“A Happy Mess of Things”: Walk the Moon Preview New LP ‘Heights’ with Songs of Perseverance, Love, & Inner Light

Walk the Moon talk to Atwood Magazine about hitting their ten year milestone, the many different angles of success, the band’s new songs, and what we can expect from their new album, ‘HEIGHTS’.

Stream: ‘Can You Handle My Love??’ – Walk the Moon

I want people to hear us and be reminded of what they love about life, what they love about themselves, all the good and the bad and the things that have made their lives worth living.

For a decade now, Walk the Moon have been one of the alternative world’s brightest sparks of life – a band whose energizing, invigorating music never fails to inspire, while lighting a heartwarming flame deep down inside. This held true for the group’s 2012 self-titled major label debut; for 2014’s blockbuster sophomore LP TALKING IS HARD (which spawned the smash hit “Shut Up and Dance”); and more recently, for 2017’s What If Nothing. In short, this captivating quality has come to be a mainstay of Walk the Moon’s art and artistry.

Hold your breath
Another deep dive all the way down
Keep your head
This is the part of the movie where we turn it all around

Breakin’ away and we’re takin’ on giants
Just you and me, ’cause the underdogs do it like that
Another day, are we livin’ or dyin’?
Never say never, never look down, don’t know the way
But baby let’s go

Lemme hear you say, “We’ll never look back”
No, no, no, lemme hear you say
Breaking away and we’re taking on giants
Just you and mе, ’cause the underdogs do it likе that
Another day and we’ll take another giant down

– “Giants,” Walk the Moon

For lead singer and founding member Nicholas Petricca, this musical project has always been about capturing life’s magic, wonder, and beauty in song – whether that happens consciously or, more often than not, subconsciously. Walk the Moon’s music balances substance and celebration – or as Petricca describes, “the whiff, the taste of being there, and the precious memories that make life, life; the good stuff that makes you sad when it ends.”

There is an art to persevering and continuing to come to the work with a smile and with a positive attitude, and there are ups and downs even within the dream.

Considering this touching and sentimental outlook, it may come as no surprise to learn that despite being over ten years into their career together, Walk the Moon approach life – and within it, their own songwriting – with glowing excitement, humble appreciation, wide eyes, and open minds. Today the trio consisting of Petricca, Sean Waugaman, and Eli Maiman are currently gearing up to release their fourth album, HEIGHTS – a record they themselves describe as a “return to form.”

“It feels a little like the sun’s on our face again, and that’s the attitude we have going into this next record,” Maiman beams, speaking to Atwood Magazine on a recent four-way Zoom call with his band mates.

Petricca candidly agrees. “I feel like all our strengths are on ten on this album, and we continue to experiment with what Walk the Moon can be and what we’re allowing Walk the Moon to be.”

Written mostly pre-pandemic and recorded remotely from separate locations during COVID-19’s 2020 lockdown, HEIGHTS finds Walk the Moon excelling despite the circumstances – beating all odds to make their best album yet. Rather than teasing out tracks one single at a time, the band released a thrilling three-song sampler in mid-July. “Can You Handle My Love??,” “Giants,” and “I’m Good” hit hard as separate and distinct summer anthems, each filled with dramatic passion and the band’s signature charismatic charm: Buoyant, charged beats, driving guitars and pianos, and searing, lively choruses make for an enthralling listening experience perfect for hot, sunny days and cool nights alike. It’s an irresistible backdrop for lyrics that delve deep into the psyche, our emotional states, and the everyday, finding Petricca and co. reckoning with the natural ebb and flow of relationships and the push and pull of life itself, and trying to make sense of it all.

I woke up this morning and my vitals were low
My eyes were red from crying, I was up until four
Turned up the sound of silence, lying dead on the floor

It’s just the way that I am, I’m a mess, and it’s literal
I got a hole in my heart, gonna fill it with chemicals

– “Can You Handle My Love??,” Walk the Moon

There’s a lot to be taken from just these three songs – let alone the many still yet to come – and Walk the Moon are confident that this preview successfully captures, in no small part, the ethos and energy of their fourth major label studio LP. “It’s an album about sticking it out,” Petricca explains. “Everyone has had to cash in on their ability to persevere in the last couple of years, and it’s reflected in different songs in different ways – and it’s not a song that’s all about COVID or an album all about the pandemic – but these themes, they’re cyclical and they’re reflected in the rest of life.”

HEIGHTS, Petricca further states, is all about “staying true to who you are despite whatever is going on. Staying real, staying true, staying committed to that light: The inner light.” He lovingly refers to it as “a happy mess of things,” which ultimately is a beautiful way of looking at life in general: A bountiful and tragic, revelrous and reflective happy mess.

Atwood Magazine spoke with Walk the Moon about hitting their ten year milestone, the many different angles of success, and the band’s new songs, and what we can expect from HEIGHTS. Dive into our interview below, and listen to “Can You Handle My Love??,” “Giants,” and “I’m Good” out now!

HEIGHTS is set to release later this fall.

— —

A CONVERSATION WITH WALK THE MOON

Nicholas Petricca: This is great! I’ve been thrown into the deep end of emotions, and it’s great. I guess we’ve been having this ten-year feeling. It’s a little extended because Eli joined the band in February 2011, is that right?

Eli Maiman: Yeah.

Nicholas Petricca: Yeah, making this iteration of the band 10 years old a few months ago, and then that was around the time when “Anna Sun” was still indie, we were still unsigned and we were getting wined and dined and meeting managers and agents in all kinds of suits! The record didn’t come out until 2012, so this 10-year mark or 10-year feeling is a little extended for us in some ways. And it’s wild, you grow up together… Because of the lost year, we all got to meet Eli’s nearly 19-month-old child. I’d met him briefly once before, shortly after he was born.

A decade is such a lifetime, such a significant chunk of life – and so when you ask that question, I go to the personal world of us as people who’ve just changed and evolved and experienced so much. As far as the band goes, thinking about the music, this record in some ways for me really preserves something of the original spark of Walk the Moon, while also feeling like a swan dive into something new. I don’t know, I feel like I want to stop there and see if the guys have anything.

Sean Waugaman: It’s weird thinking about the time difference between when “Anna Sun” came out and now, because we were literally still burning CDs and passing them out, and that was our business card back then. It was sort of the beginning of when you could use a music video or something on YouTube or a website as your business card, but it still made sense to burn CDs. I think it was probably the last time I burned a CD was… The last 500 CDs I burned were Walk the Moon CDs, so I’ll say it like that. [chuckle] But yeah, connecting that with what’s going on now, we still have a homemade element to our stuff, ’cause within the last year we’ve been making this album or finishing this album at home. Yeah, so it’s really exciting to keep that part of our aesthetic moving forward.

Eli Maiman: Yeah, it gets pretty corny when you start using space metaphors with a band called Walk the Moon, but it does kind of feel like we’ve orbited a little bit and we’re re-entering the next revolution where a lot of this record was made from home and it’s got some of that kind of a little bit of a return to form of earlier work from our career, and so it feels exciting and it feels a little… I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, it feels a little like the sun’s on our face again, and that’s the attitude we have going into this next record!

Nicholas Petricca: In some ways, no. There was no preconceived notion. And it was very much like a crash course: The band existed before this line-up solidified as kind of like me and a revolving door of other people, and it took a handful of years, and maybe we’re still finding our way. We have such different musical tastes and come from pretty different musical backgrounds, and so finding our band’s musical identity has been a constant evolving thing. I guess maybe that’s the case for everyone, but it’s not like we’re Greta Van Fleet and we’re coming in, we’re doing “this kind” of music. I think the multiple personality or a multi-faceted kind of “new face on with every song” quality of Walk The Moon is… Maybe that’s just the way I’ve always been and always written a song, but it’s also part of us coming in with lots of different influences.

Eli Maiman: I wanna touch on that, actually – you were saying big choruses, big hooks, driving guitars, big beats, a lot of that was survival instinct in 2010-2011, because we’re playing bars and you need to get people’s attention, right, and you need to keep them captivated. And so we were writing these songs based on what’s it gonna feel like in this live capacity, and how can we keep people engaged and make them remember us when they go home. And so we’ve carried a lot of that attitude with us throughout the years, but then you start playing different places and you start having different levels of audience attention, and you can realize that you can play with things – maybe you don’t have to be on 10 the entire time, and you can let yourself go down to a seven and then get up to a 10. You have this greater lenience from the audience to use dynamic range. And so it changes as the space that you play the music in changes.

But that being said, so many of those early songs still resonate. I’ve had the pleasure of having “Anna Sun” as an adopted song child. “Anna Sun” existed when I came into the band, and so I feel like I can talk about it with a little bit of a third person perspective, and it’s been amazing to watch how that song has not waned. You know what I mean? Every time we play it, I feel it, every time we play it, I watch the audience feel it as well, and there’s something magic that happened there that continues to resonate even 10 years later.

Nicholas Petricca: Yeah, that is wild… I don’t think about it, but when I take a second and look at it, it is almost weird how it doesn’t feel like an old song, or it doesn’t feel like it’s any older than the last record’s songs. A few of those tunes have just stood the test of time and… not waned. It just continues to be in our world, the legend that it is… It’s like Jennifer Aniston or something – no wrinkles. [chuckle]

Nicholas Petricca: Not with that song. That just is all good. All warm feelings – there was a little bit of a long shadow cast with “Shut Up and Dance”, and for me personally, it took a couple of years to get over that. Now, I still get texts almost every week from somebody at a wedding that the wedding band is playing the song. I’m so on-my-knees grateful for the song and for everything that it’s done, and I love the story that it has, and the life that it has taken on. But for a couple of years, it was a bit challenging to feel like that. It was like that misunderstood teenager or something – I’m like, “I’m so much more than this.” It’s like, “I’m not just a lacrosse player, Dad.” [chuckle]

Eli Maiman: When I joined the band, I remember especially early on, the ethos was frequently, “Let’s take things that are maybe not, have maybe have gone out of style and make them cool again. So let’s take something corny and put it through the lens of Animal Collective, or put it through the lens of Local Natives, and make it fresh again.” And so in that way, I always felt like “Shut Up and Dance” was squarely in Walk the Moon’s wheelhouse: It’s not that it’s an outlier, it’s just that it’s not everything. It’s tunnel vision, not unrelated in some way.

Eli Maiman: Absolutely. And these songs that you’re talking about like “Anna Sun,” I think only got to #12 on the alternative chart. So commercially speaking, it wasn’t a huge success, but it’s had this enormous life with fans, and what more could you want out of art? And then you also have this opposite experience where you have the song that’s enormously successful and it’s being played at weddings and stuff, and so it’s kind of the opposite experiences, and we’ve gotten to go through it all and see how it all feels in our career, and how lucky and what a privilege it is.

And then there’s “One Foot” that was a number one alternative song, and crushes live, and it’s still super fun to play. It’s been an enormously varied career, which is something I’m noticing right now as I’m talking it out with you – so thank you for the therapy session. It’s been an incredibly varied career where we’ve got to feel a lot of different angles on success.

Nicholas Petricca: Thank you for those kind words. I really appreciate that. I feel like What If Nothing was something we needed to do as a band. Musically, I think we needed to go some of those places, some of those more experimental or darker heavier places. And for me, personally, it was… The record was being written and released when my dad was dying, and it had been a long, long journey, and there was a lot of built up emotion around that, and it was kind of being released and channeled through the music and the lyrics.

I loved hearing what you said about it. Every day is different, but today I’m like, “I’m not sure how much everyone loved that… Our fans loved that album, but I’m not sure how close to Walk the Moon-ness they felt that was.” For me and for us, it’s created more staples for the tour and for shows moving forward. There’s songs that we can’t not play. For me personally, “Tiger Teeth” is a huge standout on that album, and there’s something about that time as well. This happens with every record. This is a song that was written years and years before, that was an older song where the portal just wasn’t right, and for whatever reason, for whatever was going on – with me and with the band, and musically, what we were open to and where we were headed – that was the right portal for those songs – for a song like “Tiger Teeth,” and I freaking cry [laughs] more nights than I don’t playing that song.

Eli Maiman: I think What If Nothing was an important stepping stone to the new record. I think it was [chuckle] again, I’m going through this as you’re asking me this question, so I pulled up the record to see what the back half was, and what I’m seeing is that this is the beginning of us giving ourselves permission to be long-winded or to groove and say nothing and just let the groove speak for itself, and you’re gonna see more of that on HEIGHTS, the new record, than you have seen on any record before – and it’s because it’s partly because we were empowered from making this last record, from making What If Nothing.

Sean Waugaman: Yeah, What If Nothing was great ’cause we got to branch out and work with some producers that we hadn’t worked with before, one of whom was Mike Elizondo. So it was really, really fun to collaborate with him, especially his sense of rhythm and groove on stuff is unparalleled. [chuckle] He was cool because he would kind of give us free rein, and then go make a phone call, and then come back and kind of review what we’ve been doing in our free time. It’s real fun performing a lot of that work from that album because it’s fun and it’s a challenge performing it, because it was so collaborative. A lot of the percussion parts are very layered and complex, so you kind of have to choose which arms of the octopus you want to be.

But comparing that with this next album, I feel like we really got maybe a little bit more back to the feeling of a live band in a room playing on this next record. There’s still that intricacy on stuff, but we also simplified a lot of the stuff in many ways.

Eli Maiman: Yeah.

Sean Waugaman: Right.

Sean Waugaman: That’s the challenge. We didn’t think it was even possible going into this, to capture the energy of us all being in the same place. Apparently, technology has caught up and we can actually do it while sitting thousands of miles away from each other!

Nicholas Petricca: To quickly go back to the previous question and Sean’s answer, it’s a lot of an even more live sound, and we’re in separate places, and I don’t know, it speaks to how great the musicians are in this band. [chuckle] I’m saying that, but with humility, looking at Sean and Eli and… Sean’s alone in his house. He’s alone in his apartment that he’s transformed into a drum studio, and he’s going after it and we’re watching him on the screen and he’s going after it like he’s at a live show, and it’s just… I think it’s how ingrained that being a band, how ingrained rock music and pop, just live music is in each of us, and how committed everybody is to making this happen. It’s some kind of shamanistic wizard thing that happens, that where Sean’s on his drum throne, and it comes through him, and it’s like the live feeling that’s…

Sean Waugaman: I just had dozens of cardboard, full size cardboard cut-outs of people. [laughs] You can’t see it in the Zoom camera when you’re talking to me. But yeah, that’s how I get that energy.

Nicholas Petricca: Yeah, this has been kind of present for me, not just with Walk the Moon, but especially with the new music and the new record, and who we are… I feel like we’ve been different people, we’ve been different versions of ourselves and finding ourselves and I’m sure we’ll continue to do that, but especially with this record, kind of coming home to the Walk the Moon identity and really setting the stage for, “How do we want to go down in history?”

I keep thinking about it, I want people to hear the music. When they listen to these songs, I just want them to be reminded of what they love about life. I want the music to bring to mind… Especially from the “Anna Sun” days, there’s always been something that’s just trying to convey the feeling of being like, “This was such a moment in my life,” and just convey with the whiff, the taste of being there, and just the precious memories that make life life, that make you sad when it ends. [chuckle] The good stuff that makes you sad when it ends. I want people to hear us and be reminded of what they love about life, what they love about themselves, all the good and the bad and the things that have made their lives worth living. And I want them to forget all about all that, and just have fun.

Nicholas Petricca: So open-ended. What do we say? I think there’s a lot of through lines. There’s one… One thing I love about this record is we’re really flexing new skills. There’s a song that’s coming out, that’s kind of the first time Eli came in with the guitar and sang a song back to front, and we were all just [stunned]. We took that and finished it together and made it what it was, and it’s on the album and it’s this beautiful moment on the album. There’s another song where, like with “Sound of Awakening” on the last record, I really went deep on the production and I’m producer on the track.

I feel like all our strengths are on ten on this album, and we continue to experiment with what Walk the Moon can be and what we’re allowing Walk the Moon to be. It’s an album about sticking it out. Everyone has had to cash in on their ability to persevere in the last couple of years, and it’s reflected in different songs in different ways, and it’s not a song that’s all about COVID or an album all about the pandemic, but these themes, they’re cyclical and they’re reflected in the rest of life, and often the lyrics are very autobiographical for me, or coming out of my journals and stuff like that. Just staying true to who you are despite whatever is going on and in relation, in your love life or you’re going and seeking, finding yourself in your career or whatever, or losing loved ones, etc. They’re just staying real, staying true, staying committed to that light: The inner light.

Nicholas Petricca: Yeah, a lot of it predates. The album is gonna be book-ended, first and last track by songs that were written eight, nine years ago and evolved over time, and most of the lyrics were pre-pandemic, but I think where the album evolved in that space was more musically, and us having these wide stretches of time at home with idle hands [chuckle] and getting to make a mess of things, make a happy mess of things.

Nicholas Petricca: I was in a very dramatic, tumultuous relationship. And it’s interesting just listening to you read the lyrics… It is interesting how the themes of whatever I was going through six months, nine months before the pandemic hit, those things still relate and they’re relevant, and I guess that’s just the way songs work and the way human emotion works. It reflects and revolves, and it’s why someone can get totally different meaning from one song from the next person.

I felt like everyday, there was just a new challenge: Something that seemed impossible to work through with this person, but every single time we would make it through! And in the good times with this person, we had this courageous attitude of, “And we can make it through this, and we can make it through this, and we can make it through this.” And like clockwork every day, there’s something more, and just believing in the light on the other side. Ultimately, we broke up and then that was the light on the other side for me! [laughs]

Nicholas Petricca: Same relationship, a few months later! [chuckle] But really, it’s something I learned from my parents and through my path with my dad that has really been a part of my happiness and just how I approach life, which is just everything. Everything is a gift, no matter what it is, everything is a gift if you allow it to be. Experiencing the darkest of the dark that I can imagine in a love connection and genuinely being, at the end of it being like, “Wow. Thank you for everything. Bless you, I wish you love. I wish you well, I should probably be talking shit about you. But, I want you to be happy.”

I should probably be running back to therapy
cryin’ all my tears on a couch
While they analyze everything that’s wrong with me
Memories burnin’ down to ash in my mouth, and I–

I should probably be drinking ‘til I’m on the street
Calling out your name like a fool with a bottle
Tryna argue with the Uber ’bout quickest route to you
But I’m not

My friends wonder why I’m not bleedin’ and cryin’
When I say I’m wishin’ you well
They tell me for all of the shit that you put me through
I should be givin’ you hell

But I hope you smile when you wake up
I hope you dream when you close your eyes
I should bе mad but it’s all love
I should, maybe I should
I hope you find what you’rе made of
I hope you find out the world’s alright
I should be mad but it’s all love
‘cause I’m good, oh I’m good, yeah I’m good

Nicholas Petricca: I think a lot of what can fuel perseverance is love… Is self-love, self-acceptance. That song is kind of this self-love anthem through the lens of meeting somebody new. And yeah, just coming into a playful acceptance of how messy life is and how imperfect I am, we all are. And that there’s a lot of beauty in owning that. And a lot of swag and confidence. “Swag” is not limited to the cool kids in the back of the bus; everyone has their own version of that rock star quality in whatever it is that they love and whoever it is that they are, and the completeness of whoever they are.

Yeah, I don’t know, that song’s also a combination of a lot of some of my favorite influences. Like Barenaked Ladies and stuff still tethered to the ’80s, still with like this loving kite cord to the ’80s but reaching into the ’90s, and so the music that was happening when we were all growing up and Savage Garden…

What else? Is there anything else in there? I’m like ringing out the towel. Yeah, that’s one also that’s just like, even though it’s more piano driven, one of the first songs of ours that’s really fully piano, there’s not much guitar in that song. To me it has that sense of early “Walk the Moon,” just like that sunshine. So, I’m stoked that it’s out in the world and is inviting people into the world of the next record.

Eli Maiman: To be clear, there’s really excellently, expertly deployed guitar parts [chuckle] that really propel the song at just the moments where it needs to be propelled.

Eli Maiman: I think we’re still working on that a little bit ourselves, but I think I’ve got something I can give you. Something that we, Walk the Moon, really like to do is give our records titles that can be taken a couple of ways, depending on what kind of day you’re having, depending on what you’re bringing to the record. And this one is no exception to that. This one is there to be a raw shock of what you’re seeing in the record and in yourself on whatever day that you’re listening to it… That’s the most curious answer I’ve ever given in any interview ever!

Nicholas Petricca: I think it’s very real though. I think that is the most interesting thing to us. I guess it’s way less interesting for us to be like, “This is what it means.” And it’s way more interesting to allow, just like with the songs – it’s always like, “If you’re gonna ask me what it means,” it’s what it means to me, it’s not really what it means, because I don’t believe in that. It’s like the song is an invitation for you to go and have your experience.

Nicholas Petricca: I really do want people to take away from this a greater fondness for themselves and for life. Like for us, I think even though we’re living our dream, we are getting to make records and go on tour, and that’s our living, it has been such a journey in each of our individual lives and internally, and there is an art to persevering and continuing to come to the work with a smile and with a positive attitude, and there are ups and downs even within the dream. And one thing that I feel like I’m getting out of it, one thing I feel like we collectively are getting out of it is, this is really what we love to do, and we’re committed to doing it. We want to create music and bring it to the people. And that’s part of what we can do for the world, for ourselves and for everyone else, just to keep making stuff that we love and playing it and sharing it and having a good ass time. And I’m hopeful that everything continues to go to plan and we get to be out there and in front of human beings and making magic together. On the road, this fall on the dream plane tour – tickets available now! [laughter]

Nicholas Petricca: … I just want to keep playing. I wanna play more hits. Let’s play bigger and bigger crowds, more people. I just wanna play. The music, it’s meant to be shared. It’s meant to be, the more that it’s out there, creating memories, being a part of people’s lives, lifting people up or pissing people off or making people sad or whatever it does. We’re a band that can crush a small room of 50 people, we’re a band that can crush a big stage on an arena – and I wanna do it all.

— —

:: stream/purchase Walk the Moon here ::

— — — —

Connect to Walk the Moon on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

? © Grant Spanier

:: Stream Walk the Moon ::