Introducing Carolina Liar

By Broadside Asst. Style Editor Nicole Ocran
Photo Courtesy of Hillary Walsh

You know you’ve almost made it when your song is featured on MTV’s hit reality series, The Hills. Chad Wolf and the rest of the sextet from Carolina Liar have done just that since their songs “Coming to Terms,” “Show Me What I’m Looking For” and “Beautiful World” played on the show. Last month their video premiered for “I’m Not Over” and set off on their promo tour.

The unique story of Carolina Liar began after front man Wolf became friends with Swedish producer Max Martin. After Wolf was sent to Stockholm, the album Coming to Terms—which will be released on May 30—was recorded with collaborations with a number of songwriters, including Peter Svennson of The Cardigans.

Rewind several years and Wolf remembers one of the albums that contributed to him wanting to become a musician.
“When I was in high school … I had a girlfriend, [and] she gave me an album,” Wolf said. “[It was] Nashville Skyline—this Bob Dylan record, and I literally—I’m not kidding—I got the record and I sat in my room and I actually cried the record was so good, because I felt so incapable of doing anything like that.”

The reality of Wolf’s musical aspirations seems to have been met just from the few songs featured on the band’s MySpace, leaving listeners with an honest and raw sound.

“We took a little bit of a different approach when it came to recording. We took the time to do things, and plus a lot of it was done at home; it was pretty organic in that sense,” Wolf said. “Maybe that’s what sets it apart, it’s not so clean. You really get into the fabric of the record … it’s a real deal thing, we got to do it the right way. We got lucky.”

Since the kickoff of their promo tour, the fans that have come out to shows have become very important to Wolf.
Wolf explained, “The coolest part about coming into new towns and meeting all the people. It’s the strangest thing, the music almost becomes secondary. It’s kind of a way to meet people in a lot of ways. And it’s kind of a way to just kind of communicate with each other … just relate and hang out and have fun. [It’s] what I always hoped to do, that it would always just be a way to see the world, to meet people and find stories.”

This summer Carolina Liar will be one of the many artists at the Pemberton Festival in Canada, along with other big names like Coldplay, Jay-Z, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Death Cab for Cutie and N.E.R.D.