Originally from Liverpool, England, indie rock band The Wombats have managed to carve their own lane of grand, lush instrumentation stuffed with self-deprecating lyrics tackling anxiety and depression. On the latest album, Oh! The Ocean, lead singer, Matthew “Murph” Murphy captures the internal conflicts of one’s mental state, the hypocrisy of American politics and showing up late to an event simply because you don’t want to be there. 

As The Wombats gear up for another unforgettable tour starting in Europe, mxdwn was able to chat with Murph in between rehearsals as he shared his experience with writing the new album, how the Internet has changed the band’s career and what he hopes for the future of The Wombats. 

mxdwn: How are you and where are you currently in the world? 

Matthew Murphy: I’m good. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m in Bethnal Green in London right now. We had like a warm-up show last night before our arena tour here kicks off on Tuesday.

mxdwn: That’s exciting. How are you feeling about the current tour right now?

MM: Good. There’s still a bit of work to be done, and it’s all quite last minute. But I think it’s going to be great. I’m slightly apprehensive, but I always feel a bit that way, especially before a bunch of big shows.

mxdwn: Yeah, and especially playing a new album. I feel like it’s a lot of new things, so it’s kind of seeing how the crowd is receptive to everything.

MM: Yeah. And it’s like, well, how many new songs should we do? Essentially, we’re touring to promote a new album, so we should probably be playing it. But also, it’s like, well, there’s going to be a lot of the crowd who know one song from the new album, if that. So finding that balance is going to be an ongoing process, probably.

mxdwn: Well, that’s very exciting. First off, I want to say congrats on the new album Oh! The Ocean. It’s amazing. I love how it’s very upbeat, colorful, but at the same time, it’s very poignant and real. What was the process of writing these new songs? And how did making this album differ from past albums?

MM: The writing process was kind of the way it’s always been. I write 40, 50 songs and pick the best ones. For me, it was slightly different because the last solo album I did was my first sober album, and I felt like I was able to open the doors into new territories that I wasn’t able to go to before. So this album, it certainly felt very different making it. There’s a lot of grappling with everyday life and whatever the hell life is going on in the album. The recording of it was totally different. We used a different producer, Mark Crew, than the last three Wombats’ albums and the last two Love Fame Tragedy albums. And I think we all kind of felt that taking a risk was going to be less risky than doing the same thing again. So we recorded with John (Congleton) and it was a much different process. A lot more live than the last few albums and he refused to listen to any demos. And every song started with me singing it on an acoustic guitar or a keyboard or a piano from start to finish, and then building and replacing on top of that. Yeah, so it’s pretty different and has a slightly more, I think, unique, organic sound to it because of that approach. 

mxdwn: Yeah, and I definitely feel that whenever I listen to the album. It’s very open and freeing and has this new thing that I feel like the Wombats haven’t really discovered before. From a lyrical standpoint, I know the album is very self-reflective and honest. How does it feel having these personal songs finally out in the world for fans to hear?

MM: Well, it feels like they’re not personal anymore, I guess. But I’ve never really had a problem wearing my heart on my sleeve and feeling comfortable with releasing it. Although my wife, you know, sometimes pisses my wife off, to be honest. Especially the “Kate Moss” song. She was like, “Fuck, why did you have to do that?” She said, “Can you please stop doing this?” And I was like, “Probably not.”

mxdwn: I mean, good storytelling is good storytelling. So you can’t hide that. 

MM: Exactly. I can’t let my personal relationships get in the way of good art.

mxdwn: You’re also a songwriter who’s also not afraid of being self-critical in your lyrics. You know, like, “Am I insufferable?” Or “my head is not my friend.” Is there ever a moment in writing when you feel like you’ve gone too far? You’ve dug too deep?

MM: Like I’ve dug too deep, you know, like, into myself?

mxdwn: Yeah. 

MM: No, no, not really. I mean, as long as I can find a new way of saying something I’ve said before, I’m happy with that. It does get, just by the quantity of songs that I’m writing, sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh God, can I face singing about how much of a prick I am again?” But the answer is usually yes. 

mxdwn: There’s usually a new spin on it. 

MM: Yeah, exactly.

mxdwn: Do you feel like recognizing these faults or pinpointing the root of your anxiety has helped you become a better writer and overall creative artist? 

MM: Yeah, I think so. It’s something I realized early on. The first 40 songs I wrote, the lyrics were all very ambiguous. And then I remember listening to bands like Pulp, Blur and whatever, and Elliot Smith, and just realizing that I can be brutally honest and sing about day to day things. And so that really kind of opened it up for me. I guess now what I enjoy is saying something very kind of brash and then juxtaposing that with a more ambiguous metaphor or something so it’s more digestible. Well, just primarily to myself as a listener when I’m listening back to it.

 mxdwn: The one thing I also really love about The Wombats is that, you just said it right now, but juxtaposition. Where you have these very cheerful, big moments in the instrumentals and then very sad, very introspective lyrics. Do you intentionally do that? Like having driving bass lines and catchy choruses to hide all the sadness?

MM: Yeah, I think so. I guess I like that happy, sad, playing off of both of those. One thing that happened in The Wombats, we used to have a fourth member and when he left the band, we replaced a lot of his guitar parts with Beach Boys harmonies, ooh’s and ahh’s. And that just automatically makes things sound joyful and happy regardless of what the lyrical content is doing. So sometimes it’s nice to make that as extreme as possible. Sometimes it’s nice to just do a happy song or sometimes it’s nice to be like, let’s keep this one on the sadder end of the spectrum. 

mxdwn: I love that. One of my favorite songs off the new album “I Love America and She Hates Me.” How did this song come to be and what do you think the importance of art during our political climate right now is?

MM: It’s not a political commentary really. It’s more just, I feel 10 to 15 percent happier being a US resident than I did anywhere else. There’s something warm about the people and everyone’s supportive and there’s no tall poppy syndrome like we have in the UK where any success is to be shoved down and to almost not be encouraged. Whereas over there, it’s been a really great place for me to move to and I’m happier and more creative there. And yeah, I don’t know about art in the political climate. I don’t feel like raging against the machine is the right thing to do. It’s like, it’s more like go touch some grass or turn the TV off or just get away from whatever’s coming out of whoever’s mouth because… Well I read somewhere now that everything’s at our fingertips that means that everything is in our face. So it’s like, yes, we have access to all this information, but that means we’re bombarded with it at the same time.

mxdwn: It’s definitely overwhelming. It’s like you can’t really escape it, so you have to find ways to escape and I think art is a good way to escape for a little bit.

MM: Exactly. Yeah, using it as kind of an escape hatch is what I’m excited to see in the future.

mxdwn: Now that you’ve been in the US for a little bit, has your perception of America changed? And what would you say is the most significant thing you’ve learned about living in the US has been?

MM: It’s just getting weirder and wilder and kind of more awesome to me. It’s just a fucking ridiculous place. It’s a very, I just think it’s a ridiculous place full of characters, obviously full of very divided and full of different viewpoints, but I just want to get, trying to a place where I’m receptive to all of them in a way. I like ridiculous people and ridiculous things and they all seem to dwell in the US of A. 

mxdwn: It’s kind of just like watching your own television show right before your eyes. 

MM: Yeah, pretty much. 

mxdwn: As a band, The Wombats, I know you guys experienced plenty of ups and downs from concert mishaps to resurgence of old music on TikTok blowing up. What’s been one of the most unexpected things you’ve experienced in your music career thus far?

MM: I mean the TikTok thing was crazy. It was kind of like a slap in the face to say, you know, the industry has shifted and look how powerful social media and streaming is and things like that. It was really a call to engage more with that stuff, which we never did. The idea of making TikToks and stuff makes me want to blow my brains out. After our third album, we were let go from Warner UK. And I took that as a, that was quite a big blow to me and I didn’t really know what I was going to do. But I just wrote a load more songs and then it turned out that that album was bigger, more bountiful, more successful than the one that went before it. I thought everything was gonna go sideways, but then everything just got bigger and better. So for me, that was the biggest shock and again, another slap in the face to not be as pessimistic about the future as I was back then.

mxdwn: Yeah, I guess in a music career, you just have to expect the unexpected.

MM: Yeah.

mxdwn: One thing I do want to ask about, I love the title of the new album, “Oh! The Ocean.” But one thing I’m interested in is what’s the proper way to pronounce it? Is it like a subtle surprise at seeing the ocean or is it more of like a dramatic fit cursing the ocean like in a soap opera?

MM: Yeah, I think it’s more like “Oh!” exclamation mark dot dot dot, the ocean. But that wouldn’t have looked too good. It’s more of a surprise like you’re seeing it for the first time or that you’ve never actually ingested the might and awe of something like that, I guess.

mxdwn: What does the ocean represent to you at this point in your life?

MM: I had this kind of, what I would deem a spiritual experience when I was looking out at the Pacific one day and that’s where the album title came from. I got sober two and a half years ago, and to be honest, before that I thought I knew everything. And now, two and a half years in, I realized how little I know about anything.  It kind of feels like the majority of us think we know a lot more than we actually do and there’s something freeing and magical about that. I think that is what is pushing, guiding, encouraging my creativity so much. I think that’s why the ocean was so powerful because I would go on tour to Australia or Japan and you see all these things and yeah, it’s cool, but you’re out there working. It’s like I was experiencing them, but I wasn’t aware of quite how awesome they are. So yeah, I feel like Alice has gone down the rabbit hole and what’s at the bottom of the rabbit hole is very interesting.

mxdwn: That’s beautiful. When I think of the ocean, it’s just this massive thing and it kind of makes you feel insignificant but in a very optimistic way. Like all this stuff in life, it doesn’t really have to have some grand meaning. You’re just kind of a pebble.

MM: Yeah, I like that; insignificant in a very positive way. It’s a great way of putting it.

mxdwn: Aside from music, what else inspired the creation of the new album?

MM: I don’t know. I don’t even think about inspiration anymore. I kind of go to a studio and freak out until I’ve got something. And I go when I want to go and I go when I don’t want to go, and I kind of approach it with a whole, I don’t know what’s gonna happen today. Something amazing might happen, something awful might happen. So I’m just gonna put myself in those scenarios and see what happens down the line. There’s a great phrase I really that some old songwriter said, “Inspiration is for amateurs.” So I just commit to being creative that day and seeing what happens. But obviously if things are going shit, then you have to take a couple of weeks off. But there’s no clear-cut inspiration. Although it would be easier if there was one for media and stuff like this, but it was very much like, “Let’s make another album.” Well, I guess one of my inspirations is to be in a band that gets to nine or ten albums, so I hope that’s where we land.

mxdwn: It sounds like it’s more of a subconscious thing. Like your body kind of knows that it needs to make something, it just doesn’t know exactly what it’s gonna make yet.

MM: Yeah, I feel fortunate that me as an individual and us as a band kind of have a voice and I don’t need to search for too much inspiration to keep it going.

mxdwn: I know you touched on it a little bit, but how do you feel like the internet has changed the world of music and has it been like a big adjustment for how you release music nowadays?

MM: Yeah, well, I mean it’s completely different to our first album that came out in 2007. Streaming was amazing for us. And now, it feels like we’re in some similar world to like 2015 where it’s between physical and streaming kicking off. And we’re now between streaming and I don’t know what the next thing is. Maybe just live gigs being directly to your head. I don’t know what it is. But the internet has been a very powerful tool. I don’t like all the self-marketing and stuff that happens nowadays and there are social media teams that want us to do stuff. I just can’t get my head around it. Maybe I’m old now, but the idea of spending two hours filming myself doing stupid shit in the hope that one of them goes viral in order to sell records and tour is just insane to me. I don’t know, never say never. It has changed a lot but I would say predominantly for the better.

mxdwn: I’m glad. Yeah, I feel like the internet has definitely changed a lot of things, but it’s more of a matter of how you embrace it rather than reject it because it’s not going anywhere.

MM: Yeah.

mxdwn: Looking back on your career, do you have any advice that you would give your past self, the version of you when you first started the band? What would you say to him?

MM: Take care of yourself more and do some fucking breathing exercises is what I would say. And to talk to that person and explain why his extreme cynicism is only kind of… Yeah, just do some breathing exercises, take it easy and think a bit more positively.

mxdwn: One of my favorite personal mottos, I was watching The Sopranos a lot, but whenever they say “take it easy,” I took that as, life is hard, so be easier on yourself, you know? I have one more question. I know the future as a whole kind of looks uncertain, but what do you still hope to accomplish with your time in The Wombats? And what do you feel is the most rewarding part about being able to make music? 

MM: I feel like there’s still more damage that I want to do in the States, to be honest. So that’s something that I kind of am focused on. But really, I want to get to that ninth or tenth album. That’s kind of where my head’s at. Yeah, just to have that body of work behind me would feel so cool. I still think the most rewarding thing is when you stumble across a good song, because at least six or seven songs go by before you get to one that’s probably going to make the album. And I just love that feeling. I remember after “Can’t Say No” came together for this album, listening to it on repeat. It’s almost like it fills the void inside of me for about three weeks before it becomes a void again. So I guess I’m addicted to that feeling. And I’m addicted to the search for where the next one’s going to come from.

Make sure to listen to the latest album from The Wombats, Oh! The Ocean, available on all streaming platforms now. And visit their website to see upcoming tour dates and other news.