Meredith Wilder, a junior in the music education program, is signed with local label Royalty Life. She plays guitar and sings at local coffee shops and open mics around town. Her music is calm and tranquil in the vein of Great Lake Swimmers and Iron and Wine. She has a twin sister.
Daily Lobo: Let’s start with the obvious question: How did you get into music?
Meredith Wilder: I had done sports and I was kind of looking for something else. My dad played music a lot and had taught me guitar at home, so I wanted to do it at school.
DL: So what was it about music that held your attention?
MW: They had guitar concerts at school and we could do covers of songs and things. I started learning other people’s music and performing it, and I really liked giving it my own sound. I performed the first song I ever wrote at school and got a good response from friends and stuff so I kept on doing it.
DL: In that case, what is your sound?
MW: It’s soft and quiet and kind of relaxing, I guess. I would go for folk people like The Beatles, Joni Mitchell and I did some Michelle Branch that I don’t really do anymore, but she was really popular back then. I try to do things that my family would like to listen to, like adults as well as younger people. It’s usually just pretty laid back.
DL: Oh, so what do you think of Albuquerque’s folk scene then?
MW: Everyone is really nice. If you’re going to go up and play a song, even if they want to criticize you, they will do it in a really nice way. Everyone in Albuquerque seems to appreciate someone who is willing to go up in front of everyone and play their songs.
DL: I understand that you’re a signed musician? What’s it like to be recognized in that capacity?
MW: It was really cool. Before then, I never really took it seriously and then I was able to have more of a focus and direction.
DL: Would you say that your music has changed at all?
MW: The biggest difference is when I go into the studio and I work with Greg and this other guy, Miles, (and) the production team, they are adding tons of stuff to my songs.
Before I got signed, it was a really simple sound, just me and my guitar. But now when we finish a recording of playing live stuff, I’ve always got drums or piano and so it’s just kind of a fuller sound.
DL: What’s it like working with a fuller sound?
MW: It definitely challenges me because it makes the songs a lot … They have to be longer and have different parts. It makes me want to stretch my limits, which is good. Before then I would finish something and it would be two minutes long, but now I want to take it to the next level.
DL: Great, so can you tell me a bit about your song writing process?
MW: It’s completely different every time. I’ve got a journal full of lyrics, and sometimes I go to them without a melody, and then I’ll write based on those. Sometimes I get a little tune in my head and then I put words to that. My favorite thing nowadays is going into the studio with Greg. We don’t have a song when we go into it together, and then he starts fiddling around on the piano, or I’ll tell him something I’ve been thinking about lately, and in two hours we create a new song. That’s my favorite way to do it, just on the spot.
DL: What do you feel that process offers that others don’t?
MW: It’s more collaborative, which is a lot more fun.
DL: What changes about the sound though?
MW: It’s more catchy sometimes. The songs that I write by myself are more isolated because it’s just me. It’s easier to come up with words that will relate to more people, or have a broader arrangement of chords because two ideas going on at once just makes it a lot better.
DL: That must be an interesting shift to go from working alone to working with others; can you tell me a bit more about that?
MW: Working by myself was kind of hard. It was just friends, two friends specifically who had little recorders. They heard my stuff and thought it was really good, so they started recording me. It was just a lot harder to find time and to believe what I was making was actually really good. With more support it’s a lot easier and a lot nicer to make the music.
DL: That sounds nice, but what do you do when you run into the dreaded creative block?
MW: I spent almost a full year last year not writing anything. It was awful. It was terrible. I would go to open mics and stuff and play old stuff and people would come to me and ask me if I had any new material. I had to tell them no. That’s the worst feeling in the world. It’s just really hard to figure out what it is that’s stopping you from making anything sometimes. Sometimes you just can’t. You just have to wait for it to come back.
