Sweet Valley: Wavves Frontman Teams With Brother to Make Hip-Hop Beats

Sweet Valley is as much a musical project for Wavves frontman Nathan Williams and his younger brother Kynan as it is a living arrangement. Having spent the past four years crunching out punk-pop earworms in his main act, Nathan was looking to expand his musical horizons and after attending a show his brother put on, where Kynan Williams played a bunch of instrumental hip-hop beats, the two struck a deal.

"He asked me if I would move into his house and we made a trade," Kynan, real name Joel, tells Spinner. "I would do beats for him and that would pay for my rent."

Kynan has since set up a workspace in his brother's L.A. home, creating beats and applying his technical skills to Nathan's plethora of ideas. Sweet Valley's Stay Calm is the first of many albums that was a result of these working sessions, a collection of instrumental hip-hop tracks plastered with samples and meticulous producing.

"Nathan will give me a list of vinyl and TV shows he wants to use and I'll spend the day cataloging sounds," explains Kynan, of the Sweet Valley's process. "I'll also sit there and record him playing video games and, at the end of the day, we'll pick and choose what we think would go best together and I'll usually come up with a rough draft of a song."

Though the Sweet Valley project is just now reaching the public, the Williams brothers' working relationship stretches back even before the days of Wavves. Kynan used to play trumpet in an old band of Nathan's, and the two have maintained musical ties through Wavves breakout. Most notably, Kynan put his studio chops to the test, helping his brother produce the track "Mickey Mouse" from Wavves' 2010 album King of the Beach.

"We've been doing music together most of our lives," says Kynan. "For Sweet Valley, I just went to him with some beats and he was like, 'Let's do some of this together.' I think he just wanted to do something that wasn't as serious as Wavves, something that was just more fun."

Kynan says he and Nathan have already amassed five albums worth of material and plan on staggering the releases of these albums within the next year or so, most importantly around the release of Wavves' new album, slated to be released next year.

"That's basically all I do," Kynan jokes. "I don't leave the house.

"I mean, I've always done my own stuff too, which is more singer-songwriter-y, and at some point I want to produce live bands, not just hip-hop. I definitely want to get into producing because that's my passion."

Sweet Valley also hope to incorporate more live elements into their set in the future, potentially adding live musicians and rappers on top of the solid foundation of beats they've already crafted. Kynan says Danny Brown and Das Racist are on their want list, and the duo are already in talks to work with a rapper they love.

"Killer Mike wants to do an EP with us or something," says Kynan. "Apparently he's impressed by the new stuff so that's going to be really tight."

Kynan isn't too picky when it comes to inviting rappers to drop a verse over Sweet Valley's beats, though.

"Anyone who wants to rap over my stuff can do it -- just do it."