Wye Oak’s latest album ditched the guitar and saved the band

Jenn Wasner had hit a creative wall. Two years of nonstop touring and playing had fatigued Wasner, the lead singer and guitarist for Wye Oak, and percussionist Andy Stack on the songs that had made their 2011 album, Civilians, a breakthrough success.

Wasner couldn’t force herself to write anything that sounded similar, leaving Wye Oak’s future in doubt.

Then Wasner put down her guitar and tried writing with a bass. Her mind opened up and out came Shriek.

Wye Oak’s latest release is markedly different from the band’s previous folk-rock creations: delicate synths, booming electronic beats and spacey digital effects. Yet it sounds unmistakably like a Wye Oak album — a credit, perhaps, to Wasner’s talent for enigmatic, layered songs.

Ahead of Wye Oak’s show at the Granada on Saturday, May 17, The Pitch phoned Wasner to discuss the band’s reinvention.

The Pitch: Shriek was a huge, drastic change for you guys. Were you afraid that entirely dropping the guitar from your music would end up costing the band?

Wasner: Honestly, I think that I had a lot of faith in people. I was confident that if the material was good, people would see that. I was more curious than anything as to how people would react to this, but the important thing was for me to go after what would make the best material and the most inspired-sounding material. It’s far better to make risky decisions and potentially alienate people than to ignore what you want, and I wanted to make a record that sounds inspired.

For me, it [the change in sound] was less of a choice because it was impossible for me to write in the way I had in the past. It was either make the record we made or not make a record at all. So I had a lot of faith in pursuing whatever path would lead to the strongest material and hoped that would really shine through.

I’ve read a few interviews where you talked about the darkness surrounding your writer’s block.

A big part of the process was learning how to have fun again and learning how to enjoy making music again and finding whatever connection I had lost previously. I had this really unhealthy detachment from the music we were playing [from Civilians], and it was a sad time. And this is joyous again — I remember why I love music.

I think we’re both really grateful and really relieved that this album exists. It feels like a natural progression in a lot of ways. I think you set a precedent with the things that you do, and neither of us ever wanted to become a guitar band — it was just whatever felt best, and for a while, that happened to be one thing, but it was never meant to be the focus.

To me, it almost feels like Shriek was a fresh start, a rebirthing moment. What surprised you most about how this record turned out?

[Laughs.] The most surprising part was probably that it happened at all, because there was a very long period of time where I thought we would quit. I couldn’t write, and I honestly didn’t even want to for a minute there. I had convinced myself that nothing I had to say was any sort of worth or value and that I should figure out something else to do with my life. The fact that I ended up enjoying this process as much as I did was a pretty big surprise for me.

You’ve done some other synth-heavy projects: solo projects like Flock of Dimes and your collaboration with Jon Ehrens, Dungeonesse. How did those projects influence this new sound?

They didn’t necessarily have an influence on the songwriting I was doing, but they were integral parts of my learning. They shaped the important part of the process that helped me write. Those projects were really important parts of my learning that I now consider integral, but when I started writing songs again, there was never any doubt in my mind that they were always very definitively Wye Oak songs.

Now that Shriek is out and you’re on tour again, how are you feeling? Are you worried about getting worn out on these songs?

Things are good right now. It’s not touring that I hate, but touring in excess that I struggle with. We’re trying to make sure that we do it in a healthier way this time. But to be totally honest with you, left to my own devices and in a perfect world, I wouldn’t tour at all. It’s an important part of my job and something I’m willing to do, but I would rather spend all of my time writing and creating new things. I feel stranger and stranger about it with every passing year. I’ve come to realize it’s not really what I consider to be my true calling. It’s the writing and creating side of things [that I prefer].

As we get older, it’s harder and harder to do this. It’s tough to disrupt your life completely for something like that. This is a 24-hour job. But there are things that we really enjoy, and as long as we don’t do it too much, we enjoy touring. It’s not like we’re miserable on the road and hating every minute of it.

It sounds like your vision for Wye Oak has evolved over the past few years, and now — especially with this new album — it sounds like you feel free to explore more things within the band. What does this mean for the future of Wye Oak?

Honestly, once you put yourself out there, people come to accept you and what you do. The future of our band really hinged upon this happening and working out, and it seems to be working out quite well. I feel like it’s inevitable that I’ll have moments of weakness and writer’s block again, but having already lived through one, I imagine it’ll be easier to get through it next time.