Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff turn inward on new self-titled album (Exclusive)

Nat Wolff and Alex Wolff have grown up in the spotlight, and their new self-titled album reflects that journey.

It’s been nearly 20 years since the New York-raised brothers burst into the public eye as child actors and launched their on-screen musical careers as part of the Naked Brothers Band. Since then, they have pursued individual projects, entered the film industry, and spent time apart developing their own creative identities, all while continuing to share music with each other.

After the release of their 2023 album Table for Two, the alt-pop-rock duo realized there was a lot left unsaid. These perceptions, formed by years of touring, lessons learned from their personal and professional lives, and the weight of growing up, ultimately led the musicians to Nat & Alex Wolfe.

“We’re adults now and we’re at a point where we can look back on our childhood and teenage years and look back on the lucky and beautiful moments and all the pain and trauma and weirdness of childhood,” Nat tells PEOPLE.

The 31-year-old singer knows she was “incredibly lucky to get into this world,” but being a child star comes with its challenges. He recalled facing bullies in middle school, creeping uncomfortably through the crowds of fans waiting outside the school, and feeling “uncomfortable” about being in the public eye before he really knew who he was.

Those experiences influenced much of the writing on the album, which was produced by Tone Deaf, with additional production by Sachi DiSerafino, Dirty Dave, and Danes Blood. The brothers revisited what they describe as the most “raw parts” of their history, grappling with the long-term effects of childhood stardom, the aftermath of their breakup, and difficult events they had not previously shared. The song was written over several years and was picked up again after a few months of touring, including opening for friend Billie Eilish on the North American leg of her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour. When they reunited, they restructured the tracklist and recorded new songs until they felt the 13-song collection was representative of their current situation.

“This is the kind of music we’ve always wanted to make,” says Nat. “I feel like I’m finally getting closer to the sounds I’m hearing in my head.”

For Alex, 28, looking back and being more honest about songwriting doesn’t necessarily get easier over time, but it felt necessary.

“I feel like when I’m digging into what’s really going on and writing a song, I have to overcome a lot of things that come to me very naturally, things that would make an easy song,” he says. “I think if you start feeling uncomfortable about being this age and what it has to do with being a child and the most raw parts of your history and whatnot, and then start writing about it, you’re going to get a more authentic response.”

Nat agrees. “You can’t get into a song and control what it turns out to be,” he says.

Some songs, like “Midnight Song,” “magically came together” in one take, as Alex puts it, while others took a lot of trial and error.

“I still have nightmares about Alex still asking for a new mix of ‘Jack,’” Nat jokes. “When the new ‘Jack’ mix arrived in the mail, I felt a pit in my stomach.”

Alex added that the production process for “Jack,” which the brothers released as a single in September 2025, felt “impossible” at times, but that the final version turned out exactly as he had envisioned.

Although the brothers’ voices and perspectives have matured compared to their early Nickelodeon days, elements of their youth are still intact. Nat stated that he tried to write songs the same way he did when he was a child with “no knowledge of music theory,” and that he composed several songs on the album based on hand positions.

“It led me to a lot of weird and interesting places that I never would have gotten to if I had thought, ‘Okay, let’s go to the second minor,'” he says. “It was more like, ‘What if my hands were in this position? What if I closed my eyes and just felt the piano and let it tell me what the song should be?'”

That vulnerability is reflected in several tracks. Nat wrote “I Can’t Hurt You Anymore” after their breakup, and said he didn’t revisit it until it was time to record it because it was “a really painful song to write.” In “Horse,” he explores a dark childhood experience and how its influence seeped into his adulthood, a process he describes as “healing.”

“I wrote this song for myself almost as therapy,” he said, recalling that his hands were shaking when he played it for Alex. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’m too vulnerable to tell my brother about this.'”

After Alex hears Nat’s song (one in which his brother repeatedly takes responsibility for traumatic events that happened to him as a child), he immediately recognizes it as “something special” and convinces him to record it the next day.

The brothers also have a wide range of musical influences, particularly folk artists of the 60s and 70s, including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen, whom Alex plays in the 2024 miniseries So Long, Marianne. For “Tough”, Alex tried to write a chorus like Cher’s “Believe” using the same chord progression. Other tracks came about through a combination of spontaneity and what the brothers describe as chaotic creativity.

That approach extended to “Soft Kissing Hour,” which was completed during an impromptu home recording session with Eilish, who sings and produces the song. The trio created the song’s quiet pain in the middle of the night with a single microphone and guitar, and released it as a single in October 2024.

With Alex playing the piano on one side of the room and a microphone plugged in from the other side, the recording retains natural background sounds (such as the breathing of Eilish’s dog Shark), contributing to the lo-fi feel. Nutt says that with these restrictions, “something magical” often happens.

“All of this happened by chance,” says Nat. “A happy coincidence resulted in an intimacy that felt like we were singing to the listener right there. There was no distance between the recordings.”

Also adding to the album’s familiarity is Alex’s girlfriend of several years, fellow singer-songwriter Lozzi Crane, whose voice comes through on “If You Never Left Me.” But combining personal relationships and business is nothing new for the Wolf brothers, who say they’ve learned the golden rule of working together as brothers.

“Neither of us is allowed to use the talkback button because we can send notes to each other, but it’s really demoralizing to receive notes on your headphones when your brother is in another room,” Nat said, revealing that it led to the biggest fight on the entire album.

Despite occasional bickering between the brothers, the brothers operate under what Nat calls a “virtual no-bull policy.”

“We have to have the freedom, as we always do, to say, ‘I don’t like that lyric, I don’t like that,’ even at the risk of hurting each other’s feelings,” Nat says. “It’s actually difficult and the only thing I’ve been able to work on creatively on my own or with my brother.”

That openness has strengthened their partnership over the years. “On this album, to be honest, I realized that our songwriting was at its best on this album when we really bonded, rocked each other, and fused the songs together,” Nat says, explaining that each track is a deep and true collaboration.

“It’s not like, ‘This is Nat’s song and this is Alex’s song.’ ‘Table for Two’ is a little more separate in that sense, but on this one I think it made each song stronger because we wrote everything together,” he added.

As they continue to evolve and balance their careers in both Hollywood and the music industry, Nat and Alex Wolff continue to represent what Nat calls “a major transition” as artists and people.

“I think this was the first time we made music and really looked back on our youth. I think it was really therapeutic and inspiring in a way,” he says. “These songs are very indicative of who we are at this particular moment.”

Nat & Alex Wolfe will be released on Friday, January 16th.