Wanderlust All In A View
Twenty\-five years after major\-label success, Wanderlust reforms to finish the album that never was, set for release on July 2, 2021. The music industry was different in the 1990s. Rock \x27n\x27 roll ruled the roost. Spotify had yet to be invented. It was during this golden age \- somewhere between Bill Clinton\x27s inauguration and the start of the New Millennium \- that a rock band named Wanderlust made its stand. Wanderlust felt like a timeless band for the modern world, its songs rooted in electric guitars, classic pop hooks, percussive stomp, and the shared chemistry of four friends \- front man and principle songwriter Scot Sax, guitarist Rob Bonfiglio, bassist Mark Getten, and drummer Jim Cavanaugh \- who\x27d finally gotten their shot at the brass ring. Decades after inking a major\-label contract with RCA Records, opening for The Who, and touring America with Collective Soul, Wanderlust has reconvened to finish some unfinished business with 2021\x27s All A View, available on July 2, 2021. To understand Wanderlust\x27s present, it helps to look at the band\x27s past. The group formed in Philadelphia in 1993, signed a record deal in 1994, and released the debut album Prize in 1995. Championed by publications like The Sunday London Times (\x27\x27Wanderlust\x27s album Prize is one of the greatest rock albums ever made\x27\x27) and MOJO (\x27\x27power pop at its best\x27\x27), Wanderlust burned brightly and briefly. Dropped from RCA before they could finish their second album, the musicians released a self\-titled record in 1998 and soon went their separate ways. Sax established himself as a hit songwriter, solo artist, and sought\-after filmmaker during the 21st century, co\-writing the Grammy\-winning \x27\x27Like We Never Loved At All\x27\x27 for Faith Hill and Tim McGraw and serving as the hand\-picked opening act for Robert Plant and Allison Krauss\x27 Raising Sand tour. Meanwhile, Bonfiglio released a half\-dozen solo albums, performed with the Beach Boys, produced an album for Wilson Phillips, and landed an ongoing spot in Brian Wilson\x27s band. Recently, in 2020, Sax came across a DAT tape featuring acoustic recordings of songs he\x27d written after Prize\x27s release. These demos felt like a time capsule \- a blast from the past, dreamt into existence during the band\x27s heyday and filled with the same sonic spirit that had once earned Wanderlust admittance into the big leagues. The songs would\x27ve made a great Wanderlust album \- which is why Sax decided to get the band back together and finish the work he\x27d already started. \x22\x22I feel like a young Cameron Crowe, with a story about a band that fell victim to its own insecurities in the bright lights and with the big wigs of the music business, circa 1995,\x22\x22 he says. \x27\x27Now, the same four guys find an old cassette of songs never recorded, long forgotten in their fall from grace. So what do they do? They put on their big\-boy pants and make the album that never was.\x27\x27 That album is All A View, and it bridges the gap between Wanderlust\x27s past and present. Sax\x27s original demos represent the record\x27s bedrock, with most of his performances from 1996 remaining intact. Nearly 25 years after he laid down his vocals and acoustic guitar, a reunited Wanderlust began turning those bare\-boned recordings into full\-blown rock anthems, with each bandmate overdubbing his contributions from home during the 2020 pandemic. Sax wrote new songs for the project, too, including several collaborations with Rob Bonfiglio. The album was then mixed in Philadelphia, the same city that Wanderlust once called home. \x22\x22What began as a revisitation of older material became a kind of snapshot of our musical journeys in the present tense,\x22\x22 explains Bonfiglio.
