Inspired by grunge, alt-rock, and shoegaze, Teenage Wrist—the duo of vocalist and guitarist Marshall Gallagher and drummer Anthony Salazar—fuse these styles together while also pushing those various sonic boundaries on their third album Still Love, an August 4 release via Epitaph Records. They also bring a few other musicians into the fold.
Some of those musicians included SA Martinez of 311, Mercedes and Phoenix Ann-Horn from the Canadian grunge act Softcult, fellow Los Angeles artist Lindsey Nico Mann—the nucleus behind the electronic project Sister Void, and David Marion and Nick Crawford from Colorado experimental rockers Fear Before.
“Most of them are longtime friends, while others are new collaborators,” Gallagher explains. “We toured with Softcult last year and we became really fast friends. While we were out on tour, we were putting together the early stages of these demos while trying to fill in the blanks. I just got it in my head that Mercedes would be great to contribute in some way. I had no idea what she would do but I sent her the demo, she sent me something back and it was perfect right from the get-go.
“It was definitely a shot in the dark, but it was a good one. As far as the other people go, SA from 311 was somebody new who we met at a different time. We toured with 311 last year and we didn’t hang out too much, but we became mutual fans. I’ve been a die-hard 311 fan since I was 10 or 11 years old, so I put myself out there, and I got somebody in the 311 camp who was a huge fan of ours to make the connection. It all happened pretty organically, to be honest, we didn’t have to rely too much on management or anything like that.”
The singles that have been released so far, which include “Diorama,” “Sunshine,” and the title track, signify a substantial growth within Teenage Wrist’s artistic scope. They tried out a few new ideas with the approach resulting in a wide-ranging record.
“It’s a bit eclectic, I guess,” Gallagher says. “I’d say all of our stuff is, but this album is the most far-reaching. This is the first time we’ve ever done a proper acoustic/electronic based song with “Diorama.” We’ve also done some heavier-leaning, down tuned screamy stuff on previous records, but we leaned a little bit more into it this time. We have so many talented friends that folded into the mix really nicely. There’s saxophones on one of the tracks—Our buddy Robert Pera is a fantastic sax player—and we felt the need to get weird with it.
“I don’t think that we go into any particular thing with a vision,” Gallagher concludes. “With this album, we definitely set an intention to have as much fun as we possibly could and make ourselves happy. We’re always looking to push ourselves beyond what we’ve done in the past, but I don’t think either of us had a specific idea. There’s been some stuff that we’ve been listening to and there were things that were inspiring us. It was more like broad strokes.”
Still Love is available from the Teenage Wrist merch store. Follow Teenage Wrist on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Joe Calixto.
