On “Bleeds”, the blowing new album from Rock Band WednesdayKarly Hartzman sings about fake teeth, four Lokos, fruit flies and other immigrants from her daily life in Asheville, NC but a favorite, heavy -duty lyric about “a pitbull puppy pissed off a balcony” was actually an observation from Frontwoman’s mom.
“She is a social worker and she was in a type of crap and saw that it would happen,” says Hartzman. “I don’t know if the family was at work and they just left the dog on the balcony or something. But my mom was like:” This seems like a fucked type of things you would write. ”
At “Bleeds” Hartzman together weaves lively stories from his teens and mythologizes the characters in her neighborhood. The album contains some of the band’s best tracks yet and is based on the burning power in 2023’s “Rat Saw God”, which was launched Wednesday to Indie Music Star. In fact, Hartzman describes “bleeding” as “how Wednesday songs should sound.”
This is partly because the band can now open the doors to prestigious studios with living in LO-Fi and recording on a four-track machine. But it is also an indication of where Hartzman sees himself as a person and artist. “My identity is very intact, and I think the music really shows it,” she says. “I know exactly who I am.”
Wednesday’s sound is a rolling melted of alternative land and noise rock. On the album, the distorted guitar counsel was discontinued and heavy riffs of “are released here directly into the timeless country’s splendor by“ Elderberry Wine. “” Gary’s II “is a mixing folk about Hartzman’s former landlord, and she wrote the 86-second screamo sprint” Wasp “for the sole purpose of creating a new, explosive setlist Ender.
Not everyone can wrap the head around the interaction between distortion and twang. “We played a festival in Portland and this drunken guy came to me and said:” My single advice for you is to make another band for your noisy stuff and your country items, “reminds Hartzman.” And I was like, “Please shut up. I don’t know who you think you are.” It actually made me angry! “
Of course, Wednesday’s unique sounds are derived from Hartzman’s sweet-Surs song, but it is also largely thanks to Xandy Chelmis, which anchors the band with a distorted lap steel that rains acid tears. (At “Bleeds” his work is most clearly on “townies”, where a razor crust over Hartzman’s voice -cracking melody.)
Hartzman first met Chelmis not long after she met with Jake “MJ” Lenderman, with whom she would continue with a musical (and romantic) partnership. Lenderman joined Wednesday, and Hartzman often played in Lenderman’s band. They turned off and released projects that dominated indie music Zeitgeist and were crowned the king and queen of a certain 2020 sub -genre.
In 2024, the two broke up while they were on tour in Tokyo, just before he jumped into the studio to record “bleeding.” They decided not to tell the rest of the band and pretended that nothing had changed.
“We tried to go with what would make the least impact, because I did not need a distraction,” says Hartzman. Nor did she want to distract her bandmates or make them worry about what the split meant for Wednesday’s future. “I didn’t want them to think the band could be over because Jake and I break up. I want to show them that we can work together and we will be communicative.”
Although “Bleeds” was written before the division, there are traces of a strained relationship in Hartzman’s texts. “I know it’s not easy / and I know it can’t always be, and that’s how love goes,” she sings halfway through the album.
While Lenderman will no longer be a tournament member on Wednesday, says Hartzman “he knows he is welcome” in the recording studio. “We will only take it as it comes,” she says about the future of their creative partnership. “We’ll see what Jake knows about. We love to cooperate with him, but if for some reason he does not have the bandwidth I would understand it. We will only continue to talk. Whatever each other needs, we will be happy to do for each other.”
Like Hartzman and Co. Keep growing from hometown heroes to a world-rich rock band, the singer is aware of protecting the DIY spirit at the center of Wednesday. There are lines that Hartzman would never cross, such as a partnership with a “huge company” or licenses his music for a prescription drug advertising. When she observes other bands such as Massive Attack and XIU XIU that abandon Spotify for various reasons, including Daniel Ek’s investment in military AI technology, she wonders about leaving Strömma behind is viable for a band on the way up.
“We are really fucking disappointed with streaming and AI and that kind of crap,” says Hartzman. “If we removed our music now, it would be kind of defeating the purpose, because we try to advocate to get paid. If there is a huge, needle -moving musician who makes the gear, I’m not afraid to fuck tape on it. I don’t think I need to be the spokesman for it.”
Still, when you consider what DIY means in 2025, Hartzman says: “There is no such thing as selling out anymore, because artists have to try so much to survive. I think people get it.”
“It’s good to have some money so you can contribute it back in your circle,” she adds. “If you are successful, you take up other people and collect your community.”
