Yoni Wolf, Songwriter & Producer

💭 Thoughts on the power of recommendation, Yo La Tengo, and zooming out to see the bigger picture.

Yoni Wolf is a Cincinnati-based songwriter and producer who has spent his life traveling the sonic terrain where underground hip hop, avant-pop, and psych-rock meet. Most recently with WHY?, but he has been involved in many other projects: Yoni & Geti, Hymie’s Basement, and the seminal cLOUDDEAD. Yoni Wolf is currently gearing up for WHY?'s new album The Well I Fell Into, which is out August 2nd via his new label Waterlines. 

🎯 Current focus

Creatively I’ve been working on two things – first has been creating videos for WHY?’s new album campaign, and that's been a lot of fun. We've done two so far, and we're sort of ideating a third, and we'll see if it happens or not. And the second thing that I'm working on is generating new work, which is really writing & songwriting through my Substack. I write songs, and then I release demos through my Substack that will eventually become a number of things – fodder for WHY? songs, like some of them will become real finished songs, and some of them will die of horrible death if they don't cut the mustard. 

I like the no-holds nature of the early part of songwriting and demoing, where you're really not inviting that editor mind in so much yet, and you're still sort of freewheeling with ideas so as not to to tamp down anything that that might become brilliant in the future. I decided a couple of years ago to start releasing these demos to a very limited number of dedicated fans. And I just really like the process – it sort of forces me to finish demos, rather than just have ideas floating around in the ether. It holds you accountable. It keeps you honest.  

🎧 Libby 

Well, I have to say I am so into audio books right now. About two years ago I discovered this app called Libby, which is just the Library app, and I am constantly listening to an audiobook through it. I sort of fell off reading books when I bought my first iPhone, essentially. And then I spent a good handful of years not really consuming literature. And so it's been a pretty transformational thing to finally be back into books. 

📚 The power of recommendation

Book wise, as I alluded to, I'm constantly listening to something new. Let's see –  last few books I listened to were Fire Exit, The Happiness Track, There, There, There's Always This Year, The Body Keeps the Score, and a few titles by Pema Chandra. 

I'm always on to something new. I usually get recommendations from people – I have a friend who owns a bookstore a few blocks away from from me, and I stop by there often, and he always recommends the best stuff to me, usually novels, but I’m pretty open to a lot of things. You gotta trust in the power of recommendations by actual people, especially when they have similar taste. I trust it more than an algorithm. 

🗺️ Zooming out to see the bigger picture

One thing I’ve been trying to focus on is to try to zoom out. I get anxious a lot and get worked up just within my own interpersonal stuff, health stuff, or whatever's going on in my life. And I think it's important to be able to zoom out and see the bigger picture. Just not sweating the small stuff so much. I also tend to remind myself that my life is really temporary, even if my whole life is just like, total and utter suffering (which it's not), then at some point that'll be done and things carry on. We’re always moving forward. So to try to keep from spinning out of control or self sabotaging, I just keep that big picture in mind.

🎶 The process of making things & expressing yourself

I'm inspired by a lot of people past and present. One group of folks that comes to mind immediately is Yo La Tengo. We toured with them almost 20 years ago – circa 2006 we did a tour with them. I don't remember most of the tour, but there's one conversation that we had that really stuck with me. So I will impart this wisdom, especially for younger artists who are still scrapping it out. Also, keep in mind, at this point Yo La Tengo had already been at it for 20 years, since the mid 80s. And they just were very Buddhist about being a musician – they basically said you just can’t get riled up one way or the other, good or bad. They were like, “yeah, we put out some albums, and it seems like no one listens to them. And then we go out on tour, and there's barely anybody at our shows, and then the next one we put out, everybody wants to talk to us. You know, all the press wants to talk to us. Everybody comes to our shows. We don't really know why one over the other. We just, we just keep riding.” 

So now I’m 20+ years into my career, and that is something that I always try to keep in mind – not everything I do is going to be acclaimed by the public or whatever, but you just gotta keep doing your thing. And it's more about the process of making things and expressing yourself than it is about accolades or clout or anything like that. 

🤝 The intersection between analog and digital

Pretty much every day I listen to an audiobook or the radio in the morning on a smart speaker, sometimes NPR, and I do that while I have my smoothie and do my crossword puzzles. I like to consume my crossword puzzles in physical form in a book. I don't mess with those on the phone or computer or anything like that. So I'm a mix between analog and digital, and feel like I’m always finding myself at the intersection of the two. In my car, I have a tape tape player, and so often I listen to tapes sometimes in there. Sometimes the radio, but never streaming anything off my phone. Gotta keep it interesting. 

🗻 Patagonia

I wear my Patagonia fanny pack every day. I think that's a really good brand that I respect a great deal. They're ethical. And they’ll leave money on the table if it means being a bit better in regards to the environment. I don't have a ton of Patagonia clothing, but feel like I gotta give credit where it’s due. 

🗣️ Creating things that other people experience

I'm a little bit excited for our upcoming tour… or nervous? Or both. Those feelings go hand in hand. It's something that is really fast approaching, the tour picks up in Asheville, NC in mid-August, first with Baths and then with NNAMDÏ. I am also excited to have new stuff to perform. That said, I think of myself as more of a maker than a performer. I can perform and I do perform, but my first reason for doing this is not for performance sake. It's more for the creation of something. I’m really looking forward to getting out there and seeing what people think of it, and maybe connect with some human beings over it. Ultimately, that's what this is. Whether you're performing for people IRL or creating a thing that other people experience, it's a communication tool that we use to connect with others over things that we can't really communicate in everyday conversation. 

Follow Yoni on Instagram & Substack and check out his forthcoming new album here. 

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