Wallows, the alt-rock trio of Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston, will embark on the biggest global tour of their career starting later this summer.
“I can confidently say this is the first time that I’m really anticipating a tour announcement,” Minette tells Variety of the band’s 38-city tour comprised of their first-ever headlining performances at arenas including Madison Square Garden and the Kia Forum. “I’m more nervous than ever — but not in a negative way. I know it’s going to go well. I know our fans show up but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it every day.”
After announcing their upcoming album “Model,” slated for May 24, Wallows unveiled the news of a global tour on Monday with an accompanying short film starring all three members and Benee, who is set to open for the band’s North American dates.
“At first, the film was something Live Nation [who is producing the tour] tasked us with. We had creative freedom and so we just wanted to see how far we could take it… and I think it’s fair to say it’s beyond what Live Nation was expecting,” says Minnette. “But at the end of the day, it is promotion for the tour. That’s what it is but we took it and made it this ironic, sort of meta thing.”
The eerie video, directed by Nina Ljeti, was filmed at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum and is made up of several Easter eggs that die-hard Wallows fans can put together.
The film starts like a typical promo reel, with Minette discussing the first time he attended a show at the Kia Forum but quickly takes an ominous turn as the viewer follows three separate plotlines for each bandmate.
In the end, the trio is reunited, fueled by a mysterious glowing tent representing “what’s coming next for the Wallows, the future — which is unknown as of right now,” adds Preston. “In the scene where the light gets turned off and the other ones are blinking, it’s sort of us walking through what was the setup of our last tour and arriving to what’s next: a mystery.”
Other parts of the film are “completely random,” says Lemasters, whose love for golf is a prominent theme in his scenes. “Those details — for example, the choice of casting our friends — was almost like a nod to our fans who have been with us to say even though we are playing bigger spaces, we still share these memories and elements,” adds Minnette.
“We wanted to keep it as homegrown as possible. Our friend Danny who plays with us is the guy in the video wearing the sunglasses and trench coat — that character is called Double-o-Danny, which is the name of an Instagram account that Braeden and Danny formed on our first tour. It’s the little things.”
With more stage room to work with than their previous, 2022 tour, the ideas for the stage design are next level… and just a tad bit over budget. “I went big with my initial pitch,” says Minette, adding that they are still pinning down logistics. “We’ve landed on something that is an extension of what we are putting our visually right now.”
“The visuals for the album started to fall into place once we decided that the album was going to be called ‘Model,’ and once we started floating around ideas with [art director] Aidan Zamiri, the entire story started to make sense,” adds Lemasters, nodding that the nuances of what “Model” can mean — “Model home, Model citizen, Model album, etc.” also has a lot to do with the tour’s stage design.
By the time they finished the recording sessions for ‘Model,’ Wallows had recorded 25 songs with John Congleton, who also produced the band’s 2019 debut LP ‘Nothing Matters.’ The album’s second single, “Calling After Me,” is due to arrive on March 21.
“It sounds like what you would imagine or kind of hope that the Wallows would sound like,” says Preston. “It’s an easily accessible, kind of light on its feet but still intricate and precise record. We hope it gets our fans excited while also drawing in new listeners.”
Tickets for the “Model Tour” will go on sale to the general public on March 15 and Wallows newsletter subscribers will get first access to pre-sale tickets starting March 12 through March 14. See the complete tour routing below.
WALLOWS MODEL TOUR 2024
* with very special guest Benee
^ not a Live Nation date
AUGUST
- 6 – Portland, OR – Alaska Airlines’ Theater of the Clouds *
- 7 – Vancouver, BC – Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre *
- 8 – Seattle, WA – WAMU Theater at Lumen Field *
- 9 – Boise, ID – Treetfort Music Hall *^
- 11 – Las Vegas, NV – The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan *
- 12 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre *
- 13 – Albuquerque, NM – Revel Entertainment Center *
- 15 – Austin, TX – Moody Center *
- 16 – Irving, TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory *
- 17 – Houston, TX – Smart Financial Centre *
- 19 – Atlanta, GA – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park *
- 20 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheater *
- 22 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion *
- 23 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden*
- 24 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at The Mann*
- 26 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway *
- 28 – Laval, QC – Place Bell *
- 30 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage *
- 31 – Sterling Heights, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre *
SEPTEMBER
- 2 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island *
- 3 – Saint Louis, MO – Saint Louis Music Park *
- 5 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre *
- 6 – Sandy, UT – The Plaza at America First Field *
- 8 – San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium *
- 9 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl *^
- 10 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theater *
- 12 – Los Angeles, CA – The Kia Forum *
OCTOBER
- 4 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – AFAS Live
- 5 – Paris, France – Zenith
- 7 – Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
- 10 – Cologne, Germany – Palladium
- 11 – Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle
- 12 – Luxembourg-City, Luxembourg – Den Atelier
- 14 – Birmingham, United Kingdom – O2 Academy
- 16 – Edinburgh, United Kingdom – O2 Academy
- 18 – Newcastle, United Kingdom – O2 City Hall
- 19 – Manchester, United Kingdom – O2 Victoria Warehouse
- 22 – London, United Kingdom – Alexandra Palace
