Hear Wet’s New Rostam-Produced Song ‘You’re Not Wrong’
Boston indie-pop act Wet drafted former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij to produce their jovial new song “You’re Not Wrong.”
The multi-instrumentalist adds a classic soul flair with his stomping, staccato piano chords and stuttering, funky drum groove. Singer-writer Kelly Zutrau croons softly over a shifting arrangement that weaves in harmonized electric guitars, washes of synth and a honky sax section.
In a statement, Zutrau described Batmanglij’s crucial role in developing the song and pushing Wet out of their comfort zone. “When I first played ‘You’re Not Wrong’ for Rostam, it was a slow sad piano-y song in my GarageBand,” she said. “It sounded like lots of things I’d written before, but it was sort of sweeter because it seemed more definitive than some of the others. It was like I had been searching for an answer about love, and in that moment that I wrote this song I had grown so tired of myself and my ambivalence that I decided to believe in it. Even if it was somewhat fleeting, it was a happy thing to catch and held this special place for me on the album.
“Rostam heard it and immediately added drums and started banging out this frantic piano part,” she continued. “He sped it way up, and within an hour of working on it, it was a completely different thing. It was really surprising, but I loved it so much. He had taken it somewhere that [producer Joe Valle] and I never would’ve gone on our own and captured some of that positive energy I had felt in the lyrics, but didn’t know how to convey with the production.”
“You’re Not Wrong” appears on Wet’s upcoming second LP, Still Run, out July 13th.