In a world that’s constantly fast-paced and too comfortable with the idea of burnout, the Wheeland Brothers are here to remind you to take it easy.
Made up of—yes, actual brothers—Travis and Nate Wheeland, the surf rock duo take their chill surfer mentality nationwide, and not just on Sirius XM’s No Shoes and Margaritaville Radio, where they’ve scored regular airtime. With their “Legendary Beach Bar Tour” now in full swing, The Wheeland Brothers invite fans and newcomers alike to join in on the “stoke” by blending Jimmy Buffett-inspired, laidback energy with serene self-reflection.
After their tour kick-off at the Barefoot Country Music Fest in Wildwood, NJ, we snagged a few minutes with the brothers in between their practice session in Philly to talk about their tour expectations, newest single “How We Kill Time,” and what paradise means to them.
You guys kicked off your tour at the Barefoot Country Music Fest in Wildwood (New Jersey) yesterday. What stood out to you the most about that show? What kind of energy did the crowd bring?
Travis: It was cool. It was like a giant sea of sandy beach rats. I think the tour is going to be a lot more, a lot different than that because it’ll be headline shows. There will be some sand involved.
Nate: That’ll be some of the shows. So we’ll be getting sandy.
Travis: I just love seeing our fans get together because they don’t realize it yet, but they’re about to become friends. Music draws similar-minded people together, and they find each other through it.
So that was one stop out of four that you guys have in New Jersey. How do you think the East Coast surfing culture differs from the West Coast? Are there any similarities?
Travis: I feel that on the West Coast, there are several different kinds of surf communities. The one that we fall into is more of the San Onofre [near San Diego, CA], longboarder, chill surfer, or the ones that are like trying to be alone at a secret surf spot, rather than the guy who’s taking his weekend, his couple of days off from work, to get some aggression out on a wave. The East Coast feels pretty chill. I feel like the surfers over here are more likely to smile and enjoy themselves and not be pretentious about the surf.
Nate: Somebody invited us to go surfing after the show yesterday. Well, not to go surfing after the show, but they were talking about going surfing this weekend. And they had their secret spot that you have to take a boat out. And they’re talking about a spot they called Trestles, which I thought was interesting because where we live, there’s a world-famous surf break also called Trestles. And I was confused for a minute. We surfers, we’ve got to come up with more names. But it made me feel at home when he was talking about surfing Trestles, though.
Then moving forward for the rest of the tour, you’re hitting a lot of coastal towns, a lot of beach towns. Is there one in particular that you’re excited to get back to, or any new ones that you’re excited to visit?
Travis: I’m pretty stoked to go back to Nantucket, honestly.
Nate: Yeah, we haven’t been there in quite a while.
Travis: It’s such a weird, interesting place. The bar [The Chicken Box], we haven’t been there in 10 years, but the place they were playing used to have a urinal that was on the outside wall of the bar. I don’t know how it got there.
Nate: I don’t think it was like plugged in either. I think it was just there. And the other thing, too, with the East Coast is that this area has such great seafood. I’m really looking forward to getting some oysters and some scallops, and oh man, I’m hungry right now, too.
You have a new single, “How We Kill Time,” which dropped on June 26th. What can fans expect from that song? And are there any clues as to where your music might be heading post-tour?
Travis: Well, we have a ton of new music that we’re working on that we’re pumped about. “How We Kill Time” is different than a lot of our other music. Nate and I are brothers, but this guy, Ryan Heflin, is our best friend, and he’s like the secret third brother. He wrote the song, “How We Kill Time.” With our friendship, we just wanted to do something together with him. We love the song, and normally, Nate and I write all of our music ourselves, but this is a deviation from that.
Nate: It’s one of our first collabs, I think, that we’ve ever done with somebody. It’s usually just me and you (Travis).
Travis: It’s a song that I feel fits us because it was written at our hideaway secret surf spot. So it passed the hideaway test. This song, it says, “Why we got to change things, always rearrange things. If it ain’t broke, don’t go fixing. All this meddling ain’t called living.” It’s a song about avoiding unnecessary, needless work and effort for the sake of work itself.
Nate: Yeah, the beauty of doing nothing and finding presence. That’s how we kill time.
Travis: And the song, in a way, came about partly because [all of us] at the time were living in the same house that we call the Tree House. Somebody moved in across the canyon and started cutting down trees, making a ton of noise, and destroying the natural beauty of nature so that they could see their view better. The song was kind of a rebuttal to that guy to be like, “Nature will take care of itself.” You don’t have to go out into nature with a rake and a leaf blower and try to clean it up because it’s automatic. It’s beautiful in and of itself. If you just let it be and enjoy it for what it is, then you can go live what we consider The Wheeland Brothers lifestyle and chill instead of waking up at 8 a.m. to leaf blowers.
Nate: Hey, we don’t like leaf blowers. Support your local brooms and rakes.
Travis: And if you’re working in your garden and you love it, that’s amazing. But unnecessary work is just like, what’s the point?
I’ve noticed that’s a theme with your music, finding paradise in everyday life. So, through the time that you’ve made music, been touring, has your definition of paradise changed? Or right now, what does that mean to you? What is your paradise?
Travis: It’s changed majorly for me because I have a daughter now. Two daughters. One was just born right before we left the tour. She’s two weeks old. And man, it really changes your perspective. I want to spend time at the beach and do the kinds of things that we’re all about, but I’m also missing them in the midst of it. So there’s this tension. I guess in a way, paradise for me has become a lot more family. I think it always has been family, but it’s harder to get a two-and-a-half-year-old and a two-week-old to the beach.
Nate: And the paradise that we find playing these shows and going on tour, it’s just like paradise, going on vacation or something. It’s a moment that you find, and it’s fleeting, bittersweet.
Travis: Yeah, and with music, I think part of what gets you addicted to music, to making music, is like touching the magic when things just work. I feel like we’ve just been chasing that, that exciting feeling that you’re touching, creating something beautiful, and being directly involved in it. Music feels a lot less like something that we make and more like something we participate in.
Nate: We’re just the guys that are pulling it out of the ether and bottling it up so it can hopefully be a soundtrack that takes people there.
Is there anything that you guys want to add about tour, upcoming music, anything else that you guys want to talk about real quick before I let you go?
Travis: We’re going to be releasing songs throughout the summer, maybe throughout the year, every six weeks, I think.
Nate: About every six weeks.
Travis: So we got a bunch more music coming out. We can’t talk about all of our shows coming up, but we have a ton of shows coming up in the fall, and for anybody who’s been asking us when we’re going to get out to the islands, there will be something in the islands. So it’s going to be a busy and fun year.
