No Lie! Carolina Liar Playing Davenport’s Raccoon Motel Tonight
Carolina Liar play at 7 p.m. tonight at Raccoon Motel in Davenport. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are still available.
For a guy responsible for one of the most inspirational pop hits of the past two decades, Carolina Liar’s Chad Wolf does not play against type.
The Charleston, SC native and Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter is relentlessly buoyant, upbeat, and, dare I say it, inspirational, talking about his roller coaster journey in music, which brings him to Davenport’s Raccoon Motel for a gig Thursday night, July 2.
Wolf chatted with me at length on my podcast, The Sean Leary Show, and you can hear the full conversation here. He still speaks with wonder about his musical career, working for legendary songwriter Diane Warren and recording in Stockholm with iconic producer and songwriter Max Martin before breaking through with the absolutely massive 2008 hit, “Show Me What I’m Looking For,” off Carolina Liar’s multi-platinum debut, “Coming To Terms.”
The Swedish-American band’s 2008 Atlantic Records debut spawned the double platinum-certified “Show Me What I’m Looking For” and gold-certified “I’m Not Over.” The songs soundtracked The Hills, 90210, Gossip Girl, and What Happens In Vegas, and launched tours with Rob Thomas, OneRepublic, Kelly Clarkson, and Gavin DeGraw.
Now, Wolf is back, with a stripped down Carolina Liar, touring throughout the Midwest, hitting Milwaukee’s Summerfest and Chicago’s Beat Kitchen this weekend, and, fortunately for us, making his way through the Quad-Cities tonight at Raccoon Motel in Davenport.
It’s been quite a trek over the past couple of decades for Wolf, but he remains incredibly optimistic about it, and philosophical and grateful for all the ups, and downs, along the way, beginning with his humble start in South Carolina, and on to New York, Sweden, and beyond.
“Getting started with Diane (Warren) was what really gave me the bug to do this,” Wolf said. “I saw what the music industry really was. That changed everything. That really gave me the motivation to do this, to pursue this path.”
It was that early work with Warren that put him into the orbit of his fellow bandmates with Carolina Liar (named after a collaborator noted Wolf’s penchant for elaborate tales and his South Carolina origin), which led him to his massive initial success.
However, it was his band’s collaboration with legendary hit-making producer and songwriter Max Martin (who has helped create basically half of the songs on the charts over the past 20 years) that really turbo-charged their career from the onset.
“Working with Max was the best, he’s an incredible talent, just a great guy, incredibly humble and easy to work with,” Wolf said. “What Max brings out in you, you just can’t explain. He knows how to get to the truest nature of yourself with a song.”
Martin did that in particular with “Show Me What I’m Looking For,” the band’s biggest hit, and a song that still sounds phenomenal today. Wolf talks about the process and how Martin helped distill the essence of the song down to its most potent, including using the original, emotion-filled vocal on the song, which has continued to log huge airplay online and has appeared in countless TV shows and films over the past two decades. “Show Me What I’m Looking For” went viral on TikTok in 2021 — generating over 70,000 creates and driving millions of daily Spotify streams at its peak — and still pulls over 144,000 streams per week with zero promotion eighteen years after its release, surpassing 169 million total streams across platforms.
It was that song, and the multi-platinum debut disc it was on, “Coming To Terms,” that started the ride for Wolf and his bandmates, which has been full of ups, downs, and detours, he said, but has always been a blessing.
“It was magical, all of the sudden it does change things in a really profound way,” he said. “It’s so hard to take everything in, because there’s so much happening at once. You don’t realize everything because you’re at the eye of the storm and it takes a while to process. Years later I’m still realizing that. There were some really cool things that happened and that came out of that, that at the time I didn’t quite stop to enjoy, but that now, looking back on it, I realize were pretty cool.”
However, as is often the case with stratospheric rises to fame, they are followed by a fall, and that’s what happened with Wolf and the group. The band broke up, Wolf’s marriage fell apart, and he ended up going through a number of transitions with other musical projects. During that time, Wolf formed the alternative rock duo The Federal Empire with Grammy-nominated songwriter McKay Stevens, whose songs remain a regular part of Carolina Liar’s live sets. Wolf has also collaborated twice with Martin Garrix — on 2016’s “Hold On & Believe” featuring The Federal Empire, and 2024’s “Smile,” performing live during Garrix’s sold-out run at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
However, his journey led him back to where it all started, with Carolina Liar, performing with original drummer Brian Ulery, and his teenage son on bass. Wolf is entering a new chapter with the new single “I Am King,” out now on all streaming platforms. Carolina Liar’s music is also heading to the big screen in the upcoming comedy Concert Heroes, starring Chris Kattan and Horatio Sanz, where the songs serve as the soundtrack for the film’s fictional band and Wolf makes a cameo appearance. A limited-edition vinyl re-release of Coming to Terms with exclusive tracks is expected later this year.
“This is a very special thing that we’ve experienced and you have to honor and appreciate it,” Wolf said. “The fact that we get to go out and still do these songs and be a part of people’s lives is a really cool gift.”
Carolina Liar On Tour:
Thu Jul 2 — Raccoon Motel, Davenport, IA
Sat Jul 4 — Summerfest, Milwaukee, WI
Sun Jul 5 — Beat Kitchen, Chicago, IL
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