How ‘Survivor,’ Painting & Chili Inspired Remi Wolf’s New Album ‘Mud’
Categoria: Musica
The alternative-pop singer reveals the shows and hobbies that helped her create her latest work.
Por Billboard | 07/10/2026
Remi Wolf looks ecstatic on the cover of her third studio album, Mud (out Oct. 9 on Island Records) — despite fully being slathered in dirt. The new project, rooted in Wolf’s signature amalgamation of exuberant alternative pop-rock and ruefully self-aware lyricism, creates a sonic mixture much like the coarse substance itself: “Once you’re out of it, you’re left with all these beautiful minerals and your skin’s all clear,” says Wolf, whose 2024 hit “Cinderella” reached No. 48 on Billboard ’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and who this year guested on an episode of hit Amazon show Off Campus . Inspired by the 30-year-old’s love of the grit and freedom of Lucinda Williams’ songwriting, Mud dives head-first into the messy reality of love, loneliness and self-doubt, with a touch of country twang and a surprise assist from John Mayer on the dreamy “Moon So High.” “Making this album felt like a very cleansing process for me,” Wolf adds. “I went into it feeling emotionally very stuck, feeling the s–ttiest I’ve felt for a long time. But I came out of it so cleansed. It was like wiping away the dirt.” Here’s what inspired the album. Related Remi Wolf Announces New Single ‘Bottle’ and Upcoming Album ‘Mud’: ‘It Has Been a Very Cleansing Record to Make For Me’ Sam Smith Made a 'Nightmare' Mistake With New Album Title 'Hazel Eyes' After Beyonce Controversy, Charley Crockett and Gavin Adcock Are All Good Survivor Wolf suspects the album’s theme came, at least in part, from the reality TV mainstay Survivor she watched while making it. In July, she released the music video for hazy lead single “Twiggy,” which depicts her rolling around alongside Wallows drummer Cole Preston in a thoroughly vetted mud pit. “You can’t just go to Home Depot, buy a bag of dirt and put water in it because it has f–king parasites in it,” she says. So, she researched how Survivor went about creating theirs. “They’re on some crazy s–t. They’re shipping dirt out from the U.S. and fully sifting gallons and gallons of mud and dirt. It’s like spa dirt apparently.” Once the adrenaline from the video shoot wore off, Wolf realized her knees were cut up and she was shivering from the cold. She recalls thinking, “ ‘F–k. I don’t think I’d make it on Survivor .’ ” Oil Pastels As Wolf was ideating the album’s aesthetics, she went to see a psychic. “The first thing she said to me was, ‘I know you’re depressed, and I know you’re really anxious. What you need to be doing is painting and drawing,’ ” recalls Wolf, who has done both since she was a kid. She started using oil pastels daily for intense six-hour sessions, ripping through pages of notebooks to create the visual language for the album. “It was another version of cleansing and purging this energy that was latent inside me,” she says. One drawing of three “really happy, but kind of demented” inflatable tube men inspired the music video for the single “Bottle” that