Walter The Producer talks “Lonely Cowboy” and late night music video shoots

Modern Rock EP cover

The world is Walter The Producer’s oyster. From producing to songwriting, he can do it all. He released his first full length record No Substance Mixtape back in 2023, then followed by 2024’s PLEASE HELP ME I’M SCARED, and in 2025, he’s back with a new EP titled Modern Rock. The project mixes expert production with Reid’s love for classic rock, all with the touches that make it entirely unique to his sound. This era is steeped in visuals thanks to the incredible music videos and visualizers— and more to come, Reid tells us. He was kind enough to sit down and share a bit about his process.

Tell me a little bit about who Walter The Producer is!

My name's Reid and I'm from Boston. Walter came from in high school, I was making beats and didn't want anyone knowing. So I used that as kind of the alias, and then I stuck with it.

Was high school when you first started making music?

Yeah, beats and stuff. I just wanted to be a producer for the most part.

In what ways did music shape your life as a young person in high school or before high school? Like, the music that you enjoyed beforehand, before you were making it? Or any particular artists too if there's any that you felt like were a big part of your life.

Yeah. I would say it shaped it a whole lot. I was super into, like, Steve Lacy, Tyler the Creator, all those guys. That whole universe.

I guess this kind of goes a little bit off the last question, but what parts of life inspire you creatively? Like, is there anything that you turn to when you're looking for musical inspiration?

More recently, it's just kind of been like, I go into making music with nothing on my mind and just see what happens. It feels like the song will, like, tell me almost. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that inspires me. A lot of time, I’ll just make up scenarios in my head and do that. But I would say, recently, I feel like I've had more to draw off of.

Have you typically gone into the studio with ideas and kind of written off of that, or do you usually go in with a clear head and just start from the ground up?

I would say sometimes there's a couple songs where I have gone in and been like, okay. I know I wanna start with this idea. But for the most part, I think I just go in with a clear head and kinda just see what comes out and not put a whole lot of pressure on it. I'll just start with beats and stuff. Like, when I was in Brooklyn, I was, you know, producing and engineering for other people, and then I would go back to Rhode Island and do my own thing, make my own music. But, yeah, I usually just start with the beat. And then if the beat inspires me to write something over it or the music inspires me to write something over, I'll do that. Usually, I'm not sitting down and finishing a song in one go.

So it just kind of depends on the song and the scenario, that that definitely makes sense. Your new EP, Modern Rock, came out just last week. What pieces of yourself did you put into this EP, and where did the core of this record come from within the themes, within what you're feeling inspired by musically? Anything that you feel like was a part of yourself that you put into this EP, what were those pieces?

Photo via Instagram

I've been listening to a lot of classic rock, like seventies and eighties and nineties. I've been super inspired by that. I don't know. I feel like it's kind of a sound shift, I'm shifting more towards that. When I put this together, it was a bunch of songs, and I was like, they all kinda sound like rock to me. So that's how I named it.

Which song was the most challenging? Which one was the easiest to create?

Most challenging? Well, I mean, they were all kind of challenging, but, “Lonely Cowboy,” we wrote in a day. I came in with this guitar thing that I came up with and with this dude, Alex, kinda worked on it, and we produced it. I took it home, and I did it in a day. But then, like, five months later, I rerecorded it and pitched it up. We rerecorded everything.

“Roadtrip” maybe took the longest. I originally started out with the the skeleton of the song right here at this desk. I felt like it needed more, but I don't know what. So I hit Max, and I was like, do you wanna mess with this a little bit together? I went to his house, and we recorded the drums and live stuff. So that took a while. I would say probably those two then. Honestly, those two, I was the least sure of. But it seems like people like them.

How long did the project as a whole take you to make? Like, how long did it take to come together?

All the demos were done, like, a year ago, pretty much. And a year ago, I had the PLEASE HELP ME I’M SCARED project drop. I had all these demos. They were all there a year ago, but in the next six months following PLEASE HELP ME I’M SCARED, I refined them a little bit. For example, I did “Bad Bad Man” a year and a half ago, like, fall 2023, and I made that beat.

Wow. So it's kind of a long time in the coming.

Yeah. I made that beat, and then I just forgot about it. I was at home, and I was playing stuff for my sister. And she's like, I like that one. Then last summer, I kinda just rewrote the entire thing and then structured it.

“Little Lies” I made in the fall, I was working with Grant, and we did a bunch of stuff. And and then in the last five minutes, I kinda started this beat, and he played the keys over it. He had to go, so I just took it home and worked on it for one or two weeks. It was last year in May, I would say, and then then I refined it over that summer.

All of them were kind of sporadic. It's really rare for me to sit down and do everything in one sitting, especially if I’m doing everything myself. If I'm working with somebody on my stuff, we'll just jam out and make a bunch of stuff, and I'll take it home and build it out just because I'm so ADHD.

I wanted to ask a little bit about “Roadtrip,” if you're up for talking about that song. It's kind of addictive and a great tune for summer just because it does kind of give that road trip vibe along with the music video. The music video matches the late night drive energy of that track. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that song and video, and how it ended up as the opener for the EP?

Yeah, I moved to LA winter 2024. I just remember sitting at this desk and messing around and coming up with the skeleton for the song. I hit Max Miranda asking if he wanted to work on it, because I felt like it needed more. And we did that. And, I mean, from the beginning, it just kinda always felt like it would be an opener to whatever project. I always had that in the back of my mind.

As for the music video, where did that come from?

That was Dylan Budnieski. Dylan does all the music videos. I can't take credit for them. We work very closely. He'll be like, what do you think of this? And I'll be like, that's cool. I like that. We did that, like, two months ago. It was like a night shoot. It was really weird, it was, like, 7AM to 5AM.

Oh my gosh. Wow.

Yeah. It was really late. Those are just my friends in the car.

It seems like you guys were having a lot of fun.

It was a really fun shoot. We just shot a music video for “Lonely Cowboy” too. I think it's gonna be cool.

Have you gotten to play any of these songs to a crowd yet? And if so, were there any to surprise you in the sense of audience reception or energy? And if not, which do you expect to be a standout live?

We're practicing a release show we’re doing on the 19th, and we played “Bad Bad Man” at Lollapalooza last year. But everything else I haven't played. We've rehearsed the past couple days, and I think it'll be cool. I'm really excited.

Photo via Instagram

Are there any you're particularly excited to play in front of a crowd?

I think “Lonely Cowboy.” I'm really excited to play in front of a crowd. That one's kinda tricky but we're figuring it out, but I feel like it's gonna be really cool.

I guess it's kinda hard to know until you actually play it live. So yeah, understandable. You're still pretty early in your career, but where do you see Walter The Producer ten years from now? Do you still expect to be making music by then? Do you think you will have shifted genres at all, or do you have any goals for the future?

I don't know about, like, what type of music I'm gonna be making then. I mean, I hope I'm gonna be a lot bigger. We're working hard, so I hope that people eventually catch on, and, you know, people like my music. Hopefully, I'll be producing for other people more. It's a big goal of mine. That was, like, the original idea. I would really like to produce for other artists eventually.

Do you have any that would be bucket list artists to get to produce for?

I mean, just, all the people I was naming, like, Steve Lacy and Childish Gambino, but I don't even know if Childish Gambino is even making music anymore. I know Steve Lacy does all of his stuff himself. But I think it'd be cool to produce in the pop world too. II really want to produce more rap and stuff. That's what I originally started doing. Baby Keem would be super sick. It'd be cool to help develop an artist as a producer eventually.

Kind of branching off of that question, if you could have a drink with any artist dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Any artist dead or alive? Gosh. I don't know. I've been listening a lot of Fleetwood Mac lately, so, like, just that whole crew would be really fun. Kevin Parker, that'd be crazy. There's so many. I would I I would have a drink with whoever wants to have a drink with me.

Is there anything that you want to plug that you have coming up really soon? I know you mentioned the release show, but is there anything else you'd like to share?

Yeah. Just the release show, and I hope we're we'll be able to drop music in the near future after this. I have a lot of cool songs I've been working on that I'm really excited about. But, yeah, the release show is on the 19th.

It's in LA, right?

Yeah. It’s at this venue called MakeOutMusic. Pretty cool.

I'm sure the songs are going to be wonderful live!