Nat and Alex Wolff

There once was a time when Nat and Alex Wolff were synonymous with everyone’s childhoods. Over a decade ago the actor and musician brothers were once a fixture on screens across the globe, known for their work as children and teens in film and TV. Now, Nat and Alex, 30 and 27 respectively, are all grown up — and their music has, too. It’s been almost 14 years since the release of their debut album Black Sheep and since then they’ve gone from strength to strength, delicately and meticulously crafting a discography that is as in flux as they are.

We’re catching the duo in New York, the place where they were born and raised, right in between tour dates opening up on Billie Eilish’s tour in support of her critically acclaimed album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT. Their schedules have, as one can imagine, been insane — starting the tour in Canada and hitting up several cities across America, including Madison Square Garden. Simultaneously, they’ve been promoting “Backup Plan” and “Soft Kissing Hour,” the first singles in what is assumed to be a series of tracks that will, inevitably, make up a body of work. Seven years separates their EP, Public Places, and their most recent record, 2023’s Table For Two. With more music on the way, it’s apparent just how excited they are to rhapsodize about the music they have been working on.

“When we were working on our debut album Black Sheep, we were both teenagers,” says Nat, reflecting on the growth they’ve had over the last decade and a half — particularly with taking on more ownership of their music. “I was 15 and Alex was 12 and we had to fight the producer to let us play all of the instruments ourselves. Since those years, Alex had an electronic band called Dissonant Airwaves that never saw the light of day. Maybe it’s not the best music Alex has ever made, but he became like a studio genius during that time. Now, we work with a great producer. Obviously, we worked with Billie [Eilish], who’s an amazing producer, but I think we just have a way better handle of the studio and we’ve just become better and better songwriters. Now we collaborate a lot more on the songwriting than we did when we were kids. I used to say that it felt like Alex on one song and me on the next, but now it just feels like our songs.”

In every interview, each journalist comments just how much Nat and Alex interject and finish each other’s sentences. As brothers who not only grew up together but whose careers are tied intrinsically, it’s natural they’d be close collaborators. And just like siblings, there are quick remarks and disagreements about height, a discussion solely around eye prescriptions, and random side conversations about Oasis. Attempting to keep up with them mimics a tennis match; sometimes it seems like they are speaking their own language and we’re just lucky to be invited into their world every now and then. 

For people who have been in the business for two decades, much of what they’ve experienced in the last few years — breakups, moving out, finding yourself — has been documented throughout their songs. “There is this throughline of trying to evolve past your childhood angst and trying to be as functional an adult as possible,” explains Nat, touching on themes they’ve been exploring in their work. “There’s a song where I talk about the first time I lived without a roommate and I was living by myself. I had all these grand ideas of what it meant to be an adult. At a certain point, that level of growing up gave me a lot of anxiety. Like in a relationship, there’s something comforting about staying safe even though it’s not healthy.”

There were years when, after living in the same house they grew up in, they both went off and worked on their film careers. Nat took on projects like Gia Coppola’s Mainstream, Amazon Prime’s The Consultant, and took on the role of actor-producer in the romcom Which Brings Me to You, with Alex working on films like Hereditary, Oppenheimer, and the recently released TV series about Canadian writer and musician Leonard Cohen called So Long, Marianne. Still, music is the thing that brings them together. “We were always writing,” states Alex. “Even when we were apart, we always did music. We always had singles and songs released here and there. It was COVID when we got put together. We were all put in a bubble with Nat and his girlfriend at the time, my girlfriend and I, and our friend Austin. We spent the entire lockdown writing and playing music.”

“We found that brotherly connection again in a really beautiful way,” says Nat. “We came back out of COVID with an album, but we had five albums’ worth of music. So now the main issue we’ve had is just paring down which ones we want to put out because we have just such a huge backlog of songs.”

Honing in on their songwriting meant letting go of expectations and zeroing in on whatever is inspiring them at a specific moment. “You have to follow the inspiration, and then mixing is the version of later. Mixing is when you start having to make decisions. I feel like in the studio, anything goes,” says Alex. “You write the song three times. Once when you write it, once when you record it, and then once when you mix it,” explains Nat. “Even if the songs early on felt like the songs we wanted to write, sometimes the recording didn’t. Sometimes it didn’t sound the way that I wanted it to. Now, I feel like whatever people think of it, it’s the exact music that we want to be making. I feel really good about it. It’s the most proud I am of anything.”

For two people who are not new to music, is songwriting something they actively work at or is it something that comes and goes when inspiration strikes? “I remember Paul McCartney said something like, “Well, I just took a walk up the hill, and I had the songwriting mood,” says Alex. “I think you have to wait for the songwriting mood. But to finish a song, you have to work on it more than just the inspiration. The inspiration is something you follow, but you cut it off before it gets monotonous, and you don’t want to finish it. Then, you go back and figure out the sections. That’s when the job comes in, and you have to be like a surgeon. You follow the inspiration and don’t overextend it. Sometimes, if you try to insert stuff into the song, it becomes oppressive to the imagination, and it just sucks. You have to follow the inspiration, and the second it starts to feel not fresh, you walk away. Then, you come back to it and, little by little, be a surgeon—cutting sections, doing this and that. Once in a while, you have one of those really exciting times where it just comes out.”

After seeing them open up for Billie Eilish in Toronto, two shows at the beginning of their tour run, it was apparent just how much the experience wasn’t lost on them. “The first couple of shows, I really couldn’t believe it,” laughs Alex. “Seeing people on the very top row… That was the most people I’ve ever seen.” For their entire 40-minute 11-song set, they repeatedly thank both Billie and her fans for giving them the space to share their music. “What I loved about the Toronto audience was that they were really, really listening, especially to the ballads,” says Nat. “It was so exciting to play ‘Soft Kissing Hour’ then because it hadn’t come out at that time. When we got to America, the song had just come out, and everyone was singing it back to us. I had my in-ear out, and I was listening. I thought, “God, there are so many people.”

Alex: Shirt Tommy Hilfiger Oxford Tommy Hilfiger Trousers Aknvas

When songs go out into the world and people are singing words back to you, the meaning behind them can morph and develop — almost like a new perspective can be conceptualized by a listener and create a new message behind the song. It’s something that Nat and Alex have experienced firsthand while on the road. “They [songs] definitely change in the process,” explains Alex. “There’s a teenager stage before the album comes out where you start to hate the songs and feel put off by them because you can’t see them clearly. But when you perform them live, for me at least, it comes back to the moment you wrote them. Especially when people really know it, it doesn’t just feel like a celebration. It feels like they understand the inception of the song and where it came from. Playing live can be an amazing rebirth of what you intended to do. It gets back to the original thing of the song, and it’s awesome and cool when people are singing back to you. It’s like, ‘Whoa, they understand what I was trying to do.’ This tour has made me fall even more in love with a few of the songs and see them differently.”

Although they are industry veterans now, taking the reins as an opening act on an arena tour is something new for the pair. Still, as performers they command the 360-degree stage; frequently switching from instrument to instrument with ease and deftness, seamlessly gliding across the stage and through the crowds to connect with anyone & everyone. One of the songs they perform is “All My Plans (Shake),” a track written about the fear of losing their father after being diagnosed with cancer. Speaking to a knack for weaving intricate storytelling through their songs, the track is equal parts raw and vulnerable (“Watch his eyes he’s lying/Hold his hands their dying/All my plans, all my plans”) with a unique juxtaposition against jittery sonics. It’s clear singing such a personal song on arena stages is a big —and sentimental — moment for them.

Another track they perform is “Winter Baby,” a song that was initially briefly heard in the aforementioned comedy-drama film Mainstream which was directed by Gia Coppola and starred Andrew Garfield, Maya Hawke, and Nat Wolff himself. “Gia had just heard us playing that song live and she loved it and asked us to write it into the movie,” Nat says. “They brought in an audio guy when I was recording the live track, and the audio guy recorded it. There’s a sound that goes through the entire thing, so it’s completely unusual. But it’s nice because that was kind of for people who have loved our music. I wrote that song when I was like 17. We’ve been playing it live for 10 years, so people were really excited to see it in the movie. It worked because it was a very lovelorn character.”

It’s likely an innate connection with visuals that would tie visuals and music together for two multi-hyphenate actor-musicians, so it makes sense that they’d both have synesthesia and see music in colours. “I’m not sure that music videos inform the songwriting very much or those ideas, but I think that Nat and I are just very visual people,” says Alex. “Sometimes one of the only issues between us and whoever is producing is trying to communicate the feeling. I remember this guy who produced early on said, “Okay, if you don’t know what you’re trying to say, what kind of sound do you want on the first synthesizer?” We were trying all this stuff, and he said, “Well, can you just describe the feeling?” And I said, “Like crackly and brown,” something like that. He said, “Okay, okay, I can try and do that.”

Opening up for Eilish meant they could check off a dream bucket list moment: playing Madison Square Garden. “We’ve been dreaming of playing Madison Square Garden since we were little kids,” Nat laughs. “Honestly, if I could have manifested something for 2024, it would have been playing Madison Square Garden. So many dreams have come true over the last year that maybe it feels greedy to even ask for more. But we were so excited to play; since we were little kids, it’s been our biggest dream. And then, two days before, Alex says, “It’s crazy how we’ve played a bunch of arenas that are bigger than Madison Square Garden. It’s not even that big a deal.” But then I said, “Really? Wow, okay, that’s weird.” And then we’re about to go on and they’re like, “Okay, guys, now go.”

Naturally, Alex quickly interjects: “To be fair, I was really thinking, “Wow…” I was having my own process, and then when you go on, it really feels different. Finneas was backstage, and I said, “How were we?” and, almost at the same time, he said, “It’s different, right?” I said, “Yeah, it’s different.” Night two, I said “Oh shit.” But honestly, we were just really lucky [to be on the tour].”

While they look back at the last year, it’s apparent that “Backup Plan” and “Soft Kissing Hour” are just a taste of what’s to come. One can assume more music is on the way and hopefully a headline tour of their own — if their schedules permit. “I feel like maybe the one thing is that I hope for next year, whether we’re on tour with other people, or if it’s our headlining tour, I think just spending more and more time on stage,” says Nat. “We have so many fucking songs, so maybe doing another album and collaborating with some artists that are in completely different genres and spheres would be great, too.” 

“Backup Plan” and “Soft Kissing Hour” are out now.
Keep an eye out for Nat & Alex Wolff’s next single, due 2025.

Words Kelsey Barnes
Photographer Devin Kasparian
Styling Laura Spriet
Grooming Nastya Miliaeva
Photography Assistant Grace Mitzen
Styling Assistant Walter Prince