Introducing Total Wife and Their Latest Single “make it last”

Total Wife, a Nashville based band full of noise, power, and feeling, releases their album Come Back Down on September 19th. Ahead of their release, I sat down with Luna Kupper and Ash Richter to chat about their unique songwriting process, DIY ethos, and their new single “make it last.” Total Wife’s instrumentals grumble and swirl around their lyrics; it’s a fuzzy dream and a jumble of feelings resembling a letter torn apart with a jagged edge. Total Wife’s music is personal, interweaving years of knowing one another through the most pivotal moments of their lives, “…What else are we going to do but make music at this point,” Luna said with a smirk on her face. 

Before making it to Nashville, Luna and Ash grew up on the East Coast, running in between bands, skateboarding, and eventually running right into each other. “I was hanging out with some friends one night…Luna and I ended up hanging out really late…and decided to make a band together,” Ash explained. Sometimes, it is that simple. After a few years in Boston, Luna and Ash packed up and moved to Nashville after some of their friends were talking up the music scene. Ash says, “We visited, and just thought, ‘yeah, they’re right.’” With Nashville in their back pocket, Total Wife is ready to fully unleash. 

Photo By: Sean Booz

Come Back Down is Total Wife’s first record released through a label. “We’ve always self released and not really put much thought into how we put it out, other than the music and the art behind it all, so it was nice to have Julia’s War,” Luna explained. If Julia’s War is sounding a little familiar, they are a Philly based label founded by Douglas Dulgarian of the band They Are Gutting A Body of Water. With a community centered label behind them, Total Wife felt more at home and was able to focus on their work outside of the band. 

Total Wife is a cornerstone of the DIY Nashville scene. Their grassroots hustle inches its way all over their work. Luna said, “...Anytime you think you need someone bigger than you…you can just figure out how to do it yourself. You and your friends are key–everyone together and their resources create something.” Before signing onto Julia’s War, they were making their own tapes, creating their own art, and facilitating rollouts. Now, they can focus their attention on releasing other bands' projects on their tape label. But, this doesn’t come without DIY help. “It’s so important to teach each other things along the way, and not gatekeep. Be humble and realize that anyone can teach you anything,” Ash said. Yet, a DIY headspace isn’t the only way Total Wife keeps it grounded. 

The production and sampling for Come Back Down were completely sampled from past works and recordings, making the album a true metamorphosis and quilting of their past and present. This idea sprang from an old recording of Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars.” “Using that [previous recordings] as a reminder of where we come from as artists and how nothing could exist without what came before it…We were able to see our memories through a new lens,” Ash said. 

Production was a tying of loose ends and building onto new ones. Their songwriting is incredibly entangled. Working as a unit, yet giving each other space, Ash explained, “I'll sequester myself away and try to figure out chords and then present them…Luna will be working on something in the studio, and I might be tandemly writing or making some sort of art piece.” This hand in hand style leaks onto their music. Each song feels like a continuation of a body, a new stitch into the Frankenstein that is Total Wife. 

Listening to Total Wife, the one thing that comes out almost immediately is this fuzzy, staticky feeling–that blissful moment that washes over you as you’re falling asleep. During the making of the record, Luna’s most creative moments often came at the edge of sleep. While I run to my notes app, trying to remember an ounce of my dream to write down, Luna found herself unlocking pieces of an album. “I draw inspiration from sleep a lot…When I’m working late, I fall asleep really easily. Jokingly, she giggles, “My parents said I slept through my first three years of life.” Total Wife’s lyrics and production feel like all those thoughts that race through your mind before a dream; the to-do list for tomorrow, the embarrassing thing you said in sixth grade, or a revisiting of the fort you built in the woods with your childhood friends. Luna said, “When I’m alone and mixing things get illusiony and weird–falling asleep while playing back a song, you hear it in a way that’s not how you would have expected.” Luna’s unique method allows for the record to play in this space that is often not touched or put into a physical piece to listen to. 

Image by Total Wife

Their second single, “make it last,” was a long time coming. “This was an early song that I came to the band with…it pushed us into doing this rumbling at the end of every show, and it keeps getting longer and longer,” Luna said. Each piece, rumble, and bang of the drum stitches the band together, as Ash described, “we’re all parts of a whole.” Its simmering vocals brew over the track into this concoction of grit and thorny feeling that continues to poke your side. 

Come Back Down releases on September 19th, but you have “second spring” and “make it last” to keep you company in your dreams and the space in between. Total Wife makes you feel like you’ve hit that wall of noise with nowhere to go but the next song. Their off-kilter style and production fade each track into the next one, making this record feel like a bleeding together of Total Wife’s past, present, and future. 

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