{"id":179220,"date":"2025-08-15T12:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/08\/15\/indie-rockers-wednesday-nearly-burnt-out-this-one-touring-rule-will-keep-them-fresh-as-can-be\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:15:06","slug":"indie-rockers-wednesday-nearly-burnt-out-this-one-touring-rule-will-keep-them-fresh-as-can-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/08\/15\/indie-rockers-wednesday-nearly-burnt-out-this-one-touring-rule-will-keep-them-fresh-as-can-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Indie-Rockers Wednesday Nearly Burnt Out \u2014 This One Touring Rule Will Keep Them \u2018Fresh As Can\u00a0Be\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\u201cYou saw a pitbull puppy pissing off a balcony,\u201d belts Wednesday vocalist-lyricist Karly Hartzman on the band\u2019s new single, \u201cWound Up Here (By Holdin On).\u201d It\u2019s exactly the type of evocative, instantly memorable line that has helped to propel Wednesday to the forefront of the indie world \u2014 and Bleeds<\/em>, the North Carolina group\u2019s sixth album (due out Sept. 19), is chock-full of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tHartzman\u2019s lyrics blur the line between memoir and fiction and come from any number of places: lived experience, local news, vivid passages in books \u2014 or, in the case of the pissing pitbull puppy, from a text from her mother. \u201cShe said, \u2018This sounds like something you would write!\u2019 \u201d Hartzman says, explaining that her mom works for a nonprofit that helps struggling mothers and saw the urinating canine when making a site visit. \u201cI was like, \u2018Mom! How did you know?!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent years, Wednesday has remade a specific corner of indie rock in its own image. Its 2021 breakthrough, Twin Plagues<\/em>, earned the band a following with its heavy hybrid of shoegaze and country, and it further refined that sound on its acclaimed 2023 set, Rat Saw God<\/em>, helping to precipitate a boom of so-called \u201calt-country\u201d bands. Jake \u201cMJ\u201d Lenderman, one of 2024\u2019s biggest new indie stars, plays in Wednesday, and producer Alex Farrar\u2019s Drop of Sun Studios, where both Wednesday and Lenderman record, has become a destination for musicians seeking their same twangy spark.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI love lifting up a whole community of people,\u201d Hartzman says. \u201cThat\u2019s been really cool to see.\u201d (She calls Wednesday\u2019s music \u201ccreek rock\u201d: It describes the area in East Asheville, N.C., where she, Lenderman and some of their peers came up.)<\/p>\n

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\n\tHartzman, 28, wrote and recorded Bleeds<\/em>, Wednesday\u2019s second album for eminent indie label Dead Oceans, at a pivotal time for both the band and herself. For Rat Saw God<\/em>, Wednesday \u2014 which is rounded out by Lenderman (guitar\/vocals), Xandy Chelmis (pedal steel\/vocals), Ethan Baechtold (bass\/piano) and Alan Miller (drums) \u2014 toured the world like never before, and as the itinerary pushed the band to its \u201cabsolute limit,\u201d Hartzman became homesick. \u201cIt\u2019s weird as f\u2013k, singing these songs that are inspired by my home but never being home,\u201d she says, as her orange cat Girl Girl patrols the room behind her in her Greensboro, N.C., home.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Wednesday was touring Tokyo in March 2024, Hartzman and Lenderman ended their six-year romantic relationship; the following month, the band entered the studio to record Bleeds<\/em>, and Hartzman and Lenderman hid the news from their bandmates. \u201cI was desperate to capture everything we had built, from all the touring,\u201d Hartzman says. \u201cI was just kind of numbing it out and putting my head down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a weird vibe,\u201d says Chelmis, who also plays with Lenderman. \u201cIt was heavy and awkward, and the rest of the band, we were like, \u2018What\u2019s going on?\u2019 But we were just like, \u2018Time to make the songs.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Bleeds<\/em> is not a relationship tell-all: Hartzman wrote most of the record before Wednesday hit the studio \u2014 before she and Lenderman split \u2014 and in any event, many of its vignettes date back years. \u201cUsually, there\u2019s a story that I want to tell at some point in my career,\u201d Hartzman says. \u201cFor example, maybe Xandy throwing up in the pit at the Death Grips show at Primavera in 2023. So I\u2019ll try to organize in my mind anything that fits tonally with that story. \u2026 I\u2019m just making sure the stuff I want to archive makes it in there, and then I build the rest of it out so it can actually be a song.\u201d (Chelmis\u2019 wayward Death Grips experience is documented on Bleeds<\/em> single \u201cPick Up That Knife.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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