Latest news with #indieRock
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Wet Leg Became Indie Superheroes Overnight. Now They're Acting Like It.
Taking the stage in a muscled power pose is a declaration of frontwoman confidence. And Rhian Teasdale is gleaming with it. When her band Wet Leg played at Market Hotel in Brooklyn this spring, she strode up in a dingy undershirt and some glorified tighty-whities, and flexed her biceps at the crowd — a stance somewhere between bodybuilder and Wonder Woman. Launching into the come-at-me lyrics of 'Catch These Fists,' the pulsing lead single from the band's upcoming album — 'I don't want your love, I just wanna fight' the chorus snarls — Teasdale, the rhythm guitarist, dropped her custom-made, bubble gum pink instrument, and flashed her guns again. Beside her, Hester Chambers, the college friend she started the band with, was playing lead guitar with her back to the audience (her version of a power move). When they got into 'Chaise Longue,' the underground hit that put them on the map, they were both dancing and grinning. Since Wet Leg emerged three years ago, its trajectory into indie-rock stardom has been a series of almost absurd feats. Pals from the Isle of Wight, England — a far reach from a musical hot spot — the group saw its self-titled debut LP explode, a chart-topper in the United Kingdom that also earned two Grammys. 'Chaise Longue,' perhaps history's catchiest track about a grandfather's upholstered chair, had vocal fans in Elton John, Lorde and Dave Grohl; seemingly overnight, Wet Leg ascended from dingy clubs to stadiums, opening for Foo Fighters and Harry Styles. This is a heady place to activate a sophomore album, 'Moisturizer,' out July 11. Especially because, unlike the debut, which was mostly written by Teasdale and Chambers, the latest effort is the work of a five-piece — including Henry Holmes, the drummer; Ellis Durand, the bassist; and the multi-instrumentalist Joshua Mobaraki, who is also Chambers's boyfriend. And though Chambers, the lead guitarist, is still a full-fledged member of the group, she has stepped back from the sort of promotion she did for the first album, when the two women were featured as soft-spoken musical partners in matching cottagecore dresses. They were billed as a duo, and now, 'we're definitely a band,' Teasdale said decisively. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Florence Road Are Headed for Stardom and Having Fun While They're At It
In the charming coastal town of Bray in County Wicklow, Ireland, there's a stretch of pavement called Florence Road. It's pretty average, as far as roads go, with quaint houses, a library, a vet, a dollar store, and several coffee shops scattered across it. 'It's not that cute,' jokes drummer Hannah Kelly. 'You wouldn't know walking past that it's remarkable by any means,' says bassist Ailbhe Barry. 'But it's meaningful to us.' Florence Road carries so much significance that Kelly, Barry, lead singer Lily Aron, and guitarist Emma Brandon named their indie rock band after it. They all met there at grade school, when they were 12 years old. Aron was already writing songs in her bedroom then ('the most dramatic songs of all time,' she says), but the band didn't form until four years later. By 2023, their covers of their favorite songs went viral on TikTok. More from Rolling Stone Trump Delays TikTok Ban Another 90 Days Karen Read Found Not Guilty of Murder in Retrial Nezza Says She Sang National Anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium Against Team's Request Now, Florence Road are releasing their debut EP, Fall Back, via Warner, featuring credits from big-name producers like Dan Nigro, Dan Wilson, and John Hill. They'll bring these five tracks — including the raging opener 'Hand Me Downs' and the dazzling, anthemic 'Heavy' — to London's Hyde Park next week, where they'll open for Olivia Rodrigo to a crowd of 65,000. And they aren't even a little bit nervous. 'I find it more nerve-racking when there's less people, and you can see their faces,' Aron admits. 'Honestly, being onstage with the three of them, I'm immediately at ease. I'm like, 'OK, I'm with my friends and this is the biggest thing ever, but it's also very chill.'' Adds Barry: 'I find it fun to try to get Emma to crack onstage by doing silly faces. I'm willing to mortify myself.' Even if they don't have stage fright, Hyde Park is a far cry from their school, Coláiste Ráithín, where Aron, Kelly, and Barry would perform at monthly lunchtime concerts put on by their music teacher. Performing in front of other students, they'd cover Hozier and Declan McKenna. 'It was the toughest crowd possibly ever: your peers trying to eat lunch, and you're singing to them,' Aron says. 'I think that helped our general comfort on stage. Because off the bat, we were just right in the deep end.' Brandon joined later, after she discovered a guitar in her attic during the pandemic and decided to learn the instrument. 'I was a late bloomer,' she says. 'I didn't even know what music theory was until Covid, to be perfectly honest.' Aron, ever the supportive friend (the two met first, in primary school), chimes in: 'It was drawn to you. One with the guitar, she is.' Kelly, originally on guitar, switched to drums, and when the quartet performed their first concert at the school's Christmas show that year, everything fell into place. 'We did 'Happier Than Ever' by Billie Eilish,' Brandon says. 'And never looked back.' Right before they finished school, they found a poster in the hall advertising a music competition, where the winner would get to record a song and shoot a video for it. They won, and released their debut single, 'Another Seventeen,' in October 2022. With lines like 'I'm such a hypocrite/And I'm scared of all the things I wanna be,' it's an angsty teenage banger that shines with thrashing guitar riffs, like an Irish version of Letters to Cleo. (Fitting, considering they posted the song on TikTok to a clip of 10 Things I Hate About You, with the caption 'If our debut single 'Another Seventeen' was in a coming of age movie.') Their manager discovered them after hearing 'Another Seventeen' on a Spotify playlist, and they got a gig that fall opening for Irish rockers the Academic. 'I was in a different maths class and I went to grab the girls,' Brandon recalls. 'I literally walked straight past the teacher and I was like, 'I need them right now.' And we just screamed in the bathroom for a long time.' The band started performing gigs in Dublin, writing and practicing at Aron's house. They meet there three times a week, inside a shed her mom used in the pandemic to host a children's puppet show. Her dad, also a musician, converted it into a rehearsal space. 'My dad is over the moon,' Aron says. 'He was like, 'You're doing exactly what I wanted to do when I was your age.'' Hunkered down in the shed, each member brings their own influences to the table, creating, as Aron says, 'this big pot of everything.' She loves Wolf Alice, Beabadoobee, and the Kinks; Barry grew up listening to the Beatles and Nineties alternative; Brandon has a current obsession with Sam Fender; and Kelly lists U2 and the Cranberries as major inspirations. 'I love looking back on the Irish bands that have come before, you know?' she says. 'There's a lot to learn.' You can see renditions of these favorites on their TikTok, where they have nearly one million followers. They're often shot on the iPhone's 0.5 lens, with the flash shining in Aron's crystal blue eyes, like a tractor beam is about to scoop her up, far away from Ireland's greenery. The band nail each cover while basking in their goofiness and friendship, like when they performed Olivia Rodrigo's 'Obsessed' while hiding in a closet and 'holding Ailbhe hostage.' Rodrigo ended up commenting on that video, while another user wrote, 'I'm tired of ya'll teasing me with these and not having full versions available anywhere. I've been holding this grudge since 'Stick Season.'' Their cover of Paramore's 'Hard Times,' which has nearly 50 million views, was thrown together in five minutes. 'It's always the ones that I find sound the worst, do the best,' says Brandon. Adds Aron: 'The very first time we decided to do the 0.5 type of thing, it was genuinely a piss-take. It was really just like, 'This is gas. This is so bizarre, no one's going to get it.'' Last year, the band took three trips to Los Angeles, their first time on the West Coast. Spending two weeks there at a time, they hung out on Santa Monica Beach, tried all kinds of food via Uber Eats, and survived some painful sunburns. All the while they were recording Fall Back, doing a 'speed run' of meeting different producers every day. They were jet-lagged when they cut 'Heavy,' produced by Hill, but Aron says the experience was cathartic: 'The chorus literally leapt out of my body,' she says. Hill, who's produced Charli XCX, Cage the Elephant, and others, also co-wrote with them, alongside Marshall Vore, known for his work with Phoebe Bridgers — a 'big time' favorite of the band's. 'We were like, 'Don't think about it too much, because then you'll freak out a bit,'' Aron says. The same goes for working with Nigro, the star producer and co-writer of Rodrigo's and Chappell Roan's hits. He assisted the band with the devastating, anxiety-ridden 'Caterpillar,' which they bolstered with comforting violin. 'Know that I'll feel better with the tap on/Something 'bout the water running down my side,' Aron sings. 'It just means, 'Once I just cry and once I let it out, I will feel better,'' she says. 'It felt like there was something hatching in my chest — that really uncomfortable tension.' The band sat with each producer and discussed each song with them, describing the meaning and how they wanted to tackle it. 'It was really amazing to go in with Dan Wilson, who was such a sweetheart,' Aron says of the producer, who's worked with everyone from Adele to Taylor Swift and helped Florence Road make 'Hand Me Downs.' 'His studio had very peaceful, calming vibes. It was really nice to get that outer perspective of someone who's not a teenage girl. Do you know what I mean?' After Aron, Barry, and Kelly worked on the track, Brandon was called in to record her guitar part the following day. 'He had about 150 pedals and I was just mesmerized,' she says. 'Like, 'Can I just stay here forever?'' The band tinkered with the track list for the EP, shelving gems like 'Miss' and 'Break the Girl' — they describe the latter as having an 'Alanis Morissette vibe' — for the future. For now, they're focused on releasing these five songs to capture a 'time capsule,' as Barry puts it. Kelly agrees: 'Between 'Another Seventeen' and 'Heavy,' it was three years,' she says. 'We just wanted to get the music out in the quickest way possible, for our own sake, because the demos have been burning holes in their pockets since last January.' With the release of the EP, they're also hoping to move away from being known as a viral TikTok band. 'We're definitely trying to slide away from that,' says Aron. 'That was something we were nervous about when first releasing 'Heavy.' It was like, 'Are people going to take it seriously and really see us as musicians?' Because that's who I feel we are.' For the band, the title Fall Back is about their experience over the last few years — becoming a band, getting signed by a major label, recording with dream producers. 'There's that feeling of leaving your teenagehood,' Aron says. 'Sometimes you're falling backwards and you don't know what is going on. The songs go through the joys and the anxiety and confusion that comes with becoming an adult, and how terrifying that is.'But Aron says the title also represents their childhood friendship that started all those years ago, back on that beloved road. 'If you ever see the four of us in person, we are genuinely laughing all the time. We don't shut up,' she says. 'We just have the best times. We are each other's fallback.' Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked
The Independent
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Babyshambles announce death of guitarist Patrick Walden
Patrick Walden, guitarist for the indie rock band Babyshambles, has died at the age of 46. The band announced Walden's death on their social media page on Friday, June 20. Walden was a founding member of Babyshambles, formed by Pete Doherty in 2003, and co-wrote many of their successful songs, including tracks on their debut album Down in Albion. Pete Doherty, who previously called Walden the best guitar player he had ever worked with, reshared the band's announcement. Tributes from fans and fellow musicians poured in, remembering Walden as a talented guitarist and a kind individual.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hotline TNT: Raspberry Moon review – love lights melodies through the fuzz
The third album by these New York-based indie-rockers rings some crucial changes. First, bandleader Will Anderson is in love, which alleviates some of the gloom that pervaded earlier records. And while the lyrics don't amount to much on the page, when sung in unaffected deadpan and robed in artfully embellished shoegazey noise, Anderson's elliptical poetics carry a compelling weight. Second, and more importantly, Anderson invited his bandmates into the studio to record Raspberry Moon. Where previous albums had been one-man affairs, with Anderson overdubbing layer upon layer of guitar and synth on his lonesome, the presence of other musicians in the room has shaken up the paradigm. Their trademark walls of fuzz remain, but Raspberry Moon also fields tracks such as Break Right, on which the happy/sad melodies flourish with space to breathe, and the lush Lawnmower, which is practically unplugged (save for a keening thread of feedback in the distance) and utterly lovely for it. Other tracks hew closer to the Hotline blueprint, but with renewed sophistication. Their sound remains rooted in 90s indie-rock's fusion of noise and tune (the closing track even shares its title with a landmark Dinosaur Jr LP), but Anderson's articulacy within this soundworld is impressive. The Scene may recall the corrosive buzz of Sugar and the tremolo swoon of My Bloody Valentine, but Anderson's mastery of dynamics is thrilling. And the way he weaves acoustic and distorted guitars and blasts of needling feedback into something as beguiling as Julia's War is evidence of a unique talent operating in a crowded field.
The Guardian
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Arson, sex shops, livestreamed funerals: Wednesday's Karly Hartzman on the wild stories in her southern gothic rock
To step into Karly Hartzman's home is to see the contents of her brain shaken out. There is a fireplace mantel covered in dolls and figurines; a wooden rack filled with cassette tapes; an old doll's house filled to the brim with fabric scraps; a few overflowing bookshelves. As the 28-year-old leader of the indie-rock band Wednesday greets me at the door, she realises a few new additions have just landed through the letterbox, some books about the history of hardcore and punk: she has been listening to both a lot and is eager to educate herself. Hartzman is a collector by nature, a habit that is also at the heart of her songwriting. Equally inspired by the southern rockers Drive-By Truckers and the shoegaze greats Swirlies, Wednesday's sound combines heartfelt twang with walls of pummelling sound. Hartzman's lyrics are highly narrative, inflected with striking, gnarly details. Listen to the band's breakthrough album, 2023's Rat Saw God, and you will hear about urine-coloured soda, roadside sex shops, accidental arson and teens getting high on Benadryl. The band's forthcoming sixth album, Bleeds, refines their sound, never letting the raw noise overshadow Hartzman's knack for melody and unique stories. 'This is what we've been working towards this whole time,' she says. She calls the band's singular sound an 'unavoidable' result of the members' individual tastes. By now, she says: 'We know what a Wednesday record sounds like, and then we make it.' Although Pitchfork declared Wednesday 'one of the best indie-rock bands around', Hartzman keeps a low profile in her home town, the small North Carolina city of Greensboro. She recently moved back from nearby Asheville, where she lived on a bucolic property known as Haw Creek that was home to various local musicians. In person, Hartzman is thoughtful, expressive and more reserved than you might expect from her riotous performances. As we drive around Greensboro, she points out her teenage haunts, such as the cafe she used to frequent when she skipped school. As a kid, she resented being told what to do, but never let that get in the way of an education. 'I was very methodical,' she says about cutting class. 'I was writing and reading and doing work – I was doing my own school, on my terms.' She credits her taste in music to a few crucial sources: her parents, who played Counting Crows and the singer-songwriter Edwin McCain around the house; her older sister, who got her into Warped tour punk (Paramore were an early favourite); and a longtime friend who introduced her to shoegaze and post-hardcore bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Unwound. When she started college, Hartzman admired her friends who played in bands, but she wasn't interested in taking music lessons. Then she saw the band Palberta – a playful indie-rock trio whose members traded instruments every few songs – and felt inspired by the messy, uncomplicated style of playing the three women shared. 'They were doing something that sounded awesome and very easy,' she says. 'After that show, I bought my friend's guitar off him.' Hartzman's earliest recordings were solo; she got a formal band together only when her sister asked her to perform at her birthday party. From there, Wednesday rotated through a few members before settling into a stable lineup: Xandy Chelmis on steel guitar, Ethan Baechtold on bass and piano, Alan Miller on drums and MJ Lenderman on guitar. They started playing house shows and tiny spots with friends' bands and folks they met in local DIY scenes. Wednesday's shows could be raucous, rowdy affairs, but their home lives centred around the quietude of Haw Creek, surrounded by streams and open fields – the kind of place where they could go fishing in the morning, then practice in the living room later on. 'We lived on acres of land,' she says. 'Nothing will ever beat that.' Hartzman lived at Haw Creek with Lenderman who, alongside his work in Wednesday, found meteoric success last year for his fourth solo album, Manning Fireworks. He and Hartzman started dating before Lenderman joined Wednesday – Hartzman was a fan of his music, playing it over the speakers at the coffee shop where she worked before they met. After six years together, they broke up amicably in 2024. Hartzman chalks it up to the usual big-picture differences that emerge in adulthood. In your early 20s, she says: 'You're just like: 'Oh, I like this person, I'll date them.' But then, when you're 28, you have to be like: 'Does this person have the same intentions in life?'' Hartzman was interested in marriage and kids; Lenderman was not quite on the same page, she says. But, from the beginning, 'I've known, even if we're not romantic for ever, we're creative collaborators for ever'. Lenderman will be on future records; while he won't perform on their next tour, Hartzman insists it's nothing personal; between Wednesday and his solo career, his touring schedule has been relentless and 'he needs a break'. The songs on Bleeds were written before the breakup, although some of them hint at the deteriorating relationship. The Way Love Goes started as an apology for not being fully present. 'When I wrote it, I was like: 'But I'm gonna fight for this,'' she says. 'Of course, by the time we recorded it, that was not the situation.' Wasp, meanwhile, describes the bitter self-recrimination she felt towards the relationship's end. 'My body just kind of gave up on me,' she says. 'I was really dissociated because I didn't want to break up, but I was having to accept that we needed to.' Bleeds is haunted by images of loss and violence: a washed-up body, a livestreamed funeral, a car crash, a knife fight. Hartzman doesn't see it necessarily as a dark record; she sees it as chasing good stories and telling the truth. 'Death is around at every point,' she says. 'If you don't acknowledge that, you're lying.' She is drawn to mixing the cartoonish and the creepy: 'I think that's just a southern gothic attitude,' she says, describing her taste as 'a little bit scary, but there's a heart of gold underneath'. Much of Hartzman's songwriting draws on her memories of youthful debauchery, like sneaking out late then teaching Sunday school. She is also a keen collector of stories, keeping an eye out for strange characters and unbelievable happenings. 'If someone has a story where they're, like: 'Oh my God, this was so embarrassing,' or: 'This is kind of a secret,'' her ears prick up. (She always asks for permission and changes names and identifying details to protect the innocent.) From Bleeds, the drowning victim on Wound Up Here (By Holdin' On) comes from a friend's story from his days as a rafting guide in West Virginia; Carolina Murder Suicide was inspired by a true-crime podcast. But Hartzman's songs still feel intimate, told in first person through a singular lens, treating their subjects with compassion. Rat Saw God took the band to new heights, landing on many publications' year-end lists. But as she looks towards the release of Bleeds, Hartzman is committed to keeping her personal life steady. It helps that while 'the shows have changed a lot' – getting bigger and bigger – 'my life at home has been so consistent'. This year, she ditched her smartphone, got off social media and built herself a charmingly retro, Y2K-style personal website. The apps were zapping her focus; then, a profile of Lenderman was published with details of their breakup. 'People were putting their own two cents on that shit,' she says with an eye roll. 'I was like: oh, it would feel so good to get off that.' She has changed how she listens to music, too, jettisoning the algorithm to favour recommendations from friends and blogs. 'It's been so rewarding.' On her site, she shares monthly journal entries and roundups of the music and media she is enjoying. She answers reader-submitted questions about everything from learning guitar to her relationship with religion. She also has a PO box where listeners can send letters; she replies to as many as she can. It's important for her to be in touch with the people who love her music, she says, and she wants to give them something special. But this method represents, for her, a 'closeness on my own terms' – a way of preventing the always-on burnout faced by many musicians on the rise. Her ability to tune out industry pressure surprises even those closest to her. Lenderman 'is always wondering: 'How do you not feel that kind of pressure of expectation?'' she says. 'But my need to write is so important to me, more than any reception.' As well as making her own merch from customised thrift store T-shirts, in her precious downtime, Hartzman has been writing and spending time with local friends – they are fond of a laundromat-cum-bar called Suds & Duds. She has never lived outside North Carolina – and doesn't plan to. 'I love it,' she says. 'It feels like home to me. And that feeling is addicting.' Folks here know her face because they watched her grow up, or grew up alongside her, not because her band recently played The Late Show (although she did get recognised recently by a Wednesday listener at her grandmother's retirement home). Most of what happens in her songs 'could happen anywhere', she says. 'I'm not trying to say, necessarily, that I had a different upbringing or lifestyle than most teenagers.' But she is telling her story truthfully – 'and, in reality, it happened here'. Hartzman understands why other artists might move to a major city to find artistic success, but she is glad to be rooted in such a distinctive place. 'I don't like the feeling of: 'I'm in the cultural centre of the universe and what I do here will pervade the rest of culture,'' she says with a shrug. 'I like the idea of coming in from the edge.' Bleeds is released via Dead Oceans on 19 September
