Kelly Zutrau of the band Wet shares sound advice on letting go of control, exploring unlimited creative possibilities and finding inspiration.
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After a decade as a band, Brooklyn-based indie pop trio Wet hit a monumental milestone this fall: their first-ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The bucket-list achievement was sparked by a seemingly leftfield collab with Rod Wave, Florida’s highly buzzed-about soul-trap rapper. The title track off Nostalgia, Rod Wave’s third album, samples Wet’s 2022 song “Where Did the Day Go”; so far, the track has amassed over 3 million streams on SoundCloud and taken both artists to whole new heights of popularity.
Collaboration is at the heart of Wet’s sound, which swerves across the emotive, romantic aspects of indie pop, country and R&B on the songwriting side, with electronic music production at its core. Their malleability has made it easy to work with numerous artists, Blood Orange, D’Angelo, Fred Again.., Jam City and Florence + the Machine, to name a few. As the trio readies its fourth album, Wet frontwoman Kelly Zutrau took some time to talk about the group’s creative process, how they approach working with other musicians and using SoundCloud as a vessel for inspiration.
How did Rod Wave come onto your radar and what has it been like watching the success of “Nostalgia”?
I had known about Rod Wave, but we were never in touch previously. He reached out and said, ‘I’ve sampled a very large part of your song.’ Basically our whole song, “Where Did the Day Go,” exists in track one of his new album. He sent it to us and we loved it. I don’t even know how he came across the song. It’s always these songs that you don’t expect. Me and Joe had been working on that song for years; it kept getting left off of projects, sort of like an extra. We made this EP (that we put out after our last album) as [a way to release these] songs we like but there’s been no proper home for them. That song really resonated. It was in a huge movie, You People, the Jonah Hill movie with Eddie Murphy. For whatever reason, that song seems to be connecting with people in interesting and really different ways than we’ve ever had a song interact with other artists.
As you’ve watched it grow and take on a life of its own, has it sparked any new creative ideas or garnered any feedback that surprised you?
It’s reinforced this idea that has really stuck with me in the last couple years: you really can’t control music. You can’t control outcomes and when you try to, the quality of what you make suffers, always. That’s not your job. Your job as an artist is to honestly create and really try to understand what it is that you have to say, and do that in the best way possible. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.
Do you have any strategy that comes into play when choosing who to collaborate with?
I think that you make better music, and have more success, when you focus on your job as the creator and collaborate with people that you’re excited by, not with people you think you “should” collaborate with. The Rod Wave collaboration was a bit of a surprise to me but he sings sad songs and they feel genuine to people… and that’s partly why people like Wet too. I would have never connected us with Rod, but when I listened to the song, it makes so much sense. It’s beautiful, and I was so honored he included us on this massive album. I also felt that song was interesting because it’s very string-heavy and emotional. Lean into that.
Lean into the emotion and drama and the sadness and just commit to making a sad song. You don’t need to be embarrassed about that. That’s why people listen to your music.
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Looking at who you follow on your SoundCloud account, there’s an eclectic mix of avant-garde and experimental electronic musicians. How are you using SoundCloud to discover other artists?
Joe [Valle], my bandmate – who is, in a lot of ways, the soundscape mastermind and the main producer – is often the one following people on there. But then I’ll look at what he’s followed, and that’s a way that we stay connected about what we’re inspired by. We use it as a tool. We make playlists. He’ll like things, I’ll check them out, and then we’ll talk, like, “This was amazing. Let’s reach out to them,” or “I love this about this track – let’s try to incorporate some element of that into our song.”
How do you organize your demos and what is your approach to working with producers?
There’s different phases. You have your bare bones demos that you would send to certain people who might be interested in that; but then there’s further along versions… It depends where you want that person to come in. It’s so nuanced. Each producer I’ve ever worked with is different. There’s no like, ‘Here’s my system, and I stick to it and this is what I do.’ Sometimes I’ll send an acapella with just a vocal track, or a vocal track with piano in SoundCloud as a demo to see if they’re interested in working on it.
SoundCloud is helpful in that first step where you’re still being cautious with someone where you’re not ready to send the files, but you want them to hear it. It plays an exciting role in some ways. I’ll even use it to figure out artwork; I’ll drag in different things to try. It feels so different when you know someone’s looking at it. You’re like, “How do I feel about someone else seeing this image versus if it was just a playlist in my iTunes library?” So I do think it’s a cool way to test how you’re feeling about your own music and where you’re at. [Sometimes], you’re like, “Oh no, this is not ready to be heard yet.” [Laughs].
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Do you ever go back to your early music and play through some of your older music on SoundCloud?
I definitely do, especially in this phase where I’m still conceptualizing what [the songs are] going to be. It is important to me to hear it within the context of all the other albums. I love looking at the comments. I love how they are time-stamped – that’s probably one of my favorite things about SoundCloud. I love how you can kind of even understand a bit more why someone made the comment they did, like, ‘Ohh chills, right there!’
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What is some advice you’d offer other artists trying to find their creative footing on SoundCloud?
It’s really cool to explore. You can get caught up in your own head and your own little world of what you’re trying to make and I think it is good to regularly pause and listen to what other people are making. I think SoundCloud is a cool place to do that. I feel like it is a little less curated than some other platforms. It feels more like the Wild West to me in a cool way. It is an inviting place for people who are starting out and it feels more interactive to me. It’s a cool place for ideas. I think it’s valuable to stay connected with what’s being made at a certain moment, whether or not you’re going to be a part of that. It might inspire you in a way that you didn’t expect.
People tend to focus on one platform, but different music [does better] in different places. Remixes seem to really resonate on SoundCloud because there's a community of DJs and producers who tend to be on there more. Some of [our remixer] connections were probably initially made on SoundCloud, like with Branchez.
What’s in store for the next chapter of Wet and the new album you’re working on?
It’s very much picking up where the last one left off. As a writer, I got to a place where I reconnected with where I started making music from in the first place. I realized the whole point of it was this deep expression coming from a pretty personal place, with the goal really of just expressing and connecting. I don’t feel as concerned with what it’s supposed to sound like or what the outcome will be. I’m really just trying to enjoy the process of writing and expressing my feelings about the world and relationships right now. With Wet, we’re fully in album mode and I’m sure next year, we’ll start scheduling shows.
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