Interview: Wyatt Flores Discusses New Album, ‘Welcome to the Plains’ - “It's a Variety Pack, For Sure”

Over the past year, Wyatt Flores has established himself as one of the brightest sparks to emerge from Oklahoma's prestigious and creatively incandescent Red Dirt scene.

The 23-year-old has become synonymous with his raw, emotionally vulnerable songwriting style, which has served - and continues to serve - as an expressive outlet for his loyal fanbase.

So often with this kind of cathartic and honest style of folk-infused country, of which Tyler Childers and Jason Isbell are often hailed as the touchstones, we get so accustomed to absorbing the visceral, rich storytelling that we forget there is truth behind it.

When an artist is baring their soul, we prefer to assume it's just for the sake of the art, rather than being a real cry for help. We use the melancholy laced into the lyrics to help us in our own journey, without considering the pain it must have stemmed from.

As a result, when Wyatt Flores announced he needed to take a break from touring for the sake of his mental health, fans were sympathetic, but surprised. Yet the clues had been there in the music the whole time, from the ethereal agony of ‘Holes’ to the acute angst of ‘Please Don't Go’, which launched Flores’ career back in 2022.

Now, when speaking at the UK's Long Road Festival 2024, having spent time in Tennessee's Onsite counselling retreat, it's heartening to see how Wyatt Flores seems refreshed, content and excited to be releasing his debut album, Welcome to the Plains.

Wyatt shares, “Before, I've been trying to write different styles and play different kinds of music. This time, I'm hoping I give the full compass of who I am as a musician and a songwriter. It's a variety pack, for sure. It's not just one solid thing over and over again, and I've really had to push myself on this album...Of course, I want the album to do well, but I'd rather be proud of something I've created”.

Wyatt Flores touches on how he found himself gravitating towards happier textures and tones when writing this new record, compared to the darker feel of past releases. What makes this all the more striking is the fact that Wyatt wrote the majority of Welcome to the Plains during the period from December to February - the same timeframe in which Wyatt was battling the most with his mental health.

In February, when announcing his tour hiatus to focus on his mental health, Wyatt's candid note to fans explained, “Since November, I've been struggling with the feeling of feeling nothing. At the end of the day, I'm human and no one is built to run this hard without taking care of themselves while feeling this much adrenaline”.

He underlines the value of having a strong support network around him, “My manager, the one that canceled the tour, sent me to Onsite, which is where he went a long time ago. That entire experience opened my eyes up completely, because it was almost like a summer camp - in the middle of winter. But I was one of the youngest kids there. There were maybe three kids that were my age, the rest were about 60 years old. They're all in their 40s to early 70s. But I was so glad he sent me there, because I looked at all those people that were in that room, and I thought to myself, ‘Those people are just now showing up and being like, ‘Why haven't I been happy my entire life?’’ I'm hoping that nowadays I can give people hope to work on themselves, so they don't wake up one day and go, ‘What have I been doing my entire life?’” Wyatt Flores cites his haunting ’Running Out of Time’ lyric, “Most people die at 27, get buried at 72” as a nod to this.

The ‘Milwaukee’ crooner goes on to highlight why, despite this being a challenging stretch of months, the music that arose from it is decidedly uplifting and joyful, “I was like, ‘Why am I writing these happy songs?’ I've still got some sad ones, of course, but I was going through such a dark time in my life, it was almost like I was daydreaming. It was like an escape. A lot of this album is about home...and the entire time, it's more like I'm searching for it inside of myself. I've never really had a sense of home until recently, honestly. I didn't know where my home was. But now it's just one of those things where you can hear it in this album, of me just searching for that. The stories that I'm telling are me reminiscing over the things that have happened, and the things that I want to happen”.

Somewhat eerily, Wyatt Flores reveals that on a number of occasions, his songs have come to life, “A lot of times what happens in my songwriting is I'll write from a place that has a whole lot of truth, where I am, but later on, the song will come true for me. That's a weird thing that's been going on for a long while...There'll be times where some songs have already come true, and then there are other times where I'll have songs become true later on. It's almost like I'm foreshadowing my own life...which is scary as shit! When I sit down to write, I'm like, ‘Please not this one...I really like this girl, please don't put me in a heartbreak...!”

Wyatt concludes, “I just learned so much more about myself. When I thought about this album before trying to piece it together, I told myself I wanted simplicity. A lot of times I get in my own head, and I sit there and try to write these huge, giant verses. With some of my influences, like The Great Divide, there's an album called Afterglow. You go listen to Mike McClure and his writing style on that. It's so simple and straight to the point - and it's some of the best songwriting I've ever seen...I really wanted to have some simplicity to it and challenge myself to do such a task. Man, the writing of it all is weird, because I have happy songs in this and I was writing a lot of these happier songs while I'm fixing it...It was in mid December, when I started writing for this album, and stopped about the beginning of February, and then three weeks after that, I took my break”.

The arrival of Wyatt Flores’ debut studio album has been a long time coming, with his EPs and smattering of singles - including a new high-profile collaboration with The Castellows, ‘Sober Sundays’, and a cut on the blockbuster Twisters soundtrack - tiding fans over until the official Welcome to the Plains unveiling.

Now, we can look forward to Wyatt's most personal body of work yet - a project that will cement his status as one of the genre's most accessible, empathetic stars of tomorrow.

“It feels like starting over...it puts a fire in me. These people don't know me, unless they came over to the United States and saw us play there. I'm at a position right now where they might have heard rumors or seen some stuff from socials, but they there's no expectation. They probably don't know who we are. So it gives me fire, and I get to start over again, and I get to work and watch the rooms get bigger, hopefully...When we were first popping off, I was having such a hard time hanging on to everything. I was like, ‘What is happening right now with my life?’ This time, I feel more level-headed, and I get to really pay attention and be fully aware. That makes me excited, because I get to watch it happen again”.

“It's really difficult, even these days, but eventually you kind of sink into it and you're like, ‘Oh yeah, this was the dream I had when I was a kid, and this is what's happening now’. You just have to take a whole lot of time to process what has happened. I just turned 23, so I'm sitting here trying to figure out who I am. That's what your early 20s are really supposed to be for - at least, that's what they say. Then you get thrown into a situation where you've got to figure this stuff out quickly.

I've been very fortunate and I've had a lot of good people in my corner that have helped me grow. It's hard to deal with everything, I had a lot of issues with anxiety, and I still do these days. It's not [about] me walking into public areas - for a while it was. I felt like someone was always watching me, and that was a weird thing for me. But nowadays, the only thing I'm worried about is sleeping. I still struggle with sleep, and I'll wake up and be locked up. But as things progress, you've got to keep your head screwed on straight, and you've got to process...Like there was a one month difference between my biggest headline show and then beating that record, and then now we're here in the UK. Things are happening so fast. I'm just grateful that I'm gonna get enough headspace to keep on going with this, because we're still traveling at a speed that doesn't feel real”.

“That's been the biggest thing...If I had never taken the break and came [to the UK] in March like I was supposed to, I wouldn't have enjoyed it, because I already wasn't enjoying the shows. Now, I'm excited, like I'm a kid going to the zoo in the fourth grade. My heart is just full of joy that we get to come out here and play our music”.

“I've had a lot of my fans tell me their stories, and I have such a big heart that I I'd listen to every one, and I'd feel terrible for them and the things they were going through. What I had to learn is that I cannot take their pain with me, because I'm already working on my own pain. That was a hard thing for me to go through. I didn't know what co-dependency was...I had to learn that it was unhealthy for me to take their pain with me. One of the songs that's coming out, ‘Oh Susanna’, is basically me singing to my fans. ‘Oh Susanna’ is my fanbase. It's kind of the sequel to ‘Please Don't Go’. It's me saying, ‘I tried to help, but I can't, because I'm just human at the end of the day, and I have to take a step back”.

“I've never created an album before. I've done EPs, but this is the first album. Dude, I was shitting a brick that first week in the studio. I was rewriting verses like crazy because I thought it wasn't good enough. The perfectionism came out in me, and I was scared. I was scared. That went away by the time we spent two weeks in LA recording there, and then it became fun for me, and it was like I was soul-searching”.

“When I go on stage, I almost turn into a different human - it's a weird thing. When I was first starting, I'd black out, and I wouldn't remember what I did. I'd play an hour, and then walk off stage and immediately have to walk up to someone and go, ‘Did that go okay? What just happened?’ But nowadays it's like another sense of me takes over. The live show for us is so fun. We get to relive the songs every single night, and not in a bad way...I just love music so much, and the way it makes me feel. I'm hoping I get to project the way it feels for me to the crowd”.

“Sturgill Simpson has been one of my biggest influences, So I'd probably say him. I have no idea what we'd make, and that's the best feeling...I'm still listening through [his new album as ‘Johnny Blue Skies’, Passage du Desir]...With Sturgill albums, you gotta process. You can't give it one listen and be like, ‘I'm done’”.

Wyatt Flores’ debut album, Welcome to the Plains, is out on October 18th, and the lead single, ‘Don't Wanna Say Goodnight’, arrives on Friday, August 30th.

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