Cold War Kids Contain Multitudes on Their 10th Album

For 16 years, Long Beach band Cold War Kids have remained one of the most crucial indie rock groups in all of music. Under the leadership of vocalist, pianist and guitarist Nathan Willett, he and bandmembers Matt Maust, David Quon, Matthew Schwartz and Joe Plummer have amassed a catalog of blues and soul-inspired projects that more than cement Cold War Kids as all-time greats. Now, they’ve opted to title their 10th, and best, record after themselves.

It’s an apt designation, as Cold War Kids arrives intimate, personal and revelatory. Willett points the focus of these 12 songs onto himself, interrogating his own culpability in toxic masculinity, wrestling with gender roles in parenthood and searching for a better understanding in a long-standing relationship with the mother of his children. It’s a true epitome of a band recognizing their own maturity and unveiling a statement that is not grand so much as it is risky and beautiful. Cold War Kids are firmly set in their world. They didn’t have to make a record like this. And, yet, they did, and it’s wonderful and I’m so glad they’ve shared it with us.

Willett sat down with Paste and explained the ins and outs of all 12 songs on Cold War Kids, so kick back, tune in and get the backstories, themes, mission statements and sonic influences behind this marvel of a record.

“Double Life”

Musically, I was listening to the Pretenders song “The Wait” a lot. It has that fun bounce, swing and jerky rock ‘n’ roll riff. I think some of that rubbed off on “Double Life.” I think we all live a double life on some level. One that is deeply authentic and natural and another that is not comfortable, not at home in their environment. To be fully human, we have to hold these two selves in constant tension and align them.

“Since 2006 I haven’t been the same”: Taking it back to the start—the year we first started touring, recorded our first album. Everything changed. I was 26. My friends who had toured in punk bands as teenagers had already ran their course. I was a substitute teacher who felt like my time to be a musician had passed, but I decided to go all in on this band. And it all happened!

“Which one of us changed”: I think this is kind of about other band members, struggles of creativity and business with old friends, how the vision changed over the years. Was I always so hungry for success or did I change when I got a taste of it?

“Now I’m a mother of three”: I have three kids! And my partner delivers babies and works a lot. Our life is action-packed with our kids. We are always flying by the seat of our pants. Is this written from a female perspective or am I the actual mother? Maybe both.

“We don’t know a man who acts maternally”: I feel like, culturally, we have so few examples of men who are really hands-on with their kids and have a maternal role. I think we are surprisingly traditional about gender roles with males being away more and financially providing.

“On the brink of civil war, need a gender fluid Jesus more”: Sarah Silverman tweeted “MERRY CHRISTMAS. Jesus was gender fluid.” I just love this, because I think it’s true and important. It somehow perfectly bridges the gap between the culture wars of conservatives and liberals. Imagine if Americans saw Jesus as gender fluid. How many conflicts would end. How much better the world would be.

“Run Away With Me”

This song, we were listening to Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me to Stay.” It has that funky groove. David Bowie’s “ Station to Station,” I wanted to do a Cold War Kids version of that with a big chorus. I feel like this song coming after “Double Life”—it kind of introduces the conflict, the desire to escape. To just be wild and free.

“Stray”

This song has a little bit of Curtis Mayfield in it to me. I listened to Theres No Place Like America Today a lot. I feel like it has a classic soul feel. The chorus is simply “Don’t you stray,” which I like the idea of it being both a request and a question. Is the singer pleading with their partner not to stray or asking their partner if they ever stray? I like the ambiguity there.

I love the line “The closer we get to tragedy, the more I feel like I am truly blessed.” Thats the great paradox of relationships: We work so hard to set ourselves up for success but it’s tragedy that really brings us together.

“Toxic Mask”

I was watching the Woodstock ’99 documentary and I couldn’t even get through it. I think because I lived through it, it was so familiar to me. Especially now that I have three daughters—I am so sensitive to the horrible hyper-sexist culture I grew up in. These lyrics spell it out pretty blatantly. The chorus is just my heart breaking for all the kids that suffered silently without being able to express themselves and feel understood. It’s the feeling I felt of being young and unsure, feeling terrified of getting older.

It reminds me of the poem “rage rage against the dying of the light”—adulthood is coming and we just have to accept the unfairness of the world, so in the end “will you pretend” or “will you surrender?” People don’t talk enough about how much boys are also victims of toxic masculinity. I think my public school almost instilled that fear and aggression of the other sex.

“Another Name”

This is my favorite song on the album. Very McCartney vibe. Only one I did with Ethan Gruska. It is the big shift into self acceptance. Before I went in to his studio that day, I had my last call with my therapist of six years. She was moving on in her work, and this was the end of our relationship. It really felt like a break up. She had seen me through so many of my most vulnerable moments of weakness and growth.

I was totally weeping over the loss. I walked in to Ethan’s studio and told him about it. He told me that he had gone through a similar experience. We wrote all the lyrics and music together to “Another Name” that afternoon. It was the most tender moment between two men that were basically strangers. I am really grateful for to have this song as an expression of that moment.

“Blame”

This song is looking back on my relationship. When you start off young together, one person is always going to evolve before the other. So, to stay together I had to catch up, take responsibility, take the blame for my absence and selfishness to move forward. But I wanted the music to be fun—Elton John and John Lennon “whatever gets you through the night” meets the Killers.

“Empty Inside”

I like the juxtaposition of this music being kind of fun dancey, Gorillaz-ish, with the lyric that is very existential—if I don’t have a soul what is the point of all the stuff I’ve accomplished? Has a Clash Magnificent 7 and War-type of bongos, ’70’s swing that I love.

“Braindead Megaphone”

I wanted the feel of this to be hitting you over the head. The title is taken from a George Saunders book. It’s about the moment two years ago where I think we all realized this paradox, living in a democracy with free speech is wonderful and also horrible, exhausting and impossible! Suddenly people on both sides who would never make a peep are raging with zealous beliefs. Everybody nerves were raw. “You think you know my intentions ? but you can’t see in my mind” This is the hardest thing about public discourse, so much of what we do when we debate is make assumptions about each other. But how can we not? It’s controlled chaos. Musically, the loose jangly feel is like very Joe Cocker Mad Dogs on a Primal Scream loop.

“Sunday in the City”

My memory of this song will also always be rooted in post pandemic summer. A time of powerlessness, totally unsure of so much about our future. And yet I have these kids to take to Griffith Park. Where every walk of life, class, race, are all playing together like they always have and always will.

“Theres people here they got no place to land,
but they’re not so quick to throw up their hands.”

In LA we are very aware of the homeless people we see all around us everyday. Finding help for them is a problem so massive it seems impossible to solve. But I see this optimism and joy in so many homeless who may be asking for help but not pity, there is a great beauty and unity in our co-existence that I think is in this song.

“For Your Love”

For any parent, when its just you holding my crying baby, so wiped out and at the end of your rope, in a rocking chair at 3 AM. We recently had our four-year-old daughter diagnosed as autistic. It’s been kind of devastating and a relief to have a hopeful explanation behind her behavior when she’s melting down and inconsolable.

This song is for her and for those times. I need a higher love. There is this primal, biological, reason for these brutal moments. Keeping each other alive. There is so much beauty there. When people talk about the pros and cons of having kids, or being in a committed relationship, I think it’s impossible to explain why suffering through these moments is life itself.

Musically, it feels like the modern song on the record. It has some ’80’s Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins to it.

“Betting on Us”

This is the last song we wrote and recorded for the album. To me the sound of it; the droning guitar feedback, the piano riff, it feels exactly what the lyric feels like. Being in a long term committed relationship is like living in a state of cautious optimism. It is both conditional and unconditional.

I love the imagery of these phases of a relationship: “you keep cutting your hair you’ll go from platinum to black.” And the wood, crystal, silver, are all the milestone gifts for anniversaries. Five years, 10 years, 20 years… It’s like, how long will we make it?

“Starring Role”

I was in an enterprise rental car place looking at my phone at dumb celebrity news and I was really frustrated. Again, pretty spelled out lyrical message. I feel a mixture of deep contentment for my place in life and a great ambition and longing to be called for my starring role. To have that moment where all of my brilliance and talents and struggles that have gone unnoticed are recognized and praised. To be a creative person I think takes a tremendous amount of vanity. A lot of times I’ll suppress that urge but often it’s shameless attention seekers that win in the end. So is it better to be jealous or to become the thing you fear?

I love how intense and kind of violent these lines are:

“Are we so caught up in
whose the goat
I wanna grab em by the throat

bite down drink the marrow from their bones
I cant bare to survive on other peoples crumbs
how am I ever gonna win sitting on my thumbs
my time has gotta come”

Musically, the simplicity of this song, it is a wonderful closer, it feels like an oasis song. We just opened this huge tour for Tears for Fears and it was so incredible and I am so grateful and of course, there is always that part of me that wants this to be our stage, our show, headlining Hollywood Bowl, to have the starring role. But also when I think about a larger platform, you have to have such thick skin, I would be a little terrified to be under the scrutiny that comes with it. It’s funny that an artist rarely ever says, “I’m in exactly the right place.” I guess this song is me wrestling with that.