It's almost like contradictory how much fun I have when we play, to how hard the days are sometimes.
He's also tackled some of the stigmas around mental health, by opening up about his struggle with
anxiety, bipolar disorder and grief.
I grew up in Melbourne, I grew up in Box Hill South. My parents are both children book authors.
And dad was a musician until... Was in a band that was doing well and then he, well I came along.
I've been about this big since I was 12. So good at footy!
I still feel like I'm trying to figure out who I am
but I think I spent a lot of time as a kid trying to figure out who I was.
I started playing guitar when I was five. I had this little Spanish acoustic thing
which could still be in the cupboard at my parent's house.
I had a mental image of you in a sombrero doing this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This big, but a child.
Like, I can't really remember a time where wasn't writing songs.
Do you remember the first time people started paying attention?
Yeah. I played a show when I was maybe 16, at a place called Lentil As Anything
which is a big vegetarian, all-you-can-eat restaurant.
And you just sang a song about pork, and it really fucked them over
Yeah, so that was the first time I got booed off stage.
So, I played at the open mic night there, and I would of played three or four songs that I'd written.
I remember that feeling was pretty special
that half a second after you finish and people started clapping.
Whoa, I could get used to this.
I've always had mental health issues.
I've got full on depression and anxiety
That first sort of manifested in primary school I guess.
I started going to therapy and going to see a psychologist.
If somebody would ask you to describe what depression feels like
if you had to put it into words for somebody that has no frame of reference for it
how would you capture it?
There's part of it that just feels your head is filled with cotton wool.
It's like there's these thoughts here and these thoughts here
and these ones are rational and sensible
and these ones are completely destructive.
And you can't...
It's almost this physical thing
where you can't get the happiness the forefront of your brain.
There's just nothing there you know?
Trying to drag them in front of your eyes
and kind of drag that good feeling that you vaguely remember feeling last Tuesday.
Trying to find that and pull it out you know?
It's always like...
you're only ever keeping it at arm's length.
And sometimes it's like, I won't talk to anyone for days.
And I won't even have realised.
And you don't even know you're doing it, you don't even realise how bad you're feeling
until you start feeling better.
And then you realise how deep and dark it got.
When you write, I guess for an outsider's view it seems extremely confessional.
Yep.
Where did that start?
That's how I started writing as a coping mechanism you know?
And that is something that is still the best therapy and medicine for me.
To sit and write about something it really helps me understand.
And helps me come to terms with what's going on.
So I try to write a song every day.
Like, I try to write a verse and a chorus every day.
Or write two full pages of A4 words everyday.
That doesn't have to be about anything.
Just to do it, just to keep constantly doing it.
That's an incredible work ethic.
It takes 20 minutes, I don't do anything else.
I still really deliberately now
I never think about who's going to hear the song while I'm writing.
Like really, really.
And as soon as I do, it's super fucking obvious.
Like as soon as I...
I remember when our song young drunk first started getting played on the radio
and there was this part of me that was like
Ok cool, now I've just gotta write Young Drunk , Young Drunk 3.
And I sort of sat down to try and write this record
Younger and drunker.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And before you knew it you were writing about a drunk baby.
And it was weird.
And I sort of tried to write that song again.
And be like "Alright, sweet we'll be the party band."
You know?
It just sounded like I was trying to write that song again.
I could only plumb the depths you know?
I have to let it come from somewhere deeper inside of me for it to be at all...
useful to anyone you know?
Useful to me.
Is it ever unhelpful to have to go back?
Cause that is your job.
Spill your guts for money.
As one does right?
Does it ever get unhelpful to have to track back to that dark moment
and replicate that on stage for a paying audience?
Yeah, I mean...
There's been a few times where people have come up and said
either someone really close to them died quite recently
And I can think of a few specific times where all I've done is just been like
"Come here" and give someone a big hug.
But that feeling of having a complete stranger feeling comfortable enough to like
cry on my shoulder and tell me something like that... is a very privileged position to be in
and something that I really don't take lightly at all.
Whenever something like that happens, especially if it's after the show environment
where there's lots of people around.
Someone comes up and he's really upset, I'll say "Hey, come on, come backstage, let's sit, let's talk about it.
And I'll try and give him as much time as I can to actually like, not just be like "Oh that's fucked!"
"Anyway this guy wants a photo."
To be like, okay alright, let's talk about this and try and say something that they might remember.
Because like, I also remember being that kid, you know?
Going up to Chris from The Living End, or someone like that as a kid and just being like
"Oh my god! I can't believe that it's you. I can't believe that you're real."
I remember everything that he said to me, I remember how sweet he was.
There's all these kind of things like that, where it's like
"Oh kids will remember this when they come up to me and do that."
So like I do everything I can to be like super nice, and friendly and make them feel comfortable.
This is the loudest I've ever heard a crowd sing in a long time.
What do you reckon is the most misunderstood thing about Wil Wagner?
I think people think I'm like a party guy, maybe?
I used to just get drunk, so drunk before we'd play and stoned and uh...
'Cause I was so nervous, you know? And then I remember we played this show at the Annandale
and it was sold out, and that to me was like the pinnacle.
Imagine not even selling out a venue in Melbourne, but we've sold out a venue in Sydney.
And I got so drunk because I was so nervous before the show. And then I walked off stage and I was like
"I don't think I played very well, and I don't know if I'll remember that clearly."
And I made this pact with myself that I was like, alright no more of that. No more getting so drunk.
You've got to find a different way to deal with the nerves, you've got to find a different way to be present
and you've got to find a way to be like...
And now I play completely sober. I have my first drink onstage, but I always play completely sober.
So I can roll with the punches, if something goes wrong. I know what to do if something happens in the crowd.
I know what to do, and I'm not just numb to the whole experience.
And that was a thing from that. This could end at any point, you know?
Like everything could be the peak, everything could be the pinnacle. So I want to enjoy the pinnacle.
I'm not going to know when it happens.
I'm not going to know that we've gone down the other side, until we've gone down the other side.
So I want to be able to remember everything. I want to be able to look back in 10 years and be like
"Remember when we did this? Remember when we did that?"
It will end, the bubble will burst and I'll have no regrets.
I'll feel like I did everything I could
and I'll look back and be really proud of the shows we played and the music we made.
And even yeah, on stage.
In my mind I'm thinking, love this and enjoy this and also like, remember this when it gets bad.
Remember this feeling, try to cling on to this feeling of like
fulfilment and happiness and joy when those things seem a million miles away.
It's really difficult, it's something that I've been battling for as long as I can remember.
I'll probably be battling it for the rest of my life, but I think that it gives me a weirdly positive attitude.
I'm so fucking appreciative of when I feel good, and when people are nice and when everything is good
but like, I think I probably appreciate that more than someone who doesn't have the kind of lows that I have, I guess.
It's very special, it's cool.
You are an absolute pleasure to talk to.
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.