Words by Sreya Nair | Photos Courtesy of The Wrecks
Hailing from California, The Wrecks entered the music scene in 2015 with drummer Billy Nally, bassist Aaron Kelley, guitarist Nick Schmidt, and lead singer Nick Anderson. Their debut EP, We Are The Wrecks, released in 2016, displayed an alternative rock style, carrying into their first album, Infinitely Ordinary, in 2020 and their next album Sonder in 2022. As the Wrecks begin their INSIDE : OUTSIDE Tour, it is clear that their recently released record INSIDE : is starkly different.
The first track, “I Didn’t Use To,” perfectly sets the tone for the album. This song reflects on happiness, questioning why we aren’t as happy as when we were younger, and the newfound self-consciousness we develop as we grow older. The track begins with birds chirping, returning us to that younger time. The chorus “I think I was made wrong / I didn’t usе to” is a personal truth we all have trouble expressing growing up – why does this self-disappointment feel so deep inside when I didn’t feel this way before? In a press conference, lead singer and lyricist Nick Anderson explained, “It has a lot of honest articulations about coming into some realizations about yourself.” Through lyrics like “I am capable / I stand 6 feet high,” “I hold records in sports / My range is four octaves wide,” and “I am flawed, I’m a fraud / I am whatever you like” we see the cyclical journey from the brief reassurance we give ourselves before falling back into a spiral of self-effacement.
The Wrecks released two songs early “Speed” and “Always, Everytime” – which appear as the third and fourth tracks, respectively. The “Speed” music video takes place in a house slowly invaded by plants as the band plays among the foliage. Anderson, the director of this music video, described the process of transforming his home into this indoor wilderness. “I’m looking around my house – the LA fires happened, so someone else was supposed to move and it didn’t work out – I’m looking at this four-bedroom house that’s empty, and I’m like, I have no roommates. I’m like, okay, so that sucks, but how often do I have a house to myself to make art in all the rooms?” In describing the collaborative process of creating the video, Anderson gushed over his bandmates, “The guys have been super helpful – some days we were moving plants from room to room, and they didn’t even ask what we were filming… they’re just always so down and offering such great insight – just indulging and jumping into everything head-first – it is so rare to find people super down in that way.” We see Anderson’s vision for INSIDE : come to life in the video, the bizarre and revealing nature of self-isolation always allowing for the outside to make its way in.
The record ends with “I Don’t Know,” which concludes with an important message. Throughout the record, we are taken on an emotional journey as songs focus on longing, depression, bursts of confidence, and grappling with self-consciousness. With “I Don’t Know,” The Wrecks remind us that it’s okay not to know why we feel this way. The whole record is a struggle of inner thoughts that we can’t reason and mixtures of emotions we can’t explain, and this anthem silences know-it-alls who perpetuate the idea that we should know everything. The chorus repeats, “Well if you’re asking I don’t know / All the shit I need is on my phone / Just admit, you don’t know shit, you’re not alone / We all live in this blissful great unknown.” The underlying annoyance in the lyrics is reminiscent of the Wrecks’s debut EP – through their lyrics, they point out absurdities while maintaining the pop style of the record’s previous tracks.
“I Don’t Know” concludes with the sound of crickets, a full circle from the beginning of INSIDE : where track one begins with bird chirps. This representation of nature from the beginning to the end shows the main point Anderson proves in this record: “The record INSIDE : is about being locked away for so long that the outside world starts growing in through the cracks in the walls – you can spend so much time indoors that it feels like foliage starts creeping in through like reaching out.”
INSIDE : is a uniquely vulnerable record from The Wrecks. While past records have portrayed common themes like grieving over disappointing romantic experiences, INSIDE : describes uncommon themes of common experiences. It explores the root of feelings of inadequacy and describes feelings, typically seen as indescribable, directly and accurately. As we wait for OUTSIDE, the other half of this two-part project INSIDE : OUTSIDE, we can expect a similar direct delivery, helping to explain the difficult-to-describe experiences we all go through.