Wet Leg talk to David Byrne, cover The Chats' "Smoko"
Wet Leg‘s meteoric rise has continued this summer as they tour their fantastic self-titled debut. They’ve been busy hitting the festival circuit, playing sets at Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Osheaga, and Pickathon, and Barack Obama included them on his summer playlist. They’ll return to North America later this month but are in Europe for shows now, and while there, they spoke with another famous fan, David Byrne, for Vulture. Asked how he was introduced to the band, Byrne said:
I don’t remember. It might have been on some website. It might have been in a magazine that mentioned you guys. Like a lot of people, and I’m certainly not alone here, I clicked to listen to the early songs — the two that were released first, “Chaise Longue” and “Wet Dream” — and I loved them. Immediately added them to my playlist of what I was listening to that month. I was not alone there, I soon discovered. It was kind of like, Get in line!
Their conversation also touches on Wet Leg’s songwriting process, touring, being in the city vs the country, innovating as a musician, Wet Leg’s penchant for covering Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” live, and more. Read it in full on Vulture.
Wet Leg will open for Harry Styles in Australia and New Zealand early next year, and ahead of those dates Harry covered their song “Wet Dream.” Talking about that with Hanuman on ALT CTRL Radio on Apple Music 1, the band’s Rhian Teasdale says:
We were all on our way to a gig. It was in the UK. We were in a splitter van. And I think, gradually, we were just on our phones, doing a good scroll sesh, and then gradually, one by one, we were like, “Oh my God, have you seen this? Oh my God, this appeared on the internet, and it’s Harry Styles covering ‘Wet Dream’.” I don’t know. Hester always describes it as we were watching intergalactic television like on Rick and Morty. It felt like we were in a parallel universe. It was really cool. His band are amazing. I really wish that we could hear his rendition of all of our songs. It was really all glossy and beautiful. Yeah, it was really fun.
Wet Leg also recently shared a new cover of their own, a rendition of The Chats‘ “Smoko” for triple j’s Like a Version. Watch, and see more pictures from their Lollapalooza set, below.
Wet Leg will be back in NYC to open for Florence + The Machine at Madison Square Garden.
