Dougystyle Presents: An Interview with Teenage Wrist
It’s no secret that I am a big Teenage Wrist fan. In fact, they are easily my favorite rock band of the last several years. I wrote an extensive article about Teenage Wrist two years ago for this blog where I counted down my top 15 songs by the band and I went into detail about why I love this band as much as I do. I’m also always hyping them up across social media like I do with my favorite queer pop acts. In fact, the entire queer music community is now probably aware of Teenage Wrist because of how much I gush about them on a weekly basis on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing the band’s singer and guitarist Marshall Gallagher. We discuss how Teenage Wrist initially formed, Marshall’s biggest musical influences, all the band’s albums and EPs, including their latest release Earth is a Black Hole, and so much more.
1. Growing up what was some of the first music you remember hearing as well as the first music to make a large impact on you?
The first band I ever latched onto was Rush. My dad played me “Dreamline” (in retrospect a ridiculous cheesy song on a mediocre album) and I loved the lyrics so he bought me the tape. Yes tape, I am that old. I was probably 8 or 9. I also owned Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Korn’s “Follow the Leader” on tape a few years later. So, I was very much a child of 90s alternative.
2. When did you decide that you wanted to become a musician yourself?
I’ve been in bands since I was about 15 years old, and somewhere along the way I decided maybe I could do it for a living. Maybe late high school, early college. Which was a terrible decision, but I made it pretty early on not quite understanding how broke I would be.
3. How did Teenage Wrist form?
I went to high school with our former singer Kamtin Mohager, we played in the same little Denver, Colorado scene for a while and both ended up being touring musicians for the band 3OH!3 at different times. We both eventually moved to LA and we started jamming together within the first year I was here. Anthony came on board after Kam saw him play in my old band swing hero, which sounded a lot like Teenage Wrist.
4. Your first project together was the 2015 EP Dazed. That project feels a little more hazy than your later work and leans into the Shoegaze genre heavily. What was your goal with this EP and why was it important to show off your Shoegaze influence first?
It wasn’t really a decision, just what was happening at the time. We were both pretty heavily diving into shoegaze and Kam was showing me a lot of the creation records bands and we connected heavily on bands like the Smashing Pumpkins. So, the early stuff ended up being somewhere in between.
5. Slide Away was the main single off Dazed and it's easy to hear why due to its catchiness. Tell me about that song in particular.
That was one Kam had in the bank for a while. All I did was add some layers of fuzz, some cool chords and harmonies. Slide Away is still one of my favorites to listen to.
6. My favorite song off Dazed is Mirror Talk. Tell me how that song came together.
We demoed all of Dazed at Kam’s old apartment on my ancient laptop and pro tools LE, everything in the box. it was all very off the cuff, not much thought went into it. We just wanted to do it, and we wanted it to be fun. When Anthony came on board, we recorded drums in a nice room and then did everything else in my old apartment. Blasting amplifiers into a single condenser mic in my living room. Mirror Talk in particular was written super quickly, in probably a few hours.
7. 2018's Chrome Neon Jesus was your first full length album and it's with this album that I can hear you mix Shoegaze, Grunge and Emo/Punk Pop together in equal measure. For me it sounds like vintage 90s Alternative as a result while still sounding unique & fresh due to this genre mixing. How did the approach to this album differ from the Dazed EP?
I guess the difference was that we actually had a goal, a deadline, and we worked with a producer. we actually had to have sessions where we sat down with the goal of turning a record-worthy song out. So, we threw a bunch of shit at the wall, we all listen to so many different kinds of music so a lot of weird cross-genre stuff came out.
8. My favorite song off the album is also the song that introduced you to me, which is Dweeb. The bass opening which leads to that atmospheric guitar riff reminds me of the opening for two 90s Grunge classics, Would? by Alice in Chains & Comedown by Bush. Tell me about the construction of Dweeb and its influences.
Dweeb was the only song we wrote all at once, together in the practice space. Like it came from an actual jam session as opposed to us all sitting around a computer and spitting out melodies. Kam sang “I do, I do, I do” as a placeholder on the voice memo, and I filled in the blanks with shit that made sense around it. I thought about saying “I do” at a wedding, and that’s what the song came to be about. That’s how a lot of our songs came together.
9. The album's most streamed song was Stoned, Alone which also received the music video treatment. Tell me how this song came together and maybe why you think it was the most successful song off the album.
It was the first thing we wrote after “Dazed”. We tracked it once ourselves, released it and then re-recorded it for Chrome Neon Jesus. I guess that song has the most personality on the record. Who knows why songs get popular, I don’t pretend to know.
10. Another personal favorite off Chrome Neon Jesus for me is Daylight. That song feels like it is the most influenced by Shoegaze off that album due to the dreamy guitar tone featured on that track. Tell me about the construction of that song and how you came up with that guitar tone.
That was actually an old Swing Hero tune, another one I had recorded before and re-recorded for Chrome Neon Jesus. I still to this day kinda hate that song, but everyone convinced me to let it be on the record. I don’t know why we decided to slap so much chorus on it, but it did end up informing the rest of the guitar sounds. Just one of those things everyone around us was also doing at the time, collective grunge consciousness.
11. In 2019 you released a 3 track EP Counting Flies. Here you drop the Emo/Punk Pop and lean more heavily into mixing Grunge with Shoegaze. As a result, the Counting Flies EP has the muscular guitars we heard on Chrome Neon Jesus but not on Dazed. What lead to you releasing this stop gap EP and why did decide to lean more heavily into Grunge for that EP?
You can thank Matt Hyde for the muscular guitars, he figured out how to make big fuzz and chorus work for us at the same time with some cool signal splitting stuff. We also went back to half stacks, big cabs instead of mostly combos and 2x12s. I had the blueprints for “Mary” and “Believe in the Wrong Things” in my back pocket around summer 2018 but not much else. Again, not too many conscious choices in the writing process, just kinda happened. “Sparkle/Fade” came together much in “Dazed” fashion and was heavily inspired by The Deftones. Instead of waiting a few more months to write an entire record, everyone seemed cool with going off script and doing a short EP ahead of 2019 touring.
12. The opening track and lead single to Counting Flies was Mary. This song for me was the moment I went from being a fan of your music to being a devoted Stan. It's not just my favorite song by you, but it was also my favorite song of 2019 and my favorite rock song of the past decade. To my ears it feels very influenced by two 1993 Alternative Rock classics, Plush by Stone Temple Pilots and Crank by Catherine Wheel. Tell me about the construction and influences of this song.
The riff came to me literally in the middle of the night after Reading and Leeds. I was rapidly getting super sick (as usually happens at the very end of a tour) and it just kinda kept going around and around in my head. I lifted the drum part from Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The chorus came out pretty quick and the rest was just small tweaks until it made cohesive sense. Probably my favorite song I’ve ever been a part of.
13. After the release of Counting Flies, but before the release of your latest album Earth is a Black Hole, two band members ended up leaving the group. My question is how much of the new album was written and recorded with these two members and how did their departures influence or change the direction of your current album?
Kam left before we started working on Earth is a Black Hole, and Chase contributed some guitar stuff. When you have a key member leaving any band obviously the writing style will change, but I think folks underestimated how much of the core was Anthony and myself. So, while it did take a bit of a left turn, it wasn’t a full departure.
14. The first single off your latest album was Silverspoon. That song was a return to the more atmospheric shoegaze sound from Dazed with little to no Grunge or Punk Pop influences. Nonetheless, Silverspoon still sounds more polished than the songs off Dazed. Why did you decide to release Silverspoon as the first single for this album?
We thought Silverspoon was the closest to “classic” Teenage Wrist as it got on the new record. I had most of that song hanging out on my computer for years. It could have made it onto Chrome Neon Jesus but there were a lot of pieces missing. So, we figured it’d be a good transitional point, to not freak old fans out too much but edge our way into releasing something totally different.
15. Your album/single artwork has always been evocative & atmospheric like your music but it was usually all photos whereas the Silverspoon artwork was painted as was the artwork for the album Earth is a Black Hole. What prompted this change and who contributed this artwork? Was it someone in the band or someone outside the band?
We had artwork for each single by Colin Crane, but since the title track ended up going with the album announcement, best practice with that sort of thing is to just release the LP artwork. Had we released “Earth is a Black Hole” last, it may have been different.
16. The second single to Earth is a Black Hole was the title track. Lyrically it felt like the first political song you've ever done as you deal with climate change and how corporate greed is destroying the planet & making it less habitable for future generations. What led to this shift in songwriting & why was it important for you to take a stance on this issue within your own music?
I’ve always wanted to touch on subjects like this without sounding too preachy or contrived. We’re not an overtly political band, but we do our best to be socially conscious and for whatever reason I was just feeling a little more punk rock than usual. So much of our material had just been about our own struggles and a general sense of melancholy, but at some point that gets old. You can only write so many songs about being sad before you start to get bored and angry. I figured if I was gonna say anything else sad or negative it better have a purpose.
17. The 4th single Yellowbelly seemed to lean into Dreampop. Listening to it I can hear influences ranging from The Posies, The Sundays, The Lemonheads & Belly. What are the influences on this track?
The biggest influences on that song were Turnover, Third Eye Blind, Tom Petty, The Menzingers & The Cure. I like that you hear The Lemonheads, I’ll take it!
18. Whereas Counting Flies leaned into Grunge and Shoegaze, Earth is a Black Hole downplays your Grunge influences and sees you embracing Punk Pop/Emo again. This mix of Emo/Punk Pop and Shoegaze has led to a poppier and more upbeat batch of songs than your previous material. What led to this shift in sound for Earth is a Black Hole?
I wanted to yell more haha. We wanted to start mosh pits. We wanted to incite something in ourselves and our fans besides pure nostalgia. We wanted to play harder and faster and fuck with everyone’s perception of the band a little. Move more into our own territory and away from nu-grunge land.
19. Now that the album has been released what are your plans to promote it going forward in 2021? I know that due to the current pandemic live shows have been taken off the table, but there has been a huge increase in digital performances and livestreams from many artists over the past year. Do you have any plans to do any digital performances in 2021?
Yeah, we will definitely do some sort of live streamable show. As far as promotion, who knows. We’re just hoping people jam the record through the tail end of this COVID nightmare.
20. Feel free here to stretch the definition of Grunge, Shoegaze and Punk-Pop as much as you'd like (because Lord knows I do) with your following answers:
A. What Are Your Top 3 Shoegaze Albums?
Ride - Nowhere
Catherine Wheel - Chrome
Duster - Stratosphere
B. What Are Your Top 3 Grunge/Post Grunge albums
Hum - Downward is Heavenward
Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Nirvana - In Utero// Failure - Fantastic Planet
C. What Are Your Top 3 Punk Pop/ Emo albums?
Blink 182 - Dude Ranch
Park - It Won’t Snow Where You’re Going
Green Day - Insomniac
Honorable Mention: Gatsby’s American Dream - Ribbons and Sugar
21. What music are you currently listening to? Which artists and songs have been grabbing your attention lately?
I’m kinda obsessed with The Clash at the moment. 90s/00s hip hop gets me through every day (RIP mf doom). Show Me the Body, Holy Fawn, White Reaper, George Clanton, Varials, Surprise Chef, library music from the 70s and 80s… I dunno I’m all over the place.
22. What would like to see and hear more of in the music scene in general right now?
Rock that’s not trying to be pop or hip hop. Don’t get me wrong I’m all about crossing genres and I love all genres of music but most mainstream rock just feels like it’s trying to remain relevant. Something about modern rock feels insincere, like it’s there because it’s a revenue stream and it’s trying everything to not be completely swallowed by trap.
23. What is your favorite Teenage Wrist song and why is it your favorite?
Mary because it confuses the hell out of most people who try to play it and there’s a really cool modulation.
24. If you could tour with any band (once the pandemic ends of course) who would it be?
Holy Fawn.
25. Thank You for speaking with me and for taking the time to answer my questions. Before you go if you'd like to let the readers know where they can find you on social media and where they can listen to your music as well that would be great!
You can find us everywhere @teenagewrist.
