DAN CAMPBELL make that art. We’ve never shied away from the hard work aspect of it. We wanted to create a piece of art that was more encompassing than we’d be able to create before. We didn’t want to phone in any element of that. “It was worth the time because now I look back at it, we don’t even have the physical copies yet, we’re looking at it on a computer screen but I’m scrolling through it thinking goddamn, we did it. It feels really rewarding to get there.” “In hindsight, there are always things about our albums that I can be critical of,” he continues. “‘I wish that I had done this differently’. But at the time we’re making them, we have to feel like they are the most valuable thing we have created to date, or we aren’t done making it. There’s no, ‘Well it’s time to record it. We’ve got to put it out, so let’s put it out’. That’s never an option. Is it the best thing we’ve done? If you can say yes, if you can say confidently it’s the best thing we’ve done to date, that’s when it’s ready to be made. That’s when it’s ready to be put to tape, and pressed and sent off to your house. “There’s this drive to always be more creative, to always be more thoughtful and to always push our boundaries in every way that we can, in every detail of it. We’re involved in every single
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detail of this band, and we work very, very hard to make sure all of those things are the best thing they can possibly be. I think that hard work shows.” It’s why The Wonder Years are still creating records that are peoples favourite The Wonder Years records. It’s why they’ve gone from playing Watford Rugby Club with more people on the stage that off it, to selling out London’s KOKO or having to announce a second date at Islington Academy. The first time they played Jacksonville in Florida, it was in someone’s living room, and it was so small, their keyboard player had to stand in the kitchen. Those stories are shared with a fondness and a weight; it’s how they’ve made it this far. But there’s still more to come. “That’s a goal of ours, to make records of the time in which they’re made. And so, the records that we wrote when I was 31 should feel like the record I wrote when I was 31, and not like a rehash of the record we wrote when I was 22. We very certainly want to be a band you grow with.” ‘Sister Cities’ is the best The Wonder Years record yet. “I feel better than I’ve ever felt about a record before in my life. This is number one. I feel really good,” Dan beams,
full of pride and bursting with excitement. “The thing we’ve always said, is we want to push forward each record. We never want to say, ‘Well, that one went pretty well, what if we make it again?’ That’s never been an option for us. “I said this at the time, but ‘No Closer To Heaven’ was a hard record for me to write. I was in a rut as a writer. I’m still super proud of it, but if I look at it with a critical eye, I can go back and say, we could have taken a few more risks. It was difficult to write because I was feeling so anxious about it and I was having such bad writer’s block, and I was so unprepared to write it. That’s where the preparedness mattered on this one; we were so ready to write a record, it was almost the opposite of the writer’s
block. “Last time, I really, really struggled, and I would write something, then second guess it, then question whether it was worth it, or maybe I’ll bring it to the guys and maybe they’ll think it’s cool. It wasn’t a thing this time. I felt super confident, and we were churning songs out. Every time I would finish an idea, I would feel so good about it and so excited.” You can feel that energy across ‘Sister Cities’, from the twinkling melancholy of ‘It Must Get Lonely’ through the starshine daydream of ‘Flowers Where Your Face Should Be’ to the twist and tear of ‘The Orange Grove’, The Wonder Years move forward with purpose and pride “Each time we want to