Back in January, I got the opportunity to speak with Will Wiesenfeld – the artist behind Baths – about his new album Gut. It’s been nearly seven years since Wiesenfeld released his last Baths’ project, Romaplasm, and Gut is his most thorough and fully realized Baths release yet – a brutally honest look at exploring his sexuality and the impulsivity and bleakness that comes from that. Gut is also pushes Wiesenfeld’s blend of electronic music into new styles and experimentation – a thrilling 11-track journey resulting in one of 2025’s most essential records. You can catch him on tour now. Below, Will and I discuss how the record came together, how he approached the songwriting, Heyshiro Matsuoka, and getting weirder and hotter with each release.
First thing I just want to ask is how are you doing with everything going on in Los Angeles? It seems like you’re safe, but how are you, your friends, and the people around you?
I’m good and thanks for asking. It’s complicated. You know what I mean? It’s just one of those things where like everybody that knows anybody here, like especially folks in the city, everybody kind of initially sent texts out to everybody they knew, just checking in and a lot of people checked in on me. I checked in on some other folks and just trying to sort of make sure people are doing okay.
I know tons of folks who like totally lost their homes completely in Altadena, a couple in Palisades and it’s just like, it’s really devastating and I can’t even begin to comprehend what it’s like, but on the other side of things, I feel like the sort of mutual aid aspect and the coming together of everybody in LA is as strong as I would have expected.
I feel like LA has a much weirder rap from anybody that doesn’t live here, whereas everybody that lives here loves each other pretty much, you know what I mean? And so I think it worked or it’s working really well that people are trying to be there for each other. That being said, I’ve been really lucky. I have no idea what other folks are going to and how difficult it really is for them. But at the same time, I do know kind of our city as a whole we’re trying to do our best efforts as people. I think our government is not as good, but yeah, we’re doing okay on the ground floor.
Yeah, I mean, I lived in LA once upon a time in the early 2010s when I wrote for AbsolutePunk.net so I haven’t lived there for over a decade, but yeah, I’ve always felt – even as a transplant there for a small time – I always felt how close knit these communities in Los Angeles were.
Where are you at now?
I live in Indianapolis.
Oh cool.
Yeah, I grew up in Wisconsin, so I’m a Midwest guy, but I’m glad I got to experience Los Angeles for a little bit. And it’s funny because my office was right next to the original Amoeba Music location and that’s where I picked up Obsidian on vinyl when it first released and that’s how I became a huge fan of Baths. I saw the review on Pitchfork and I went and bought that record so Obsidian was my starting point for Baths so I worked backwards to your debut and I was like, ‘oh, this is way different.’
*laughs* Obsidian was the effort I feel like was much closer to like where I came from. Like Cerulean was like a giant surprise to me and because it was the first impression, it was like people saw that as my foundation whereas that was kind of a little outside of myself in some ways. It was still me, but it was just like a different facet. Obsidian felt very, very necessary to me to sort of like make a point of like, ‘I’m still going to do whatever I want,’ even if there’s an expectation laid on me by listeners. It’s like that’s irrelevant to my process. I’m just going to make whatever sad bastard music I want to make. It ended up doing really well so I’m really happy and I, you know, I still have a career, which is crazy.
I feel like Gut is sort of … it’s not the same, but it’s the most similar to Obsidian. It’s a lot angrier and maybe more dark in some ways.
I’ve always loved your writing style well and I feel like on Gut the lyrics are very, physical, they’re very visceral. Like just even like in the song “Sea of Men,” just like a line like “the stink of the sea.” Like that’s like something you can visualize and like actually kind of feel. And I think you always done that with your lyrics, but on Gut particularly there’s just such a physicality to it.
Thank you. And even that line is a very good example of where I’m kind of coming from with it. Where the sea – when you’re usually trying to make a vision of it or a metaphor through your song or whatever you’re doing, it’s always almost always a very positive thing or if not that like a giant force of nature.
And describing it as like a stink is like a thing that’s much more real and evocative to like the nature of sex in my life where it’s like it is this thing that is supposed to be beautiful. And you love to engage with and all this stuff, but at the same time, it’s also like you have a total aversion to it sometimes and it’s just like baffling and embarrassing and like you want nothing to do with it.
It’s just like stinky and horrible. It’s just that kind of thing where like, being honest with how I feel about things, even if there are things that are supposed to be wonderful, it is important to kind of how this record works. It’s a lot of being very frank about sex and love and all of those sorts of things as opposed to trying to embellish it too much from the start.
That’s that sort of very instinctual lyrics or stomach music as I coined it in all this like press release stuff, which is like a little corny, but it it is like the effort of where most of the lyricism came from is this idea of like just trying to have things acting on instinctual feelings and letting that sort of be like a Bible for how the songs come together versus really trying to be deeply introspective about them and give them more context.
Like there’s like a lyric in “Verity” where it’s just like sex on a tarp in an empty house and I don’t give any additional context to that. It’s just meant to be like, this is a thing that happened. This is part of the feeling of this song, but I don’t need to give it like deep loaded metaphorical narrative context.
The record is very immediate. There’s this immediacy, really in everything. And like, obviously, I think “Sea of Men” and “Eden” are really good first taste of this record…
“Eden” being like the most positive is fun for me. It feels subversive to have that be a single because then the rest of it – they’ll get the record and be like, ‘oh, fuck!’
Yeah, yeah, you going from “Eden” right into “Homosexuals” and “Cedar Stairwell”…
*laughs* Yeah, it’s a big 180.
You finished this record sometime in late 2022 so you’ve been sitting on this for a while. But between writing and finishing the record then and releasing music now, where “Sea of Men” and “Eden” always in front of mind like you wanted these to be the first singles released to introduce Gut?
That’s a good question. I think for me, no. Sometimes I do have that feeling about a song, like what I worked on a record, I’m like, oh, this feels like the single. But for me, Gut was made in a very disparate way where like songs came when they came and I wasn’t really like ready like with, ‘oh, now I need to get the single together or that song that I made is definitely single.’
It was more like once the record was completed and I could look at it as like a piece, like it’s a complete idea and be like, this is the flow of it. You know, I had the track order and everything made sense and I was like, this is the statement. From there to my mind, it was kind of like choosing…when it came to “Sea of Men,” like, what is something that kind of covers the most ground for what the rest of the record does and the directions it goes?
Because I think other songs go further in other specific directions, but “Sea of Men” is kind of this balanced between a lot of those things, where it’s very band-y So there’s this statement of like, ‘oh, there’s maybe a different sound to this record.’ But at the same time, there’s still sort of experimental moments in it and things that are a little off-kilter, but then it’s also very melodic forward – it has a very clear kind of refrain in it and all this stuff, um, a bombastic outro kind of just lots of things that are like…the record can move in these directions, but it’s kind of up to you to hear the whole thing and see where it goes.
So it was to my mind it was the right middle ground. I don’t think it was like the standout track, but that’s also not the way I think about making a record. I’m not like, what are the tracks? It’s like, I make an entire thing and then it’s like, oh, some of these might land better with others now that I’m looking at it. But that’s never the intention going into it.
And then “Eden,” it was like I had said where it feels nicely subversive to me, where it’s super forward and pop and dancy and not necessarily band-y sounding. But I liked the idea of it being the second single to be like, hey, I still have this sort of like electronic leaning nature in what I do and it’s also really, really positive compared to the lyrics of “Sea of Men.” And so everything from that point on is going to be way more of a deep dive. I feel like, oh, I’m really getting into it now. Whereas I think if “Eden” hadn’t been the second single, I think, I don’t know. I think it might have been maybe more jarring than it needed to be in the context of the record, whereas if you hear it now and then you’re going through the entire thing, it kind of makes more sense, especially with the weight of that being still at the sort of front half of the record. There’s lots of things I think about it, but the basic answer is, I think it made sense.
Well, and it’s just like, it’s just sometimes it just comes down to like, is the song good? And with “Eden”- that song is great.
I love how this record flows. I’m a nerd when it comes like the sequencing and all that stuff and I love how this record starts and it builds. I know strings played a really big role on this record comparative to like your other Baths records and even other projects. How important was to flesh out the strings and while not the main focus of the record but a really major driver of Gut?
It’s a good question. I think the thing is the easy answer is I love strings. You know what I mean? Like there’s I could say that and it would still be 100% sure would not have to elaborate. But if I am diving deeper on that answer, it’s like strings are a really conducive vehicle to feeling emotional about something.
And so for me, a lot of these songs, like I love …like a lot of the records were so so inspired by like noise rock and like post punk stuff. And I know decidedly this record is not necessarily the those things at all, but coming from that feeling…and the word I used a lot of time is relentless. That kind of writing style and drive to the feeling of the band elements on the record coupled with this effort of something so evocative like strings and string work and string writing. It was like a really logical pairing to me to have that much of it because they felt of a piece and like a lot of the way the strings appear on this record, it is literally just me thinking it makes sense. It’s not really a deeper level of like, this was the thing that I told myself I had to have. It was just kind of as I was working on the so it was like, ‘oh God, I really think strains would help a lot here.’ And it just kind of did.
It’s like once I got all the string parts written…we basically also did all of the strings in like one day, which is insane. I had to arrange everything myself, but, you know, I did the midi transcriptions and then kind of arranged them and made it look good enough. And then I worked with this string quartet – the Isaura String Quartet, who I worked with since Obsidian who are incredible and they’re so good and they also so immediately and deeply understand how I like strings to sound, like with descriptors like molasses and syrupy and like where notes kind kind of bend into each other and all this stuff. They just fucking get it. They just get it.
And so bringing them all this music, literally eight songs worth of music to record in one day. We did it all at Tropico Beauty Studios in LA with Phil Hartunian on the boards. And it was just so dense. It was like a very, very long work day, but we got all of it out because they’re as good as they are. It was like barely a take or two in and it was like that was perfect. We don’t need to do anything.
And why strings were so important – when I’m making music, I don’t have the weight of those kinds of answers sitting in my head really. It literally is just an action of like this is what I should do now. Like I am just making a thing and it’s like this feels like what I should do next. And I don’t take time to process like whether that’s right or not or like if other people are going to think a certain way about it or how I even I feel about it, I literally am just like, ‘yes, let’s do that. Or no, I don’t want to do that.’ And so much of the way I produce, like as I’m trying things out and experimenting and laying things down and trying new ideas, I keep that momentum of decision making going where I’m literally just like, yes, no, no, no, yes, no, yes. And just trying things and being decisive about if I connect with them or if I don’t. And if I don’t, then I just remove it.
And so strings are just one of those things that I think I almost always say yes to. So that’s why they’re so prevalent.
Yeah, and I think without a doubt Gut is the the best sounding, best produced Baths record yet. It just sounds so full and present – not that the past records are like thin sounding or anything – it was just it just the way it coalesces together is very pleasing.
And I’m glad to hear that, and I think the whole thing with that is that it’s like I’m still the only person producing and mixing it. So I’m just getting a little better as I go. Like I’m learning more in the process. Every time I make a new record, there’s new stuff I think think up on and all of that.
And then there’s the work you did for Bee and PuppyCat for Netflix and like the stuff you put out with Geotic over the last couple of years, has that influence in any way how you approached producing this record? Or is that always just kind of like you said – you’re just get better with each thing? You’re just learning more as as you create and make music.
I think it’s that, but also the way I’ve described it to other people is that when I’m scoring something, like if I’m working on Bee and PuppyCat or I did this movie Big Boys last year – that was the first time I’ve ever done a score for feature or anything like that. That kind of work is is it literally occupies a different part of my brain because I am either writing music for myself or I’m writing music for somebody else.
And if I am writing music for somebody else, I operate differently. I am way more open to being kind of really brutal about the process. Like somebody will always tell you like, ‘oh, this isn’t work for me’ and then you have to just be like, okay and throw it away and then do something else or try something else or change something so that that you can’t really get like, super attached to any one thing because there’s no point in doing that because if the person working on the project whose ideas you’re trying to write towards doesn’t like it, then you have to be flexible and you have to change it.
So, even though those are two different brain spaces, what I do take from that process is an added level of leniency about writing, where like when I go back to my own stuff and I write Baths’ things, I’m way more comfortable about things not working. I’ve always been okay with that. I’ve always been good about like, oh, this isn’t working. Uh, that’s fine and I’ve try to not get too discouraged about it. That’s part of the process is making bad shit that is like how you make a record is make a million mistakes.
So that’s always been true, but I think those processes made it that much more prevalent and real to me because it’s also almost like beating you over the head with that where you’re just like, a lot of the time things don’t work. And that’s fine because the end result is the perfected version of what you were trying to do, where it’s exactly their vision while still holding on to the things that I wanted to do as a musician for that sort of project.
I’ve been very, very, very lucky in that the scoring project I’ve been involved in were because people liked my music specifically and reached out to me to have sort of my voice be a part of their vision. Whereas if somebody was like, can you write music for like, Uncharted or something, like the Uncharted movie, I would be like ‘what the fuck?’ Like I would completely miserably fail at that because it’s so not my shit. You know, it’s a very weird example, but um, just that sort of thinking of like, I’ve been really lucky because I’ve been attached to things that I think are really close to my heart anyway.
You mentioned earlier that you were sort of inspired a bit by post-punk. And I hear that in your vocals in this record. There’s a lot of a lot more screaming – which I love especially the intensity in “Eyewall” and “The Sound of a Blooming Flower.” But overall I think your vocal performance on this is so strong and in listening to this and then listening to your past records while I was prepping – there is a lot less use of the falsetto you use a lot. Was that intentional or just an organic thing as the songs developed?
Yeah, I think in my head I was aiming for like a different beauty, if I want to phrase it like that, where basically like falsetto to me is another root like strings where I could sort of easily make something evocative, but for the sound and the sort of physicality and push of this record, it just made less sense to do that because I think with falsetto, at least for me, it almost comes across as being more precious. There’s a bit in there, and especially sort of in the background vocals and kind of like choir moments of things. But as a lead presence in the vocals, it just didn’t make as much sense. I wanted it to be much more grounded.
So I think that’s all it was. It just sort of made more sense to do it that way.
And I feel like like when it comes to screaming, when it comes to anything else, like especially the weird sort of talking bit at the beginning of “Eyewall,” the way vocals work for me is tying them to context, like tying into like, what am I talking about? Like, why am I screaming?
Because even though I love music where bands are literally yelling the entire way through a song or whatever, and it’s amazing to me and I love that. For me, I can’t really do it unless I actually feel like what I’m talking about has appropriately built to the point of needing to scream, where it feels like there’s not enough in just saying the words. I have to be like really, really aggressive with them.
So all of the vocals I try and think about – all the music, everything I do, I try to think about it like that, like trying to think about emotional context.
It’s like why would I be talking here? And it’s because it’s like a level of complacency I’m trying to imagine for that song in that scenario, like trying to keep it every day, trying to imagine that it’s this way. But then I start to sing when I start to get more exasperated. So in “Eyewall” when I start to sing and when I’m getting more exasperated and then it builds to like this deeper and deeper tension that I keep coming back to as though I’m like raising my voice without meaning to. And so I think that just makes sense.
So the answer for all of it, including falsetto, screaming, all of it is, again, I just think that is what makes sense the purpose of this this record.
The last song on this record, “The Sound of a Blooming Flower,” it’s absolutely my favorite Baths song ever. The piano on it is gorgeous, I love how the song builds along with its lyrical content. I think it’s just such a defining piece of music for this project. Can you take me through the process of how this song was built and how it came about to be the finale for a record that’s so physical and immediate for you?
It’s cool because this happens with a lot of my songs where like – and this is true of many producers and if you talk to any producer, they have a lot of drafts. Like there’s some people will have a record and be like, I had a hundred songs when I chose 12 or whatever it is. And I’m not saying I work that way, but what I do have in my process is a lot of drafts for like a single song. It’s not necessarily that I have a hundred different like skeletal ideas of things. It’s more like I start with one thing and then work on things and change it and work on things and change it and that can go many, many different directions. And from draft to draft can sound like a completely different song a lot of the time.
And so “The Sound of a Blooming Flower” was a lot of like finding. It was a lot of like trying a bunch of different things until it got to a place that I was like ‘this is working’ and did something else and I was like ‘this is working.’
So the initial structure of it, like there was a version of this song way before it was complete that had a much more kind of present first half. There’s like a beat that’s kind of like glitchy that kind of moves along with the piano part that’s a little more intense. And then that went for like kind of the first three minutes of it.
And I thought that was the song, but then I had this moment of like a chord ringing out at the end of it and just having it thought of like, ‘what if this kept going? Like, what if it did build into something else?’
And sort of the second half started to build from that, but then I realized how important that felt and it had to completely re-contextualize the first half because the first half felt weak compared to how strong that part of it got.
So it was almost like the first part of the song was there that had to die to make way for the second part, which then in that existing had to like be changed in order to make a new first part appear and then like finding the cohesion of the whole six minutes where it’s it’s basically almost isolated piano building to this really big thing.cThat’s like 15, 16 drafts of shit or whatever the hell it was.
Just lots of changes, lots of trying things out and the reference for whether a thing is working is still just me. It’s still just like, ‘Do I like this? Do I think this is doing what I what I wanted to do yet?’ And so that was like that song I think in particular was one of the hardest to get to that, not only because it went through so many drafts, but because the second half of it as a production, as like a literal file on my computer got so dense that making changes past a certain threshold became really difficult. Like my computer was barely hanging on for kind of like the last whatever era of production on that song. But I got through it, I was able to like freeze enough tracks in the production to sort of make it make sense.
I go back to it a lot and I just I love every part of it.
It definitely hits, but that’s the whole point is that it’s like you go on this journey with the record to build to the place where that feels like it deserves its spot there. That’s kind of how I wanted it to feel.
Let’s talk about Heyshiro Matsuoka doing the art for Gut. How did how did that come about? I really like the common theme between the album’s art and the single artwork as well. Where did the inspiration and the connection come for that?Well, first of all, I want to give you props as an interviewer because you’re the first person to ask me about it, which is really surprising to me.
And I am obsessed with the art and it’s maybe my favorite part of this entire process was working with him that I – it almost makes me like too emotional talking about it sometimes because he’s like literally one of my favorite illustrators of all time. Like I am a person if you can’t tell, like you can literally see in my room like these are all my comics, like all my collected shit. I have like illustrations, horny illustrations all over the place.
I am like a lifelong collector of like erotic gay art, especially that from Japan because there’s an entire subculture that exists there stronger than almost anywhere in the world.
So that being said, Heyshiro Matsuoka is someone that exists in the absolute upper echelon of that material. He is like wildly talented and completely singular and comes from a really dense, fine art background that coupled into the aesthetics of what he’s working with just makes his stuff like so, so singular and so interesting. So I’ve been obsessed with this stuff for a very long time.
Also, knowing about his work from his like completely different pornographic background. He’s had like a much, he has an entirely different name for that work and it’s way, way, way more intense and way more erotic. And that is for another time and for folks to discover on their own if they want to dive deeper.
But that was how I initially knew about his stuff and then also saw that he had this fine art side, which I loved just as much and I thought was just as beautiful in a completely different way.
So getting that artwork to happen was just a cold email. He said on his profile way back when just email if you’re interested. And this was before he had like exploded on Instagram. I think he had like six thousand, seven thousand followers or something like that, now has like 125,000 or whatever it is, maybe 200 thousand and I just emailed him, and I was just like, ‘Hey, I’m a massive fan. I have a record coming out, who knows when, but I’ve loved your art forever. Would you be interested in hearing a proposal about working together for album artwork?’
And he was super gracious and direct and he was very open and was just like, ‘sure, what’s your idea?’ And I basically sent him a four page PDF pitch about the hard work that I wanted . And then it was just an email collaboration over the course of a number of months to get it and it was just perfect.
Like at the end of it, it was like, I can’t even describe to you how crazy it was feeling it is to have an idea in your head of like perfect artwork for what you want for something and to just have it exist suddenly, it is like the craziest feeling in the world. And he was like properly compensated for it. He gave me like a discount because he was excited to work on it, which was the most generous thing in the world, but it was still like an expensive prospect. But like the best money I think I have ever spent in my entire life. It is there’s nothing like seeing something you have in your head, just a vague idea So well realized.
Like you can tell that I’m such a fucking nerd for because I can’t stop talking, but I’m just like, I’m obsessed with the artwork. I can’t believe how good it turned out. And when you see the record in full, if you get the vinyl there’s a gatefold, there’s a back cover. It’s fucking gorgeous. It is like the best artwork I’ve ever had for anything I’ve ever done.
I mean as a someone who follows your Twitter account, I know I’ve seen how much you love artwork and especially in that style So I knew I had to ask you about the the artwork for this. So it’s just really cool to hear how that come to life. Along that line, I really enjoy the music videos for “Sea of Men” and “Eden” and being kind of like the idiot I am I was like, ‘oh, Will got a full band’ without realizing it’s just you playing everything. *laughs*
*laughs* Yes I’m glad you brought that up. It’s super intentional where I didn’t want to draw attention to it. I didn’t want you to see like my faces really close up because I love the idea that you’re watching it and you’re only like at a certain point are you like ‘oh, it’s all the same guy!’ I wanted that surprise. That’s really satisfying to me that you’re telling me it took you until the second viewing. I love that.
And the “Eden” video has you riding a bicycle with a fisheye lens viewpoint but much like New York City is the fifth character of Sex In The City, your bedroom is like the second character of almost every video you’ve made.
*laughs* Yeah, yeah.
Is it just more like convenience to shoot it in your own space?
It’s convenient, certainly, but it’s also like diaristic for me. It’s like, you know, like a diary of my life where it’s like this is where I’ve been living and working on and stuff and whatever. So it just feels really good to have that featured and to sort of ground, I think other people in their understanding of who I am as an artist.
Like this is where I work on music. Like wherever I live, it’s like my fucking bedroom. I don’t don’t have like a studio situation. If I do have to use one, it is like a massive financial undertaking to go to a studio space to record with other people. Like I just don’t have the luxury that people have. So it’s like fun for me to be like, ‘hey, this is where I was at when I was doing stuff.’
So there’s some shade of that, but also, I just think it’s like, I can’t help myself but do things that I think are like things that I think are fun. And I feel like just showing myself on a bike around like Glendale in the area that I live in and just sort of adding some pizzazz to it and doing whatever I want makes for a nice video compared to something that was intentionally almost more clinical in its approach to the “Sea of Men” video where it’s like very stark, very white. Uh that was the vibe I wanted for that for the reintroduction.
But then it’s like, this is also me too. I’m something it’s goofier and weird and more open and kind of like horny in a way that like, uh I feel like I’m allowing myself to get into more and more because the album is such a sexual escapade for better or for worse. So that was the effort of it was it like I didn’t mind including my room, but I knew I wanted bike stuff and I also wanted a layer of weird horniness kind of in a very specific way.
That’s super rad – yeah I just really enjoy all the visuals you put off for your music. I still periodically watch the the Geotic one where you’re looking for hair all the time.
Thank you. There was a comment on this video of somebody saying like, wow, the search for hair continued.
Also, wait, uh unrelated to anything, there is a YouTube comment from a video of mine, I think from “Mikaela Corridor,’ but maybe it was before that. Maybe it was something earlier that just just basically says, ‘this guy gets weirder and hotter with every release.’
No joke – that was gonna be my next question.
*laughs* Really?!
I was gonna ask you how does it feel that people think that you keep getting hotter and weirder with each release.
I’m so glad that was going to be a question because it’s literally like it became like a biblical prophecy for me. And then on this newest video for “Eden”, they like reciprocated that. They said something like, ‘He continues getting weirder and hotter or something.’
Like I read that and I was like, that is my fucking M.O. I just want to continue to like work on myself, get healthier, do what I need to try and be hot, but then at the same time, just keep pushing whatever I’m doing a little further. So yeah – weirder and hotter with every release is like the entire M.O. *laughs*