New York City-based trio Wet formed during college. When vocalist Kelly Zutrau moved to Rhode Island for graduate school and Joe Valle crossed the country for work, they continued to exchange demo ideas. Upon their return to New York, the partnership was revived and the band played multiple shows (including at Mercury Lounge and Cake Shop) and released several songs online. A blogger reviewed the band favorably and Wet’s popularity began to spike. Emails from labels soon began to jam the band’s inbox.
“One label in particular that we liked was Neon Gold, an imprint of Columbia,” Zutrau recalls. “They wanted to do an EP with us and we were very excited. When it came out, we were asked to do a lot more shows and things began to pick up. We started to get offers from other labels, including Columbia. That’s when we hired a lawyer.”
“It became clear that we needed to figure out what we sounded like.”
Ultimately the band chose to sign with Columbia for several key reasons. “We met with the labels and tried to figure out which to go with,” Zutrau explains. “That was a long, hard process because we liked everyone that we talked with. In the end, Columbia felt like the right place for us, mostly based on the other artists signed to the label.”
Wet has spent the past 18 months recording its full-length record, much of which was produced by the band. “We did have a few producers,” Zutrau says, “but most of it was done by us. It became clear that we needed to figure out what we sounded like. Every producer we worked with was good at what they did, but their sound almost took over.”
Don’t You is slated for release on Jan. 29, 2016. The first single, “Weak,” dropped towards the end of September. Around that same time, Wet kicked off a North American tour in support of Tobias Jesso, Jr.
Neon Gold originally had signed a joint venture deal with Columbia, but is now an imprint of Atlantic.
