Remi Wolf: ‘Live music seems to be a dying art nowadays’

“She makes the best music to rollerblade to,” writes one fan in the comments of Remi Wolf’s 2024 music video, “Cinderella”. Sporting a vibrant, 80s-inspired unitard and legwarmers, Wolf’s joyfully chaotic energy takes centre stage.

Big Ideas, her second studio album, explores life’s messy, thrilling twenties. Described by Wolf as her “coming-of-age” record, it’s steeped in her signature blend of humour and vulnerability. From the soulful, slow-burning reflections on “Motorcycle” to the grungy beats and wry humour of “Alone in Miami”, the album captures the highs and lows of growing up in vivid, sonic technicolour.

Wolf’s approach to the album emphasises authenticity. Drawing inspiration from her jamming roots and love for live performance, she pushed for a sound that was “bandier and more instrumental”, trading the computer-driven production of her sophomore album Juno for the tactile warmth of analogue gear. “There wasn’t a single sound that was made on the computer, it was all live,” she tells Dazed.

Tracks like “Cherries and Cream”, where Wolf sings of the messy allure of a situationship she can’t resist, highlight her knack for blending drama with relatability. Still, Wolf’s flair for the theatrical never overshadows the raw emotional honesty at the heart of her music.

Performing these songs live has been a revelation for Wolf, who describes her tour as the realisation of a long-held dream to create a dynamic, vintage-inspired experience where the music speaks for itself. With a stripped-back aesthetic that leans on practical lighting and an infectious sense of spontaneity – including audience-improv jams – Wolf transforms every stage into a communal celebration. “It’s like a party, and we’re all just having a great time,” she explains.

Below, Remi Wolf breaks down the ‘big ideas‘ around which the album was created.

You just finished the UK leg of your tour. Can you tell me about it?  

Remi Wolf: So I’ve done part one of my North American tour, and my UK tour; all part of the larger Big Ideas tour. It’s been really fun because it’s the first tour where I’ve been able to execute what my vision is for touring, which is taking a band that’s large enough that everything can be played on stage. Live seems to be a dying art nowadays. My goal was to create a show that felt vintage in aesthetic and ethos but also current and futuristic in the music and in the way my band and I are performing. I wanted it to feel like a party.

Is there a reason you decided you wanted to go more stripped back with the production of your tour?

Remi Wolf: The show does look pretty insane. I had an almost 30-foot wall of lights. My inspiration was Michael Jackson’s touring from the 80s and Queen’s touring from that period, too. The production is very simple but striking, and I wanted to make it one big wall of lights because I wanted to be able to spell out words for the crowd.  

A lot of your music videos for Big Ideas are similarly visually led, did you have a lot of input in that area also?  

Remi Wolf: Yeah, I’m very involved in all of it. The live show was my absolute brainchild, and I have been envisioning that since the beginning of this year and we were able to execute it with my team. Luckily, I have people who listen to me and can do it, which is fucking sick.  

With the “Cinderella” video, we really got the feeling that I was going for, which was just joy and fun and crazy… a solo party. Then with “Motorcycle”, we also hit on exactly what I was trying to portray which was this kind of homoerotic housewife situation. They were both really fun to film. 

Can you tell us more about your beginnings with music and how jamming out impacted your vision of music?  

Remi Wolf: I’ve been singing since I was seven or eight years old. But I didn’t realise it was something I was good at until I was probably 15 and that’s when I started writing songs and jamming more. At the time I was in a band and we would practice in my friend’s basement. We would just jam all afternoon and write songs and listen to music.

In terms of Big Ideas, was there anything you took from your first album Juno that you wanted to bring to this?  

Remi Wolf: Juno was made in COVID, so it was all produced in bedrooms. We would bring our set-up to AirBnBs in San Diego and LA and my family’s house. We were like this travelling production van – me and my friend Jared Solomon who I work on all of my stuff with. That was cool and it made the record what it is, but going into Big Ideas I wanted to have more support and more space. I wanted it to be more studio-driven. 

A lot of this album was recorded at both Electric Lady and Diamon Mine in New York and at this studio called Conway in LA. Essentially, I wanted to work at studios that have real analogue gear because Juno had a lot of computer-like sounds. I also used my voice a lot in that album due to the lack of equipment and me wanting to fill the spaces with real instruments but not having them. Big Ideas sounds band-ier and more instrumental because it’s all real. There wasn’t a single sound that was made on the computer, it was all live. That was the biggest transition between the albums.  

It almost feels like growing up in a way. With Juno, it wasn’t a choice for you to use certain instruments, there was a sense of making do with what you’ve got which feels very youthful. On Big Ideas, you can see how your sound has developed. 

Remi Wolf: For sure. Now that I can look back on both projects, I can see exactly what I was doing. In the moment, going into Big Ideas, I was thinking, ‘I just want to work in studios.’ I saw how that decision really shaped everything. I think that was such a huge growing moment for me, I wanted to have that feeling of being an adult and having a place to work. It’s hard when you’re working in your house – for everybody. It was a similar feeling of wanting to go work in a coffee shop – just separating the two spaces. Especially being on the road, it was nice to come back to my home, go to the studio and come back again and relax.   

Finally, what’s next for you coming into the new year? 

Remi Wolf: We’re going to Australia, we’re doing Laneway, which is a festival over there. We’re doing a couple headlines and then we’re doing part two of Big Ideas in North America and then it will be festival season. I will be focusing on both writing and live stuff. I think it’s cool to work on writing and then be forced to go away and experience something drastic – there’s always a story to tell. 

Remi Wolf’s Big Ideas is out now