Interview Wet: ‘I Like It To Be Casual And Intuitive’

It’s not a regular occurrence, having your music instagrammed by a 17-year-old being a make-or-break prospect, but when said culprit is Lorde, well, it’s obviously a different story. Last December, the photo tagline read “’cause baby you’re the best” and in that, she referred to a downtempo love song by New York trio Wet. “The funny thing is, that’s the most people who’ve ever seen that album cover, because Lorde has, like, a million followers,” laughs lead singer Kelly Zutrau, house-trapped in Boston due to the infamous Big Freeze and speaking in her first ever UK press interview.

While the casual introduction was definitely “very sweet of her”, the perplexed comment section underneath (mainly along the lines of “WTF is this?”) didn’t exactly fit with the kind of feedback they expected for their four-song EP released via Neon Gold at the end of last year. But it’s easy to see why Lorde and others are raving; their songs are all sparse, spacious, pared-down pop music with an overarching focus on relationships and break-ups.

Arrangement wise, it’s very ‘Pure Heroine’, as London Grammar riffing brushes shoulders with minimal electronics and dainty melodies from start to finish. All in all, alongside their fantastic online presence (checkout kanyewet.biz), they’ve a cleverly zeitgeisty sound.



But how did they get to this stage? Weirdly, it’s only been a year and a half since the band started taking themselves seriously. Kelly, Marty [Sulkow] and Joe [Valle] all came to New York City in 2006 for College. “We played in another band with other friends for a while. That was very casual, and just sort of like an art project.” But then, Kelly moved to Providence for a year, Joe moved to LA and things got a little tricky. “I’d keep sending demos to Marty in Brooklyn, and then we’d send it to Joe who would add a beat and do a little bit of production. But we all moved back to Brooklyn in the summer of 2012, and then we could work on the music in person. Still e-mailing though; that’s a big part of our process.”

Now based out of Boston for a two-month writing stint, Kelly is thoroughly in the zone. Her aim is to have a Wet album out within a year. “It’s challenging’, she admits. “Some days, it’s really easy and rewarding. Other days, it’s really, really difficult and I just feel like shit. But I really like it to be casual and loose and intuitive. I think that I write the best songs when I’m just being intuitive and sort of not thinking too much, but I’ve also been trying to balance that out by being critical.”

The new songs will aim to capture the “collective emotional state” of the band at present. “With the music we hope to create a world, an emotional space that reflects how all three of us are feeling,” she says. But as for actually getting all these emotions out there, they’re taking their time with picking labels. Keeping shush, she hints, “I think we’re getting closer to cementing a relationship, but we’re trying to take everything as slow as possible. We want to make the right decision.”

Taken from the March 2014 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.