Published in the Quad-City Times on July 17, 2024

Max Rainer wanted to know if I’ve ever heard of rumspringa. I hadn’t.

Rainer is the frontman for Tulsa-born indie-folk band Wilderado, who has a show at Codfish Hollow next Tuesday. The band played at the iconic Maquoketa barn last summer, too, and Rainer said he hasn’t seen anything else like it.

But his closest Codfish comparison can be found in the raunchy 2008 teen comedy “Sex Drive.” In it, the main characters stumble into Amish country and find a raucous Fall Out Boy show in a barn.

The locals are, of course, celebrating rumspringa, the traditional Amish term for passage from adolescence into adulthood.

I’ve now watched the scene, and Rainer has a point.

Wilderado will play the role of Fall Out Boy on Tuesday in Maquoketa. Openers for the show include upbeat indie-pop acts HARBOUR and Windser. The latter has twice collaborated with “Thrift Shop” rapper Macklemore.

Wilderado will be touring for their forthcoming album “Talker,” releasing on September 20.

The band already has a stacked resumé — in the last ten years, they’ve opened for Lindsey Buckingham, Band of Horses, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Mt. Joy and alt-J — but Rainer said he had a hard time with this sophomore record.

“I went to some dark places, if I’m being honest,” he said.

Feelings of imposter syndrome creeped up, Rainer explained. He felt the urge to satisfy others, and was fixated on making sure he had something big to say on each song.

His wake-up call came in a conversation with his wife of 10 years. Rainer said she reminded him the music is getting better, and that’s why it hurts.

“The lyrics kind of started pouring out of me at that point,” Rainer said. “And I think I transitioned from trying to say something into admitting things.”

That realization, along with the support of Rainer’s Wilderado bandmates, kept the floodgates open. The band has already released five songs from the album, and they’re full of admissions.

There’s the crushing weight of seasonal emotions on “Bad Luck.” The slipping of time on “Tomorrow.” The conflicting smoke-ballads “Sometimes” and “Talker” — on the former, Rainer is stoned and hiding what he wants to say, but on the latter, he’s high and getting better.

The lead single, “In Between,” has two alternate versions with appearances by The National frontman Matt Berninger and fellow Oklahoman Ken Pomeroy.

The Berninger collaboration was coordinated by a mutual friend of Wilderado and The National, drummer James McAlister, who has appeared on albums like Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” and Sufjan Stevens’ “Illinois.”

As a long-time admirer of Berninger, Rainer called it a treat to be on a song together, even though the two never officially met in the process.

“He’s always found a way to be straightforward and poetic at the same time,” he said. “That’s always my goal writing lyrics — how do I be matter of fact, but also poetic?”

McAlister also set up the next big opportunity for Wilderado: an appearance in “Twisters,” the blockbuster Oklahoma-based movie coming out this week.

Wilderado, McAlister and Pomeroy recorded a cover of “Wall of Death” by Richard Thompson (and popularized by R.E.M.) for the movie’s soundtrack, at the request of director Lee Isaac Chung. After hearing it, the movie crew asked Rainer and Pomeroy to perform the song in a scene.

On set in Oklahoma, they played the song hundreds of times, shooting the scene over and over again. Rainer said he met actors Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos, and the experience made him a big Powell fan — “He’s charming, he’s funny, he’s got great comedic timing!”

Ahead of the movie’s premiere in Oklahoma City this week, Rainer was nervous, though. He had no clue what the final product would look like.

“Are we gonna look like morons? Are we gonna sound like morons?” he wondered. “It’s revealed itself to be such a big platform that I had anxiety about what it was going to turn out like.”

But the final results wowed him. Rainer loved the movie, and loved his scene, which opens on a shot of Rainer’s black Waterloo guitar. He’s played that instrument all across the country.

“Let me take my chances on the Wall of Death,” the song goes. “You are going nowhere when you ride on the carousel.”

It’s a song about taking risks to get better, because of course it is. Maybe on the other side of the tornado, there’s something like rumspringa.