Nathan Williams of Wavves has announced plans to rerecord Cherry Soda, the Wavves rerecord Cherry Soda project born from a collaboration with Say Anything, after allegations surfaced against Say Anything’s Max Bemis. Williams has been blunt about where he stands: ‘I don’t want to be associated with the guy.’
Wavves rerecord Cherry Soda: what Williams actually said
Williams followed that initial statement with a longer note posted to his Instagram. ‘Not sure what to say but fuck Max. Fuck Say Anything. I’m sorry y’all,’ he wrote. ‘I spent 11 months making this record and Max spent 4 days so I dunno exactly what I’m supposed to do. I’m sorry guys.’
It is a raw, unfiltered response, the kind of public statement that tends to get screenshotted and passed around before a PR team can soften it. Williams is not hedging. He is cutting ties and doing it loudly.
Bemis has yet to make any public comment on the allegations.
Ten tracks, 10,000 pressed records, and a complicated path forward
The scale of the problem is not small. According to Consequence, Cherry Soda is a 10-track album produced by Aaron Rubin. Williams had already flagged the logistical nightmare before committing to the rerecord. ‘The issue is 10,000 records are already pressed,’ he wrote on his Patreon. That is not a small pressing run for an independent release, and it represents real money sitting in a warehouse somewhere, suddenly unsellable in its current form.
Williams spent eleven months on this record. The idea that a project of that scale, with a producer attached and a full pressing ready to ship, could be unravelled and started again is not a small ask. But the alternative, leaving his name tied to Bemis, appears to be something he is unwilling to accept.
The decision to rerecord rather than simply shelve the album entirely suggests Williams believes in the material itself. Cherry Soda, as a Wavves project, still has a future. It is the Say Anything connection he wants to remove.
Still available for pre-order, for now
As things stand, Cherry Soda is still listed for pre-order at various online retailers. That detail matters because it means fans who have already placed orders are in a grey area. Whether those orders will be honoured, cancelled, or converted to whatever the rerecorded version becomes has not yet been addressed publicly.
The situation is still moving. Williams has made his position clear, the rerecord is the stated plan, and the 10,000 already-pressed copies of the original are an unresolved problem sitting underneath all of it. What that means commercially, and what shape the rerecorded Cherry Soda eventually takes, is yet to be confirmed.
