WHOLF’s Postcards From The Spaces Between Songs
Interview by Anna Louise Jones
Photo by Summer Schantz (@oh_snap_its_summer)Outside, Manchester wears one of its familiar moods. A fine drizzle hangs in the air, the kind that never quite commits to rain, carried sideways by a soft wind. Everything is grey, but not bleak - muted, gentle, alive. Inside The Vienna Café, there’s a contrast: warmth, the low clink of cups and saucers, the smell of coffee settling into wood and fabric. It feels like a place designed for pauses. WHOLF enters with an ease that feels learned over time - smiling at the baristas as he passes, greeting the space before settling into it. He’s dressed entirely in thrifted pieces: black embossed boots, baggy black trousers, a white half-zip, and a leather jacket that looks as though it’s travelled. The outfit feels practical, intentional and quietly expressive, much like the music he makes. There’s something unhurried about him. Maybe it’s the life of a touring musician, the constant practice of arriving, adapting, and belonging briefly. He sits comfortably, as if he’s learned how to be present wherever he is, even if only for an afternoon.
Photos by Summer Schantz (@oh_snap_its_summer)WHOLF is the solo project of Andrew Wholf - a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and musical director whose career has unfolded in motion. His professional life has been defined by movement: between cities, stages, soundchecks and creative roles. As a touring musician, he’s helped bring other artists’ worlds to life night after night, returning time and again as a trusted presence. From Enrique Iglesias to Sadie Jean, Grace Enger, Kenzie, Andrea Bejar, Keni Titus, Magnus Ferrell & more, WHOLF has quietly carved out a steady place within the industry built on adaptability and musical instinct. When he talks about music, it isn’t with ambition-first language or carefully polished statements. It’s softer than that. More grounded. “I like backing other artists - it’s what I do, I love doing it,” he says simply. “It’ll be great if my solo project takes off, but I enjoy being a touring and session musician.” Backing other artists, he explains, has always felt natural to him. It’s where he’s comfortable, where he knows his value. He speaks openly about enjoying the role - about how fulfilling it can be to help someone else’s vision come to life night after night. The solo project, he says, exists alongside that, not in opposition to it. If it grows, that would be beautiful. But it doesn’t feel like something that needs to conquer or replace what already works.
That lack of urgency follows him into how he talks about home. WHOLF is based in Los Angeles, though rarely in one place for long. “I’m away on tour so much, I’m never at home,” he says, almost casually, hinting that home becomes more of a concept than a place. At some point, he mentions, nearly in passing, that a friend has moved into his room. When he’s back in LA, he sleeps on a futon couch instead. He shrugs, adding that he doesn’t mind “cozying up on the couch.” There’s no bitterness in the way he tells it. If anything, there’s warmth. A sense of adaptability. Of finding comfort where it’s available. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with permanence. LA still appears in his work, though - quietly, visually. “The photos for the cover art were taken in LA, in a place by my house where I go to hike every day,” he explains. The city surfaces again in smaller, more transient ways. It’s a place he knows well, a rhythm he returns to when the touring cycle slows. The looping visuals on Spotify are even more immediate: short clips filmed on the road, fragments of motion and stillness captured between cities. They feel like postcards written to no one in particular.
The album itself came from a year that demanded introspection. When he mentions the breakup, it’s simple, almost understated. No dramatic framing, no drawn-out explanation, just “I went through a messy breakup.” The acknowledgment that something ended, and that it left a mark. The record became a place to put what followed. Writing it, he explains, wasn’t about shaping something outward-facing. “I wrote this album as an outlet to what I was feeling over the past year - it was for myself.” It was somewhere private enough for Wholf to be honest, even if it eventually became public. Though making the project public wasn’t his original plan, it was something encouraged by his peers. Once the decision was made to put the album out there, he just wanted to get it done with - “I just wanted to put the album out there; it was my friend who convinced me to release some singles first.” He talks about music as having two lives: one as a personal process, an outlet, and another as a product. “I’ve not promoted the album much because it’s not a product to me, it’s just a process,” he says, reflecting on why the release hasn’t been pushed harder. There’s a small self-awareness when he admits this, a gentle laugh at himself. “Maybe I should promote it more,” he adds. “I think next year I’ll take it more seriously.”
What matters more to him is how the music is found. He likes the idea of listeners discovering it on their own, stumbling into it rather than being guided there by constant reminders. “I think it’s really cool letting people naturally find the music rather than constantly promoting it and being like, ‘listen to my music,’” he says. “It’s letting people discover it themselves. I love how people can feel like they discovered it themselves.” There’s something meaningful to him about the music arriving in someone’s life quietly, at the right moment. That sense of gentle discovery mirrors the way he connects with music himself.
Photos by Anna Louise Jones (@annalouisej)WHOLF’s journey into writing his own songs didn’t happen in isolation. It grew from proximity. From years spent on stage beside other artists, watching them open themselves up night after night. “It’s being around people like Sadie Jean and Grace Enger that inspired me to start writing my own music,” he smiles. “I’ve learnt a lot about it from touring with them.” Being close to their processes, their vulnerability, made the idea of writing feel more accessible. Less intimidating. There’s still a kind of disbelief when he talks about fans mentioning his solo project on tour. “There’s been a few people who have said to me on the Sadie tour that they’ve listened to my solo project,” he says, a little surprised. It’s something he’s grateful for, but not something he expects. The idea that his music is already travelling on its own feels new, still settling.
Underneath his calm exterior, there’s a quiet boldness to his story. After fast-tracking his college degree, he made a decision that didn’t leave much room for hesitation. Within weeks, he packed up and moved to Los Angeles without a job lined up, trading certainty for momentum. “I moved to LA without a job - it was scary, but it all worked out okay,” he reflects. “I’d fast-tracked my college degree, three years instead of four, and then about a week or two later, I moved to LA.” He talks about it now with the same steadiness that marks much of his approach to music. The same motivation is running through his solo project: “I want to try and release a song every month, that’s one of my goals.” There’s no dramatization, no lingering on risk for its own sake. Just an acceptance that sometimes you move first and trust the rest to follow. It’s a pattern that echoes throughout his career - a willingness to step into unfamiliar spaces, to learn by being there, and to let opportunity take shape through presence rather than planning.
That instinct, to move before certainty arrives, runs through his album as well. The opening track, ‘INTRO’, was created to feel like the inside of a mind, he explains. Messy, honest, alive. It’s layered, internal, built from journal recordings woven together like overlapping thoughts. However, his debut single, ‘Little By Little,’ sets the tone for the album immediately. Authenticity is a word that never quite needs to be said out loud in his presence; it’s embedded in how he approaches everything. His influences reflect that same intimacy. “I love the kind of music made by Bon Iver, Adrianne Lenker, and Novo Amor - I could listen to it all day.” He’s drawn to artists who build emotional landscapes rather than chasing volume, music that lingers and leaves space. That sensibility carries into unexpected places. “I even listen to this kind of music in the gym,” he adds, “and soundscapes.” It feels like an oddly perfect detail, as if intensity and introspection coexist easily for him. When he talks about his favourite artist, his face shifts slightly - brighter, more certain. “My favourite artist is an artist called Zach Winters,” he says. “Not a lot of people I know, know of him, but he’s my favourite. The music is so good. I’m very inspired by it.” The admiration feels personal, rooted in resonance rather than reputation.
Photos by Summer Schantz (@oh_snap_its_summer)
As we’re walking down the Rochdale Canal, just behind the O2 Ritz, he mentions his jacket - the one he’s wearing now. It’s from his favourite thrift store in Chicago, an appointment-only warehouse owned by a single person. “You get the whole place to yourself”, he explains. No competition. No rush. Just time to look, to discover something meant for you. It feels like a quiet metaphor for everything he values. When WHOLF steps back out into the Manchester drizzle, he seems both anchored and in motion - a musician shaped by years of supporting others, now gently letting his own voice take up space. There’s no insistence in the way he does it. No urgency. Just trust. Trust that the music will find who it’s meant for. And when it does, it will feel like a small, personal discovery - exactly as he intended.
Follow WHOLF on Instagram and stream his music here!
