Madison Anthony and J. Wolfskill of Wolkskill & the Wild -- May 30 at Ragged Records (photo by Greta Baker @gretabphotography)
Plenty of albums feature songs that are also love stories. Far fewer albums are themselves love stories.
When you listen to the gorgeous, haunting tracks on Feral Heart, the debut EP by area indie-folk duo Wolfskill & the Wild, you'll recognize their collective theme of love in all forms: romantic love, love of life, love of music. But the recording's song progression – with guitarist/vocalist J. Wolfskill accompanied by cellist/violinist Madison “Maddie” Anthony on a number he wrote, followed by the pair sharing songwriting duties, followed by Anthony contributing vocal harmonies on the final track – also acts as a kind of mirror to what happened between Wolfskill and Anthony themselves. Anthony joined Wolfskill's outfit as a platonic collaborator in early 2024, and in late March of this year, the duo celebrated their first anniversary as a no-longer-platonic couple.
“When we started writing together,” says Wolfskill, “we were writing these really vulnerable lyrics. A lot of loving and sad emotions … .”
“Not even about loving each other yet,” says Anthony. “We weren't together. We were just friends at that point. But we were writing about loving yourself, loving other parts of your life – all kinds of love that didn't necessarily involve him and I.”
“During one song, though,” Wolfskill continues, “Maddie kept scooting closer to me on the couch while writing it. Keep in mind, for months, we were just jamming and having fun as friends. And the whole time, in the back of my head, I'm thinking, 'Do not date your bandmates, do not date your bandmates … .'
“But we're writing this song, and Maddie just starts scooting closer and closer to me until I finally couldn't even type on the laptop. I looked over at her and she looked at me … . And like a nervous 12-year-old boy, I finally put my arm around her.
“The cards just worked out super-well in such a weird way,” he says. “I mean, we've only been dating a year. But there are times when we finish each other's sentences, almost every day we cry just laughing together … . It's like Maddie's guardian angel and my guardian angel were best friends in some past life.”
“And,” adds Anthony, “they're also in love.”
Both musicians clearly feel that their union was meant to be. They also realize, however, how easily it might never have happened, considering that Wolfskill & the Wild – who will enjoy a vinyl-record release party for Feral Heart at Davenport's Ragged Records on May 30 – wasn't originally intended as a musical duo.
Although, as Wolfskill says, “I got my chops playing in the open-mic scene around here,” he quickly discovered that “the open jams, just jamming with friends, was what I really loved. It was everybody making art together, and not being the greatest in the world, I was able to hide behind certain layers of sound sometimes. So that really sparked me in wanting to start a full band. I think as people, in general, we all want to be part of a tribe. Finding who your people are.
“Everyone calls me 'Wolfskill' or 'Wolfie,” he continues. “So I thought, 'If everybody around here knows me as Wolfskill, I'll just make the band name Wolfskill. But that one,” he adds with a laugh, “was already taken. And because it was going to be an open-jam group, with the band members always rotating, I figured we couldn't have a specific band name – it was always gonna be wild, because we'd never quite know what was gonna happen or who was gonna be jamming with me. So: Wolfskill & the Wild.'”
We Have to Write All-New Material Now
A Kickstarter to help fund the group's first EP – one originally planned for release in August of 2024 – was set up in November of '23 and completed the following January, by which time Wolfskill had his other band members in place. Mostly.
At the time, says Wolfskill, “I was living above Coffee House in the East Village (of Davenport), and I would go down there quite often to get coffee. And Madison was a barista there. Over time, we started chatting a little bit longer and longer about different subjects, just in passing, and one time she said, 'Oh, I play violin.' So I said, 'Hey, I have this band, and we just completed our Kickstarter – would you be interested in being a part of our group?' And she was like, 'Yeah, definitely.'”
“I had always wanted to be part of a folk project,” says Anthony, who, as a string player, has performed with the Muscatine and Galesburg symphonies and teaches students in both violin and cello. “I've always enjoyed folk music, and I've worked with (area singer/songwriter) Lewis Knudsen before and really loved that experience. I was so excited to write my own string parts for folk music.”
“But then,” continues Wolfskill, “the other guys in the band were like, 'Hey, we don't have enough time for this project – our families come first.' So we decided to part ways, and I had a conversation with Maddie. 'I asked you to be part of a band, but now everyone's kind of backing out, and this isn't what I envisioned it being. So if you want to back out, too, I understand.' And her words were, 'No. I want to stay.' And I was like, 'Man, this is a real one right here.'”
The speedy shift in band roster, though, did pose some problems in regard to the promised album.
“It was all funded through the Kickstarter event,” says Wolfskill, “But because the band actually changed right after the Kickstarter was completed, it was like, 'Oh crap, we have to write all-new material now, because we don't have drums and bass and everything.' And we only had a select amount of time to write music, because I told the Kickstarters the album would be out in August. 'What the hell are we gonna write about?!'”
That answer ultimately presented itself, because “over the course of writing,” Wolfskill says, “we fell in love. So it was like, 'You know? Let's just write about this. This is what it's gonna be about – this emotion.'
Regarding the six songs crafted for Feral Heart, Wolfskill says, “It was really interesting learning how to work with a classical musician. Even before we were dating. For them, it's very methodical. Every note is written right in front of them, and they have to play that. But I come from a jam-band, open-mic scene, so I'm more like, 'Do whatever. Play what you feel.'”
Consequently, the musicians wound up both teaching one another and benefiting from one another's musical strengths.
In collaborating with Anthony, Wolfskill says, “It's almost like a real-time digital-audio work station. If I hit the F on the keyboard, Maddie, because she's pitch perfect, will say, 'Go to the A … or wait, the B-minor works better.' And I'm like, 'Holy shit, this sounds killer.'”
Wolfskill says that Anthony, meanwhile, “has really come out of her shell in playing what she feels, and she's willing to get weird, which is cool. She's willing to be experimental and do weird harmonic things. She doesn't put herself in a box with this kind of elitist mentality. She's on the same wavelength in that we want to make art for art's sake, and we know that music can sometimes capture the emotion better than words can. We both think, 'What can I do to make sure I'm getting the emotion across the best I can?'”
Mumbled, Jumbled Jargon
“Typically,” says Anthony, “J get excited about coming up with a cool riff. He'll storm into the room when I'm just scrolling on Instagram or whatever and say, 'Baby! Listen to this!' He plays the riff and I'm like, 'All right, I can get behind that!'
“Then I usually tell him what I think the vibe is,” she continues. “'This reminds me of walking by a river and springtime … .' That kind of thing. Then we work on the words – and that's the part that takes the longest, because we overthink a lot.”
“Usually, at the start, I'll just scat-sing words,” says Wolfskill. “It's this mumbled, jumbled jargon that sounds like a crazy person. But slowly, over time, words will formulate. 'Okay, this jargon ended in an alk sound. That kind of sounds like walk. So now we have walk … .' And then we start cultivating a story based on that.
“But other times,” he continues, “words might come out because I'm, like, super-upset, and boom! After 20 minutes, the song 'Take Me As I Am' is done. That was written on Highway 61 driving to Muscatine when I was mad at my life a little bit.” He laughs. “'I've got a Kickstarter in distress!'”
With Feral Heart now available as a pre-save (at WolfskillAndTheWild.com), the song “Dawning” available on vinyl and CD, and the EP's five other songs listenable on the Web site, that distress is finally coming to an end.
“We worked our tails off, that's for sure,” says Wolfskill. “It was a challenge even apart from the writing side. Just scheduling studio time. 'Hey, we need to get into the studio.' 'Oh, it's actually three months 'til we can get you in.' Then when we ordered the vinyl, they were like, 'Yeah, it'll be about two-and-a-half months … .' Oh my God!
“I felt so bad for the Kickstarters,” Wolfskill admits. “But I kept them updated throughout the process, and luckily, I think most everybody is family or friends of ours in some way, so I think they were okay with us delaying it. 'You guys just make the record that you want to make. Make the songs that you want, and the songs you feel.'”
Beyond the EP, says Wolfskill, “we wanted to plan a tour. As an original artist in the Quad Cities, it's really hard to make it as an original band – you almost have to get out of the city to create more traffic, you know? The fish can only grow so big in the pond they're in.
“So we've been hammering it on that side starting in 2025 with the album being done, and things have been growing ever since. You know, we're getting shows in Wisconsin and Minnesota and South Dakota and Nebraska and now Missouri … . Things are coming together, and the songs that Maddie and I have been writing since this album are even stronger.”
As for Feral Heart itself, says Wolfskill, “I like that throughout our process of writing this album, you kind of see our growth as a couple. I was writing songs and Maddie was helping me play them, then we were writing the songs together, and by the end of it, Maddie's singing on the track with me. I think that's a cool context that might get overlooked – that the album is almost like 'The Hero's Adventure.' It's about our love and it tells that story almost to a tee. By the end of it, there's that elixir piece where Maddie's singing the harmonies with me and we've come together, and it's super-magical. You know, it's that feeling you get when you just have it.”
“I don't know,” says Anthony with a laugh. “Maybe a ring would help me write even better …?”
Wolfskill & the Wild perform a vinyl-release party for their new Feral Heart EP at Ragged Records (311 East Second Street, Davenport IA) on May 30, admission to the 6 p.m. concert is free, and more information on the night and the band is available by visiting WolfskillAndTheWild.com.
