Artist Introduction
What’s your stage name and where are you from?
I’m Wffls (pronounced “Waffles”) & I’m based in Seattle, although I grew up in Virginia, North Carolina & Wyoming.
What’s the story behind your stage name?
This is the first question people usually ask when they meet me! Long story short, it’s a family heirloom. My last name is “Rotholz,” which means “Redwood” in German, but growing up on my street in North Carolina there were a lot of different accents on the block & my neighborhood friends found it simpler to just call me “Waffles.” When I started producing & putting out music as a solo artist, the only stage name I thought of that felt deeply authentic was Waffles, but this was peak Soundcloud era so of course I took out the vowels & ended up with Wffls, which has been advantageous for SEO purposes, too. After I officially became Wffls I learned that my Dad, who grew up in NYC in the 70s, also used to get called “Waffles” when he was younger! It was all mean to be for real.
Describe your musical journey in three sentences.
Innate infant heartbeat rhythms transformed to a childhood spent banging on pots & pans, then a drumset, as I absorbed the eclectic sounds of Santana, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson, & The Beatles. Then I heard “Definition” by Black Star (Mos Def & Talib Kweli) when I was 10 years old & everything changed as I fell head over heels in love with the revolutionary sound & culture of hip-hop. Now I wield a sampler, keyboard, drumset, guitar & the whole history of recorded music as instruments in my personal orchestra.
Fan Engagement
Share an interesting experience you had while creating your latest track.
Through sheer serendipity my latest track, a beat called “Foolish Heart,” ended up becoming a song on my upcoming full-length collaborative album with the incredible Blake Anthony. I revisited a jazz album I had already sampled for another song on our album, and heard a gorgeous sample I’d never noticed before that I couldn’t resist flipping. What started as a simple jazz flip turned into one of my favorite beats I’ve made in years, & it just so happened to fit the key & bpm of an unreleased track of Blake’s called “Henny Dreams” that had been shelved indefinitely due to a falling out with a flakey producer. I took the acapella from Blake & basically remixed it into a masterpiece, which is now on our upcoming album “Must Be God”
What message do you want to convey through your music?
With each one of my beats, I want to convey to the listener an energy that grounds them in the present moment & reminds them of the enthralling beauty, inspiring grandeur & tragicomic imperfection of our human condition.
Behind the Music
Tell us about a challenge you faced during production and how you overcame it.
By far the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my production work is psychological – my own self-doubt & my relentlessly cruel inner critic. Even 12 years into producing & 21 years into drumming it’s all too easy for my inner critic to sabotage my creativity & make me doubt myself & my music. It’s a constant battle that I don’t think I’ll ever fully overcome, but I’ve found effective solutions in mindfulness meditation, positive affirmations, inspiring relationships in community with other artists, musicians & spiritual seekers, and especially in books like Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way,” Kurtz & Ketcham’s “The Spirituality of Imperfection,” Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet,” bell hooks’ “All About Love,” Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Wherever You Go, There You Are,” Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations,” & Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act.”
If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
This might be an impossible question but off the top of my head I’m gonna say Black Thought from The Roots. He’s my favorite rapper of all time (I would argue he’s the greatest rapper of all time) & getting him to bless one of my beats with a verse would be a true bucket-list experience for me.
Future Aspirations
Where do you see your music taking you in the next year?
Wherever I need to go on this endless climb up the infinite mountain of artistic exploration & self-expression. I expect that my music will take me to new depths within myself & to new heights of artistic excellence. We’re living through a bewildering time in the music industry, so I’ve detached from pretty much all traditional careerist & materialist metrics & expectations. Geographically, though, I know my music will have me moving all over Seattle, and I’d love for it music to take me down down the West Coast to Portland, SF, & LA, and across the country to NYC.
What’s the next big step for you as an artist?
Streamlining my process so that I can be as prolific in releasing my music as I am in creating my music, and refining my business model to scale my various services & income streams upwards so that I can finally achieve my dream of making a stable middle-class income solely off of my music.
Recent Work & Contact Info
Where can we hear/watch your most recent work?
https://linkin.bio/goodasswffls/
What is the best way to contact you if fans want to give feedback or if other artists/producers want to collaborate?
wfflstheapostle@gmail.com
Thanks for shining a light on me & my work, y’all! I appreciate you 🙏🏼
Great interview! I knew you had strong influences and inspiration the moment I heard you. Thanks for your humility re: self doubt even as an artist with such talent. This gives me hope. I look forward to listening to the album at length and hearing some of your evolving music as well as where you began. Hope to have the opportunity to see you and Blake again. Until then!
Brandie