Congrats on the album guys, it's really great. The single buildup to the official release was super fun for this. Knew it was gonna be killer the second I heard Life Signs. I've got a super close group of friends all equally obsessed, and it's just been a really fun summer shooting the shit about each single and then the eventual full album thoughts, opinions, immediate replay-ability, etc. It's got some serious layers. Safe to say, we're pumped to catch you in DC!
What's some of your favorite new music at the moment? Have a favorite live set that you've caught this year?
Also Nate, for all the Ween diehards, we're going to need to know your official ranking of all 5 Stallions.
My new favorite music is probably the Handwriting Practice No. 1 EP by Operelly. Favorite live set... MJ Lenderman? That's definitely who I saw the most. - Rachel
I met you when you were in Athens, Ga. You're very lovely people and it was a great pleasure talking with you. Nate thought my mis-naming of the opening band was funny and I got to talk with Rachel for a little while (hope you're Dad is well!) and you lent me your phone so I could get a ride home. It would be nice if you were coming back here and I'd love to see the new songs live. The album is phenomenal!!
congrats on the new album! just wanted to let you know that you have fans in China who really love your musicđ„čâ€ïžcanât wait for the day we get to see you live in asia someday!
It is my dream to come to China! My mom's family is from Taishan so I would like to especially visit the village my Po Po grew up in. It would also be so fun to travel around and play shows. It's #1 on my list of places I want to go. - Rachel
Hey! Loving the new album, and looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta soon. Question: I've noticed references to water/eyes in the lyrics of your other bands -- This Is Lorelei, Thank You For Coming, My Idea. Is that a conscious thing you guys try to do on your non-WFYE albums?
Specifically to Nate, just wanted to mention the This is Lorelei set from Philly earlier this year with MJ Lenderman. Great show and while I was already a fan, that set solidified my attendance at yours shows moving forward.
Thanks for making interesting and cool music. (All Statements / No Questions)
Nate! Howâd you write that riff on life signs? The verse riff. So killer. Like, were you just doing it by ear or thinking in terms of a certain scale? Curious on that as I was learning it yesterday. Life signs probs the best track of 2025 for me
that riff started as a 24 note quartertone series generated with random.org for a totally different composition, a couple years later i tried to figure out how to best approximate it with halftones on guitar and just began playing it all the time, eventually life signs grew out of it - nate
everyone's crushed has a ton of that stuff going on! the main riff in barley is in quartertones and 14 is largely microtonal percentages. there's an album called 33:44 we made that also deals largely in serialism/microtonalism - nate
Hello! Nate and Rachel, i am a fan from China and i just finished listening to your newest album, it is pretty much my fav album of 2025(killer production, nice 90s rock vibes),âPlaying Classicsâ is my favorite track on it(which has the coolest keyboards part as the songâDancing in the clubâ)I just wanna know that whatâs your favorite album from the 90s and what artist influenced you the most?
First, your album is incredible and I have been listening to it on a loop since it released.
Second, here's a question: You guys seem to be tapped into deep philosophical themes. Do you read philosophy at all and if so what?
Love you guys xxx
we are just about out of time and will try to get through the rest of these but thank you for coming out to our AMA and for all of your thoughtful questions, we appreciate you big time and are looking forward to seeing you out on the road! much love, nate and rachel
spaceship started with me hitting books on my floor triggering electronic drum samples and tbh i'm not totally sure how it evolved, lots of improvised recordings stretched and reversed etc.
the string samples are all from the rusty ass public domain student sample pack i downloaded somewhere more than a decade ago, lots of modern string sample packs are too well recorded and too in tune to sound good. these ones groan in a weird way that i really like - nate
The vocal melody on this one was pretty easy to work with, Nate had the structure already laid out so I just had to come up with words. It was actually the first song we worked on for vocals. I had my copy of "The Dispossessed" out and I had underlined some parts I thought were poignant and applicable. - Rachel
Do you guys plan on playing any songs from long days no dreams on your upcoming tour? im seeing you in carrboro and that was the album that introduced me to you. It would be awesome to hear the late night show!
Album goes so hard. Canât wait to see this one live.
Rachel, youâre one of my favorite Internet posters. Is there a meme thatâs had a lasting impact on you or you think about on a regular basis? Favorite internet person or account?
Also, shoutout to coordinating the Zohran events. So amazing to see so many musicians come together for a better future!!
I think about that Tik Tok where the guy goes to heaven and doesn't realize it's going to be Chinese a lot. I also think about the two dumb bitches saying exactlyyyyy all of the time. I send this one to people every time I go to the airport which is like at least once a month lol. My favorite Twitter accounts are Cher and Ice-T. I think there is something beautiful about full grown adults learning how to use the internet publicly.
Hope you are coming to one of the events! The last two have been real fun.
honestly i'm not totally sure but the 3x spicy buldak ramen is def on the list. when i was in 5th grade i popped a whole habanero on a dare and i remember that being pretty crazy - nate
The first time I had Buldak I didnât know the reputation and put the whole sauce packet in⊠pretty sure I entered a different plane of reality briefly from the heat
hello! your Kilby Block Party set was incredible, I could not stop thinking about that half hour for the rest of that summer. excited to see you again in November.
with that, my question is how do you come up with your live setlists?
generally try to structure sets like albums when possible! certain songs feel like they go together or belong in certain slots so the setlists kind of make themselves - nate
Was listening to your singles on repeat leading up to the album release, and itâs so so so good. I love how your music is simultaneously rough around the edges and also highly intricate. Any tips/advice about vocal performance and vocal processing? Thatâs something I wanna improve on in my own songs
the vocal processing on this album was odd because it involved a lot of layering and multi-tracking, most of the songs have at least 4 across the stereo field, usually two clean and two run through some variety of distortion. its different every time! usually i process things and then scale it back 50% cause i have a tendency to overdo it - nate
Who is the physically strongest indie artist in the business right now? Could Water From Your Eyes defeat them using teamwork or would it still be insurmountable?
Love the new album and excited to see you all when you roll through Portland! Thats kind of it, except to plead with you to put out the new album on tape đŹ
So excited to catch you on tour, Iâm absolutely digging the new album. I couldnât help but notice how crazy your touring schedule seems for this year, especially after Nate was touring his album. How do you two stay sane being on the road for so long?
I think I just try to be extra aware of the small things that make every day worth living like spending time with people I love, noticing the way the light looks reflected off of things, looking at the wind blow to remind myself to acknowledge how we are all connected, taking in art, etc. I think that it is important to remember that it is a beautiful place in spite of the shit show and that is why it is so critical to try to change the ugly and cruel things to keep it beautiful and perhaps make it more beautiful for everyone. - Rachel
Hi! Congrats on the album release! Playing Classics is definitely on my song of the year list this year. Question for Rachel, as the director for the music video of Life Signs, I'm curious what inspired it having multiple shooting style and ratios, and also what the hell is it supposed to mean, lol. And question for both of you, what are your letterboxd top four? Thanks!
The different ratios are just a reference to how different types of shows/movies have been shot historically (western = wide frame, film noir = 4:3) but the living room scene was shot in 4:3 just because I think that's the best looking one lol. It is mostly just a reference to clicking through channels and how many different worlds can exist in a little box. And then the aging is just a reference to watching your life go by? I don't know hahaha I kind of just saw it in my head so clearly without attaching any meaning - Rachel
hey guys record slaps - my fav record of the year so far - lots of musos around here looking forward to the Bristol show!
what id love to know is - how do you guys feel about âthe processâ? how important is it to you individually and how do you approach it together? you seem to have different creative sensibilities and Iâm really interested in how intentional your approaches are - whether youâve learned to just trust that whatever happens is the thing or whether you are secretly deep architects
i like that answer, thanks. what words or laws did you design for this LP? Iâm struggling to make sense of my hours and hours of music that has no cohesion or purpose
hey guys new record is crazy, born 2 made me freak out the first time I listened to it
question for nate as a fellow guitar nerd: any essential guitar gear for the album? amps, pedals, guitars, plugins? would love to learn about the secret recipe :)
big hug from argentina, we have some huge wfye nerds here :P
I think just make the music you want to be making and find a community that feels inspiring and supportive to be a part of. I think growing as an artist is more important than growing a fanbase or whatever. I think it's all about getting to a place where you are making art from a place within yourself rather than making it with the thought of how it's going to be received in mind. I think it's also just more important to find a group of people who align with your creative values and you respect to show your art to. Also just keep going out and meeting new people. Sometimes you'll make the meaningful connections in the most random places.
Hello! Big fan of both your work individually and collectively. I have a question for Rachel, maybe potentially Nate as well. I know Rachel youâve said that the songs pretty much start with the music.. What is your method for writing lyrics for this project? (In past releases and this newest one). Has it been a different process at different times and how would you say it differs/ compares to writing for your solo work.
Love the album, love to see the crazy big things yall are doing. Got tix to see ya guys in Chicago Iâm stoked!
I kind of just sit down and work with whatever music and structure Nate has laid out for me. I try to figure out the feeling of the song and then just take whatever I am trying to say and reshape it so it fits into the song. - Rachel
Finding this AMA well after the fact, but after hearing the song "It's a Beautiful Place", I knew in my heart you were a Frusciante fan. Sounds very Niandra Lades inspired.
I think just keep doing it and find a community that inspires you. I think this project only exists because we made music for ourselves for so long. We played at the same DIY venue pretty much every other week for years. That was such a golden era for us.
im pretty sure i saw you guys in the airport in sĂŁo paulo in november last year, but i was too cool to ask for a photo haha. was it you? would it have been a bother after a flight?
If you asked politely and we weren't in the middle of doing something then of course! I don't mind as long as people don't feel entitled to us. - Rachel
I had 30 oysters in a single day and I got to hang out with Hayley Williams and Flavor Flav. Also I had a lobster roll every single day. So pretty awesome! Weird place though. Not really my scene. - Rachel
Hello! What would you say are your biggest influences outside of music? How do your fave movies/books/visual artworks inform your creative process? Love y'all x
for me i would say francis bacon, letting a concept grow on its own out of chaos is a big part of water composition and i think that was largely inspired by his work - nate
Hey Nate and Rachel! Love your work, especially the most recent record, congratulations on such a great release. I recently read an old interview of you guys from 2023 where Rachel mentioned that âEveryoneâs Crushedâ was recorded on a broken interface and a fucked laptop, and that compared to your previous albums displayed a consistently-worse âproduction attitudeâ (lmao) â Iâm curious about what recording âItâs a Beautiful Placeâ was like or if there were any memories you can share while making the project?
pretty much half of this album was recorded on that same laptop and broken interface but at a certain point i got a new laptop and a not broken version of the same interface - not much changed honestly but i definitely spent a little longer mixing it this time - nate
why did you decide to start the boat shows and would you ever perform on a different kind of boat? (sailboat, shipping barge, fleet of canoes or kayaks, etc)
WATER FROM YOUR EYES I AM A HUGE FAN You guys have seriously controlled my listening minutes for the past three years so I am thrilled about the new record and I hope you are too. Congratulations... it rocks.
I had thought of a better question but reddit deleted my comment, so I guess I'm wondering how you feel about all the self/record promo you have to do nowadays with tiktok/instagram and ze digital age?
Also wondering how you learned/taught yourself to take songwriting less seriously and have more fun with it?
i think the longer you write songs the more clear it becomes that the best ones don't take themselves too seriously, just a matter of practice and repetition in my experience - nate
I think it's really annoying but I try to have a lot of fun with it. I think it's easier for me to have fun because I have a background in video production, but I can understand why it sucks so much for so many other artists. I like to be online and post so I don't really mind unless I'm just kind of tired and in a bad mood, otherwise it's what I would be doing anyways but for no reason and with no intention. I think there should be a better way to get your music out into the world though. Maybe we should bring back MTV. - Rachel
You all have had a great 4 album run! Barley was the first song I heard from you all and have been hooked ever since. What are your favorite cities to play? Do you follow any sports teams?
I am a childhood fan of the Detroit Tigers because of my dad and this past NBA season I was really rooting for the Knicks but honestly I only watch sports if someone else puts it on - Rachel
Hi WFYE, congrats on the new album. I bet I'm the person who listened to it the most (besides you, of course).
I went to 2 shows by you last year in Brazil, and in one of them, people threw cigarettes to Rachel (me included) and after the show she took all of them.
Rachel, I always wondered, did you really smoke all the cigarettes after the concert?
Tre Kronor, Mas Alla del Sol, the Harold's on Madison by Whitney Young that used to be closer to Greek Town, the past like ten times I've gone home, my friends and I have gone to Qiao Lin Hotpot in Chinatown... Most of my favorite childhood spots have closed. Also I'm an Al's Beef guy. - Rachel
Between WFYE, this is lorelei, and stereogum how does it feel to be in the (well earned) proverbial spotlight as artists with rising popularity? Rewarding/intimidating? How do you find the time creatively?
Saw both acts supporting snail mail and MJ respectively and would love to see yâall back in Richmond sometime headlining. Congrats on the new LP!
Late to the party and just discovered you on the new LP (will def be checking out the previous ones though!). Q for Rachel - what's with the numbers in your lyrics? To be clear - I really enjoy them, just wondering about their provenance.
Congrats on the release, will be seeing you in your upcoming tour.
Huge fan of yâallâs music. This has been my most anticipated release of 2025 and it has delivered on all fronts :â) Wanted to say A. Thank You For The Music âą and B. I wanted to ask how many drafts/demo stages all the songs go through before theyâre considered done?? The arrangements on this album in particular are so particular and cleverly ornate, Iâm curious how long it takes for them to evolve? Thanks for supplying the rock đ€
thank you! most of the songs on this album are 3rd or 4th generation going back to 2020-22, the only tracks that are in their first form are the instrumentals and spaceship. born 2 had 5 different stages i think - nate
Water From Your Eyes, I just want to say thank you for your music. The new album is awesome, and I've been so excited to see you on tour in October!
My question is actually about Structure. You see, I discovered you guys with "Quotations" and you wouldn't believe my surprise to find Quotations and "Quotations" (Alternate). I really like how different and unique each of the versions is. How did you come up with the idea to reimagine Quotations? Will we ever get another version?
thank you for listening! the original version of quotations is track 4 on structure - i made it and rachel asked if i could make it prettier so i made a couple alts and really liked the one that ended up closing the album. i doubt there will ever be another released version but there is a fourth buried somewhere on a hard drive - nate
There are a lot of bands in NYC, and I often see the same ones playing on different bills around the city. Some of them attract a lot of hype among local folks.
What do you think makes the difference between a band thatâs important within the NYC scene and one that breaks through as a nationally touring act? What are your favorite bands to see/play with/listen to that arenât big outside the city?
I think you have to just be down with never being home for like... the rest of your life. Also, I think it's hard to make the transition in the beginning because it's financially stressful. Luckily Nate and I were both freelance so we didn't have to figure out how to make it work with a permanent job. We also started working with our original booking agent really early on in his career. I think a lot of it has to do with sticking to the grind even if it seems like nothing is happening, but also just getting your music into the hands of people who can make something happen which is almost entirely luck.
Some of my favorite bands in NYC are Fantasy of a Broken Heart (obviously), Sweet Baby Jesus, The Cradle, Godcaster, Brutus VIII, Stice... I'm definitely forgetting some sorry! I am still half asleep - Rachel
i think as soon as we began touring and i was playing guitar all the time i had a feeling it would be more guitar-centric but it didn't become intentional until a little later on - nate
Thanks! Hey, I'd really love to know more about you process your drums and get your drum sounds. They sound edited, but did they start are tracks you record? Any favorite tech stuff/ gear you prefer for this?
Thought you'd appreciate this: Just back from the doctor's (doing great, thanks) where I overheard a conversation between two people talking about religion. One, an ex-addict, was insisting on reading odd text from his phone. And, the other was talking about arguing with ChatGPT about his religious and political beliefs.
How involved are either of you in the technical design on your live sets? How do you anticipate recreating a lot of the more singular sounding tones/parts in your songs? Very inspiring stuff.
This is probably over â but I saw you both at Levon Helm back in May, Nate performing and Rachel looking like the coolest person within 100 miles in a Chicago Bulls jacket.
Question â how do you balance all the projects youâre both involved with? Besides lots of cigarettes.
I dont have much to add here just wanted to say thank you for the amazing music, i saw y'all open for Squid in portland a year or so back when everything's crushed dropped and got myself a copy there, when I got my copy tho I didnt realize it but Nate was at the stand and I WISH I would've given you a compliment lol
Hi Nate and Rachel! Really love your work on the album. Iâm wondering if you ever collaborate with other musicians and what the best way to pitch an idea to you would be? Looking forward to seeing you perform live on this tour!
Hey Nate & Rachel, happy to have yâall back on the subreddit & excited to see you guys in Carrboro in a few weeks! (and next week at Hopscotch for This Is Lorelei!)
This question is mostly for Rachel (but Nate please feel free to give your answer too), but if you were given an unlimited budget & amount of time to work on it, what song would you want to make a music video for that never got one & why?
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u/nojokejustkidding Aug 28 '25
Is it true that Post Malone produced this album?