Experimental psych-pop collective Guerilla Toss has never been afraid of getting weird. On their fifth full-length album, You’re Weird Now, out September 12 via Sub Pop, they’re not just embracing the strange, they’re rebranding it as a badge of joy, self-acceptance, and artistic liberation.
“It’s kind of like your own personal definition of weird,” says frontwoman Kassie Carlson. Drummer Peter Negroponte adds, “…our early work is completely insane… a wall of noise. What we’re doing now is equally as weird in a different way. It’s combining lots of genres and influence… there’s so much music out there and for some reason I’m obsessed with just putting it all together and making one thing out of it.”
Recorded at The Barn, the storied Vermont studio owned by Phish’s Trey Anastasio, You’re Weird Now brings together an unlikely but inspired creative team: the band themselves, legendary indie slacker Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, The Jicks) in the producer’s chair, and engineers Bryce Goggin and Ben Collette, veterans of both Malkmus and Phish sessions. The Barn offered a space that was as unfiltered and communal as the band’s music.
“There’s no glass (between the boards and the booth). It’s like everyone’s in the room… there’s kind of like a hangout zone, and even upstairs there are some rooms, but it’s all connected. Like there’s no privacy in the barn,” recalls Negroponte. That layout shaped the entire vibe of the sessions. “There was a lot of people just hanging out. So, it was kind of this hang going while we were playing—which is fun.”
While the sessions themselves were musically fruitful, they were also inspired by the charming ritual called ‘punk lunch.’ As Carlson describes it, it was an exercise in fridge-raiding creativity, assembling a sandwich from the most random ingredients imaginable.
Despite the chaos of their meal planning, the band approached the music with both abandon and precision. According to Negroponte, You’re Weird Now is “Guerilla Toss’s greatest hits of new songs.” That anything-goes energy is still very much intact, but editing whenever it’s needed. When asked if video game soundtracks have inspired the band’s production, Negroponte mentions N64 aesthetics on his musical instincts, while the band imagines their music syncing perfectly with colorful, surreal titles like Kirby’s Dream Land, and even Pokémon GO.
It’s fitting, since their single “Life’s a Zoo” is a fan favorite released alongside a creative video with the band navigating an SNES aesthetic world. Tracks like “Red Flag to Angry Bull” and “Psychosis Is Just a Number” balance big, campfire-ready sing-alongs with jagged post-punk groove.
Despite the layered sounds and experimental recording process, Guerilla Toss are conscious about keeping it grounded and being a rock record this time around, compared to some of their more electronic/pop-focused previous works. Carlson notes, “…trying not to put too many layers… even though in terms of voice I want to put like a million harmonies, but maybe that’s not always the best idea.”
The band also leaned into communal collaboration, both musically and emotionally. “It was just cool that musicians of that scale are self-conscious as well,” Carlson says of working with Malkmus and Anastasio. “It felt validating—like, we’re all just people. It kind of put a stamp on like, you know, we should keep doing what we’re doing.”
And what they’re doing is hitting a new creative stride—one that’s inclusive, celebratory, and still gloriously strange. You’re Weird Now feels more like a welcome sign hung above the door of a utopian, post-snob world where all musical ideas are fair game and everyone’s invited.
Come as you are, bring your weirdest self and your own ‘punk lunch’ to share with the party!
You’re Weird Now is out Friday, and you can preorder it from Sub Pop Records. Follow Guerilla Toss on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for future updates.
Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz
