sometimes it’s not that deep
Since their self-titled debut dropped in 2022, Wet Leg have ridden the chaos of success with wry grins and deadpan charm firmly intact. ICYMI: Wet Leg was founded by Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. Since the first album, they’ve added Ellis Durand (bass), Henry Holmes (drums), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitar, synth) Now, the Isle of Wight five-piece return with moisturizer, a feral, freaky follow-up that swerves the ‘sophomore slump’ with style.
Written collectively in Southwold, Suffolk – in between horror film marathons – moisturizer was produced by Dan Carey. He also produced their debut album. Carey’s past credits (Fontaines D.C., Grimes, La Roux, The Kills, Bat For Lashes, Caroline Polachek) should give you a pretty good idea of where this thing’s heading: all sharp edges, soft synths, and zero fucks given.
The result? A completely unhinged, exuberant album made for the stage and scream-along-sessions in your car. From the pounding, violent mayhem of lead single catch these fists to the venom-laced bitter-sweetness of mangetout, this is Wet Leg unbound and unfettered: weirder, wilder, even more wonderful – and still not taking any of your shit.
moisturizer is an album for the kids who came of age in the 2010s; and the ones who wish they had.
Astrophe was blessed to catch up with the softly spoken, endless humble, positively angelic Teasdale to talk silly love songs, lyrics, and why sometimes the only way is to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Alright. Hello!
How you doing?
Good, how are you?
I'm good. Yeah.
Is it early?
No, it's not that early. It's like 10. But we got back quite late last night from Paris, so you get sleepy.
Yeah, I'll bet. I was gonna say 10 is still kind of early. I feel like I'm only just getting into my day at 10.
No, not for me. I'm an early riser, normally.
So I was literally just driving home from one of my jobs, listening to the album, and it's great driving music. It's so much fun.
Oh, cool.
I guess let's just start off with: can you tell me a little bit about the new album?
Mm-hmm. Well, it's super exciting 'cause it's like the first time that we've all – all five of us – have got to write together. You know, me and Hester started the band and then we asked our friends to come on tour with us. And so then of course, the five of us have been touring together, like living together basically, on a bus for a couple years. So to get to stop and write the album, the second album, together was a long time coming.
And we're super excited to have made what we've made. I think a big focus for us, having had that experience – of touring for so long – was, when we went into writing the album, we wanted to make songs that … we were like, oh, we're gonna have to play these a lot, so we might as well make them fun to play live.
There's a lot of energy in the album that reminds me of getting ready to go out when I was a teenager – putting on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Scissor Sisters – it’s really fun. It’s music that I want to dance to, but also, you guys are so incredible when it comes to the lyrics. I'm really interested in how that writing, lyrically, comes about.
The innuendos, the way you play with language and cliche, like, there's even some Shakespeare in one song, if I'm not mistaken. Where's that coming from? How do you do that? Because that's amazing.
I can't think of anything Shakespearean … that's maybe that's a Hess lyric and it's passed me by. Sorry, what was the question again?
How do you write lyrics that are so clever?
I dunno if they're so clever. I always kind of think they're so, so stupid. At the same time, I guess, I don't know – I really like writing lyrics because I am not very good sometimes at conversational skills.
Like, sometimes I'm trying to say what I mean, and my mind is just tripping me up the whole time. And so I think I love going away by myself and writing, writing lyrics, 'cause it's just a very calm and non-judgmental place to explore language and words. I've always – as a kid, at school, I always really liked English. I had a really good English teacher, who made words interesting.
And it's very private, like completely the opposite of what we're doing right now, basically.
Absolutely. Whatever you're doing, it's clearly working. It just must be naturally how your brain explains itself. It's really cool and I think you are clever. Very clever.
So, the process of this album is clearly different because there were five of you working on it all together. How was that process different? Was it good, different? Was it bad, different?
It was good. It was really good. Because, when you come up against the inner critic, you have four other people who back you.
So if you're feeling a little bit weird or nothing's sounding like music ... You know, you have four other people to keep the momentum up and keep going. And it stops you from getting too in-your-head and getting too “tortured artist” about anything.
Also, having a simple voting system for, “oh, should this be at the beginning of this?”, “should we put this guitar here, yes or no.” If it's unanimous, like four against one, then that is, that's the way it's gonna go, whether you like it or not.
I think it's helpful for moving things along and I think it's helpful for creating the best thing that you can create to have things challenged.
So Wet Leg is a Democratic collective. I think creativity needs boundaries, and so like having other people to kind of reflect those boundaries back to you is a really great way to work, if that's helpful.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. To get out of your head.
So democracy aside, does Wet Leg have an ethos? Is there a driving theme? What's the message?
I think when me and Hesta started the band, we definitely had an ethos.
It was so mad at the beginning, but we had this one phrase that we would keep coming back to: feel the fear and do it anyway. 'cause, you know, some things are just terrifying and overwhelming and, all these opportunities come your way. And you think, is it yes or is it no
And, well it's really scary, but let's do it. Let's just see. And I think also one that was really important from the inception of the band is that it has to be fun. Yeah. What's the point in doing music or making music if it's not fun anymore.
I think that's carried through to the second album and I hope you can hear that. 'cause it was really fun to make.
Uh, it's for sure fun. It's so much fun. I loved the film clip for the first single, it feels like a cult that I would very much like to join. Like I'm ready to find my white outfit and come be part of it.
Hell yeah.
“Fun” definitely feels like the energy of the album. And even in the slightly lighter, slower bits, it just feels like you're catching your breath to get ready for what's coming. It's really exciting, and it’s got a really beautiful flow as an album.
Do you write all of the songs and then piece them together like a puzzle to work out how that flow works? Or do you write things from beginning to end?
Yeah. No, you're exactly right. We just kind of have a lucky dip of songs, like this little bag of songs. I think we were working on about 16 tracks. When we got into the recording process, we had loads and loads of demos, and some made it through to being taken to the studio, and some didn't. They weren't quite developed enough or weren't quite the right vibe. And then gradually as we were recording, maybe a couple dropped off in the recording process because we were like, “we don't have enough time to finish them, let's concentrate on these 14.”
And then, when it came to track listing the album, it is just kind of like a jigsaw.
I think track listing is so important when you’re making an album, having a dynamic curve to it, and having little textural, little palette cleansers – I think it really, really affects the experience of listening to an album. Not that we listen to whole albums anymore, but if you were to listen to it from start to finish, it is very considered.
I decided to try to listen to albums from start to finish maybe about five years ago. Like, again. 'cause that's how we used to listen to music. And it's just so much more interesting to me, I think it’s so much more respectful to the musicians and the stories that the albums are telling. There might be songs on the album that you would skip, hypothetically, if you didn't listen to them in context, like the way they fit is contextual. I'm here for a start to finish listen. I think we need to bring it back.
I'm so guilty of not doing that.
My concentration span is down the drain. I'm just like, banger please, banger after banger. Like I'm just gonna put all my favourite songs in my own little album. But that's really fun as well, when you can do that with a friend. Kind of like a playlist.
Oh, for sure. I make playlists for my friends as gifts. And of course I have my favorite songs. Speaking of which, do you have a favourite from the album?
Ooh. Um, I think it changes. And it changed day to day when we were recording. But I think there's a couple of songs that really stick out to me and I feel like they're kind of sister songs. I really like don't speak and I really like it paired with davina [mccall]. I think those two are really, really fun songs. And really heartfelt songs and I just love the cheesiness of the lyrics in all of them. Yeah. I love love!
In terms of something visual, why the choice to have all lowercase for this album? Is that just an aesthetic choice?
I think it looks cool. There's really no deep reason. Sometimes things aren't that deep. And I think that’s a really important thing to remember, going about any creative project. Like sometimes that's not that deep. It doesn't matter.
No, you’re right – it doesn't all have to be that deep.
Is there another band that you guys would really love to perform with?
A band that we are going on tour with is Mary In The Junkyard. We're taking them on tour with us, and they're just the sweetest people and they just make the most amazing songs. I'm so excited to do some touring with them because they're the best. Yeah. Mary In The Junkyard.
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