Riff Wood talk “Green Day-inspired roots” and working with ‘Dookie’ producer on posi-punk new album: “We want to give hope to our generation”

Riff Wood have spoken to NME about the release of their second album ‘Butterfly In Black And White’ as well as being inspired by Green Day and The Beatles, working with pop-punk production legend Rob Cavallo, and their quest to make the world a more positive place. The three mates from Davis County, Utah, originally wanted to start a band after watching Netflix musical comedy-drama series Julie And The Phantoms. And, after Carson Groves, Hyrum Russon and Shredder heard Green Day’s 1994 album ‘Dookie’ for the first time, they knew exactly what sort of band they wanted to be. READ MORE: Green Day’s Tré Cool knows you want a biopic – but Nimrods will do for now “‘Basket Case’ was the song that got us all into rock music,” Groves told NME over Zoom. “It was just so carefree and [whenever we saw clips of them performing live] they just looked like they were having a blast on stage.” Russon added: “We were still learning guitar at the time and [‘Dookie’] wasn’t full of Van Halen-style shredding. It was so simple, it felt like we could do it too. That helped us gravitate to Green Day, Blink-182 and other pop-punk bands.” Shredder remembered: “It was also really different to everything else we were listening to, which was rap and pop. It just felt exciting. We still absolutely adore that album.” Six years later, Riff Wood have just released their second full-length record, ‘Butterfly In Black And White’. The LP’s artwork is a reworked photo Groves took of milk that Russon had spilt before band practice and, after realising it looked like a butterfly, they started googling what a black and white butterfly meant. Riff Wood. CREDIT: Christina Huerta/Oh Snap! Photography “In some cultures it’s good luck, others see it as a sign of misfortune and death,” explained Russon. “This whole album is about duality, positives and negatives, so it was a perfect fit.”Recommended The collection is full of snotty guitar anthems driven with a snarling teenage attitude – but while last year’s debut ‘Tough Luck’ was pure pop-punk, ‘Butterly In Black And White’ sees the trio take their sound to new places. “We’re always finding new influences through different albums or going to concerts. That inspires us to [try something new] and change it up to make it more Riff Wood,” said Groves. The two most impressive gigs the group have seen recently are Green Day (“They’re so entertaining, they’ve got such stage presence and they look like they have so much fun on stage,” Russon told us) and Paul McCartney on his ‘Get Back’ tour. “Just seeing him in person was the craziest thing ever,” recalled Groves. ”We’re so inspired by the Beatles and his solo work, so hearing the songs that he wrote in the ’60s being sung by people in 2025 was just incredible. There were 80-year-olds singing along next to kids younger than us. To hear all those people singing in unison, to see them connect to the music and how much it impacts their lives, it was just so inspiring. You can’t help but want to do something similar.” After honing their own skills around their hometown, Riff Wood toured outside of Utah for the first time in 2025. Earlier this year, they played their first gigs outside of the USA. “It’s filled our brains with this drive to share our music with as many people as possible,” said Groves. “Not for clout, but because connecting with fans in that way is such a beautiful thing. And the bigger the room, the better that feeling.” Check out the rest of NME’s interview with Riff Wood below, where they also told us about falling in love with Oasis, working with scene icon and longtime Green Day producer Rob Cavallo, the “rebirth of rock” among Gen Z, and more. NME: Hey, Riff Wood! ‘Butterfly In Black And White’ is out in the world – does this record feel different to ‘Tough Luck’? Shredder: “A little different but more advanced. It feels more mature. It has the same Green Day-inspired roots as ‘Tough Luck’, but hopefully you can also hear that we’ve moved beyond doing just that.” Groves: “We started just using different chord progressions, playing around with time signatures and writing about new topics. We just tried to be a little more creative in how the songs came about.” Russon: “Our voices have obviously changed as we’ve gotten older too. If you look at old videos, we’re definitely trying to copycat Billie Joe Armstrong – but with his record, we’ve found our own voices, and we know who we are [as a band]. I don’t think we’re consciously doing anything to prove something to people, but I think this album naturally might do that. People will still say we sound like Green Day, but I don’t hear it on ‘Butterfly In Black And White’.” Riff Wood. CREDIT: Christina Huerta/Oh Snap! Photography So who has inspired this record? Russon: “Some of the songs were written two years ago, some are more recent. So it’s a mix of Green Day, Radiohead and The Beatles.” Shredder: “The Police and Van Halen really inspired my drumming on this album, alongside Tré Cool and Travis Barker.” Groves: “We just went and saw the Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back In Anger. Just seeing how much their music still means to people was incredibly powerful, so we’ve been listening to all their albums recently.” This album was produced by Rob Cavallo, who’s behind Green Day’s ‘Dookie’ and ‘American Idiot’ as well as Paramore’s ‘Brand New Eyes’ and My Chemical Romance’s ‘The Black Parade’. That’s an impressive co-sign… Russon: “Every time we go into the studio, we see the guitar that Billie used to record ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’, Goo Goo Dolls used for ‘Iris’ and Paramore used for ‘The Only Exception’. It was so surreal and mind-blowing.” Groves: “Rob’s the best at what he does. He’s always pushing us to get better and has ways of getting the best performance out of you, but being in the studio with him is more chill than I was expecting it to be. He taught us to be as genuine as we can be. If you do too many takes, a song loses its authenticity – and sometimes, imperfect is far more interesting.” @riff.wood What do you think of this one? #newsong #acoustic #band #harmony #mountain ♬ original sound – Riff Wood There is a real sense of play across ‘Butterfly In Black And White’… Russon: “It’s always been an instinctual thing for us. ‘Tough Luck’ was written before we had any fans, so we were just making the music that felt exciting for us. We continued that on this album.” Groves: “We don’t feel like we have to meet anyone’s expectations either. At the end of the day, if the music is all fake and means nothing to you, then it’s probably going to mean nothing to anyone else.” What are you singing about across ‘Butterfly In Black And White’? Groves: “All these songs are either about something we were experiencing in our lives and needed to use music as an outlet for, or something we were observing in the world. Ultimately, the record is about finding hope, even when it feels like there might be none.” Things are very doom and gloom nowadays, especially for people your age. Does that positivity feel like an important energy to be putting out into the world? Russon: “100 per cent. A majority of people who listen to our music are the same age as us. We’re all going through similar things, and we are all going to have to take on this big world soon enough. We want to give hope to our generation.” Groves: “Music is genuinely the most powerful, uniting thing around. There’s so much hate in the world right now and all these crazy things happening; it does feel very doom and gloom. “But expressing that through music and trying to offer some positivity to people feels like a great way to help. It’s not a political record, but there is a message of ‘it’s all going to be OK’, and we should choose to have hope despite the bad things.” You formed when pop-punk was having a resurgence on TikTok but that revival quickly became more about nostalgia than anything new. In 2026, does it feel like you’re part of a scene? Russon: “There are some awesome young bands around at the moment that we’ve become friends with: The Paradox, Trueblood, The Cherry Bombs, Willowake. But I do think a lot of people see it as a nostalgia thing.” Groves: “It’s definitely nostalgic for people our parents’ age, but I do think a lot of the younger generations are gravitating towards that era of [‘90s and ‘00s] music because of how genuine and authentic it still feels. We’re discovering that [thanks to streaming] so it’s becoming our music too, if y’all are willing to share it.” Shredder: “It does feel like there’s this rebirth of rock [with our generation]. With the rise of AI, people just want something real now.” ‘Butterfly In Black And White’ is out now. Riff Wood play a series of in-store acoustic shows in the UK next week – find tickets here.