Wallows, the Los Angeles-based trio of Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters and Cole Preston, released their acclaimed Atlantic Records debut album, Nothing Happens, in 2019. Produced by Grammy Award-winner John Congleton (St. Vincent, Alvvays, Future Islands), who also produced the band’s 2018 EP Spring, the album quickly became one of the most-streamed debut albums by any band in 2019 and features the breakthrough platinum single “Are You Bored Yet? (Feat. Clairo),” which has surpassed 602M global streams. 2020 saw Wallows release “OK,” a song that took on a new meaning during the pandemic, and their quarantine-made EP, Remote, as well as being named MTV’s PUSH Artist of the Month for September.

Wallows returned in 2021 with the brand new single “I Don’t Want to Talk,” a first taste of their collaboration with producer Ariel Rechtshaid (Vampire Weekend, Haim, Adele) that’s been in the works over the past year. Their new album Tell Me That It’s Over was released in March 2022, and contains 10 tracks informed by everything from lo-fi post-punk to indie-folk to early-’90s dance-pop psychedelia.

Ask the members of Empath how things have changed since the release of their critically-acclaimed 2019 album, Active Listening: Night on Earth, and they’ll downplay it.

“We bought a wheelchair bus to tour in from the sketchiest dealership in South Jersey,” drummer Garrett Koloski says. “And we have band credit cards now—did you know you can get a cash advance on a credit card? Pretty cool.”

“I think we own the title now… but there have been a few complications,” guitarist/vocalist Catherine Elicson interrupts, her skepticism palpable.

“I’ve had to quit my grocery job many times to tour, but they just keep hiring me back,” synth player/engineer Randall Coon offers.

“Basically, this is a small business,” keyboardist Jem Shanahan quips. “I have a credit score now, because of Empath.”

It’s in the band’s nature to turn every question you throw at them into a joke, but the four friends from Philly have reached a point where they’ll begrudgingly admit that this project is a nascent career, one that they can’t help but fling themselves at with total abandon. “Our mindset is: we have nothing else but this band, so we’d better put all our eggs in this basket and hopefully take over the world,” Elicson says, “Or crash and burn.”