Remi Wolf on the Meaning Behind Her New Album ‘Mud,’ Her ‘Off Campus’ Cameo and Friendship with Hayley Williams

Remi Wolf hasn’t landed a spot on “Survivor,” one of her favorite shows she’s always wanted to be on, so she instead put her mental fortitude to the test by rolling around in a makeshift mud pit. She quickly realized she’s “never gonna make it on that show if I can’t handle this in such a controlled setting,” she tells Variety. But her foray into the earthy substance was more than just a mental experiment; it was a musical one, too: “Mud” is the name and driving imagery of her third studio album, which was released today.

For Wolf, frolicking in mud is both literal and metaphorical. On the album, she revels in “brutal” emotions, allows herself to feel the pain and discomfort they cause, and realizes the beauty of moving through it. Or, as she likes to call it, the “mudding and sudsing.”

“Once you get past the point where you’re disgusted that you’re so dirty and unknown Earth is inside of all your crevices, you can start to have fun in there,” she says. “If you kind of let yourself surrender to the mud, it can be a really fun and beautiful and freeing experience. I felt like making this album, I went through all the phases of being in mud.”

Wolf was “in the shit” and wanted audiences to know it. The 10-track album chronicles her emotional turmoil, pivoting off of vibrant anthems like “Photo ID” that helped launch her popularity or sing-alongs like “Soup.” Instead, she’s become more diaristic, grappling with the ugly emotions that come with what appears to be a breakup. She belts lyrics like “I can be your favorite track, I know I can,” and yells “Why don’t you want me back?” on her third single “I Won’t Cry.” On “Bottle,” she confesses, “The dam broke when we said goodbye / Darling I can’t think about it ’cause it makes me cry.” Wolf always aims to be honest in her work, but this time she got vulnerable in a way that allowed her to create what she says is her “strongest” body of work yet.

“People want to cry,” Wolf says. “I feel like we’re all pent up and everything’s so crazy. I want to take people to church a little bit with this album and give them a space to let it all out.”

For “Mud,” Wolf worked with a close-knit group of friends and collaborators — Jared Solomon, Jack Demeo and Gigi Grombacher, among others. On her earlier albums, 2021’s “Juno” and 2024’s “Big Ideas,” she brought her visions to life with the help of hired creative directors, but wanted to tighten the circle with her latest. “I was so vulnerable and broken down that I was like, I can’t even fathom going into the studio with people that aren’t automatically going to be chill with me being this way,” she says. The crew decamped to Joshua Tree, jamming around a campfire and recording in a makeshift studio in their Airbnb. “I was just like ‘fuck all the bullshit! I’m bringing in my homies, and we’re homieing down so hard.”

Next came visuals. She led the charge as the creative director and knew the mud pit was “a necessity” for the album’s imagery, that the video for “Bottle” should feel “claustrophobic” and that the visuals for “I Won’t Cry” would represent “the cleansing.” “I also just wanted to stand on the car and be in a bikini and wash it,” says Wolf, who is celebrating the release of her album on Friday at a Los Angeles car wash.

She’s also been able to work out songs for the first time at live shows, including one with her longtime influence Hayley Williams. She debuted her lead single “Twiggy” at the Newport Folk Festival in July with Williams and the pair performed Williams’ track “Parachute” in Los Angeles during night two of her show at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday. They first met when Wolf opened for Paramore back in 2023, and they’ve maintained a friendship ever since.

“She’s so fucking awesome,” Wolf says. “I love her and respect her, and she’s just the best singer and such a unique artist and very beautiful person.”

Wolf also graced the stage with a cameo on Amazon Prime’s hit hockey series “Off Campus,” performing at a fictitious schoolwide block party. “It was an amazing day on set meeting the cast,” she says. “They all seem like they like each other, and they actually do. It was a fun set to be on. I’d never been on a set like that; it was cool to just watch the village work.”

But now, she says, her focus is on “Mud” and putting it all out there, no matter how messy things may get. “I was crossing my fingers that people would ride with me,” she says, “and I really think they are.”