that sounds just about right.

Onstage the band got to work and started with “I Don’t Want to Talk,” and quickly followed up with “Especially You,” and their first big hit, “Pleaser.” The band straddles the line of alternative and pop, with a sound reminiscent of early 2000s crowd pleasers like Rooney, Phantom Planet, and Hot Hot Heat, All three members profess to liking acts like Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, and Kings of Leon. 

They barely paused to acknowledge the crowd until Minnette, about three or four songs in, finally said, “Hello Manila,”  which, of course turned the decibel levels inside the theater way up. Minnette is, for the uninitiated, also a Hollywood actor, having starred in a few movies and TV shows, most notably as the lead in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, so there were likely a few fans who were screaming for him as Clay Jensen (his character in the series).

During “Sun Tan,” the band segued into One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” which drove the crowd crazy (even more than they already were). One other moment that fans loved was when Cole admitted to going into a Jollibee and having a Jolly Spaghetti (“the one with hotdogs,” he said), and professed to loving it.

The band performs at New Frontier Theater

Photo by Manuel Chua / Ovation Productions.

“1980s Horror Film II” was a definite highlight, with Lemasters masterfully working the crowd into a massive sing-along, but after “At the End of the Day,” it was the moment I personally was waiting for. When you obsess over a song and you finally hear it sung live, it hits differently, and I appreciated that the band performed “Just Like A Movie” almost exactly as they did on the record, with barely any flourishes. I had absolutely no complaints.

“This is our first show ever in Asia,” Minnette said. “I know many of you have been waiting for us a long time, so thank you for being so patient with us.”  

The band did “Scrawny” and “Remember When” before exiting. The crowd knew, of course, they’d be back and launched into shouts of “Are You Bored Yet?” referencing their big song from the first album. Minutes later, the band, accompanied by their touring musicians, walked back onstage and performed just that. 

Afterwards I walked out of there realizing that, while I really waited for one specific song, I knew I’d be driving home with their full discography on full blast.

Listen to Tell Me That It's Over on Spotify.