Rhian Teasdale defiantly stares out at the sunburned Glastonbury crowd, glaring beneath bleached eyebrows. Her Pepto-Bismol pink and blonde hair whips around in the welcome breeze, and a wicked smile forms as she flexes her biceps in a power stance. Behind her, the rest of Wet Leg—cofounder Hester Chambers, Henry Holmes (drums), Ellis Durand (bass), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitar and synth)—drive the chugging guitars and menacing percussion that signal their latest tune, “Catch These Fists.” It’s a dance-punk banger with a bolshie bassline and acerbic guitar riffs, about an interaction with a sleazy man in a bar after a Chappell Roan gig in London.
This week, the Isle of Wight–born British band is back with its second album, Moisturizer. Much of what made their Grammy-winning, self-titled debut so strong—bizarro lyrical imagery mixed with their everyday experiences; riotious, run-a-mile-a-minute guitar lines—is expanded upon, but new tentacles have grown too. Now officially a five-piece, the group has cleaved away the cottagecore-y stuff for something more devilish: Moisturizer’s cover art features Teasdale crouched, with sharp talons, grinning demonically, while Chambers evokes The Blair Witch Project, her back turned. Other artwork and promo posts recall exorcisms, or perhaps a séance.
For Wet Leg, artifice and the unknown inspire their authenticity—though watching horror films together in between collaborative writing sessions didn’t hurt, either. Behind the uncanny, creepy, Cronenberg-esque visuals, however, is a record that feels open-hearted and vulnerable. The band’s love songs are freaky and full-bodied, blissful and bedlam, gross and engrossing. “Jennifer’s Body” is a song about obsessive, all-consuming love—the Megan Fox–starring film’s queer subtext now looms larger for Teasdale. The aching “Davina McCall”—named after the British TV presenter and pop-culture treasure—is about the beautiful banality of relationships. (McCall, for the record, is a certified Wet Leg fan and was delighted to be name-checked.) “Pillow Talk” is very, very horny, and “Liquidize” gets gooey about a lover with more confronting, wacky lyricism. “So many creatures in the fucking world, how could I be your one? Be your marshmallow worm?” Teasdale sings, her vocals oscillating from almost baritone booms to a sinewy falsetto and a vicious spitfire.
While Teasdale has been invigorated by finding her queerness in tandem with the record, Chambers writes her own love songs about fellow bandmate and partner Mobaraki—one is from his perspective, addressed to her.
I catch Teasdale in the days after Glastonbury; she managed to stay for a few days and catch friends and peers like Katy J. Pearson play. “We barely ever really get to stay at festivals anymore, and we’ve got four this week,” she says. “You forget what it’s like to be in the crowd. I think it’s really important to go and get stuck in.”
Touring again has “breathed fresh air into the first album,” she adds. “And people are already so supportive of the new stuff—I love seeing them already knowing the lyrics, or people that don’t [know them] just, like, making the vowel sounds to sing along with us.”
Teasdale is trying to take stock where she can. “The first record was such a shock. And this is…our first time making a second record,” she says with a laugh. “I kept thinking, Has our luck run out? Will people still care? We built up so much from the first album, it’s been nerve-racking. But I’ve felt the love.”
Below, Rhian Teasdale chats Moisturizer, making love songs, and pissing off men.
Vogue: “Catch These Fists” is incredible live. You seem to draw real energy from the crowd. I think a lot of people watching you will understand the experience the track draws on.
Rhian Teasdale: The performance aspect is something I’m working on. I’m not playing guitar so much for some of the second album songs, and that means a whole new space has opened up. I can move, I can flex my arms, and stalk around the stage. It’s been fun working that out. It’s what I find exciting.
What performers inspire you?
I saw Mitski at Glastonbury before—I had on and off listened to her before, and didn’t know any of the words. Seeing her perform live and the way she accented the lyrics with her movements was quite inspiring. Caroline Polachek is another artist I admire. She has a vision that you see across a whole show. It’s her movement, her voice, the lighting, the set. A whole world that she creates.
I was thinking a lot about how you and Hester articulate your own versions of strength on stage. You did this power stance, flexing your biceps. It felt like a powerfully feminine charged image. Often, Hester keeps her back to the audience to perform.
We get compared to each other quite a lot, which is fair, because we started as a duo. I think there’s so much strength in giving it everything, being confrontational and forward-facing. But I also think there’s power in turning your back to an audience, as if to say: “I’m only going to give you this much.” It drives people insane—particularly men. They’re, like, “Why are you not being smiley and lovely and accommodating to us?”
Writing this album came alongside you coming into your queerness. I wonder if you feel, in disconnecting from the male gaze, that’s also played out in your new image, style, self-presentation.
Totally. And that’s been so fun. There’s so many men in our comments living in fear of my armpit hair. I think it’s hilarious. I never set out to be antagonizing. I’m being more me than ever, and I think discovering my queerness in a natural, gradual way has made me more confident. I’m also more comfortable with having a muscular physique. I always had an athletic build, but as a 30-year-old woman who grew up in the time of pro-anorexia websites…I am angry that I had to go through that. I am happy feeling freer, powerful, and stronger. I’ve been one thing and now I look like another thing—it’s liberating to switch up your look and be who you want to be.
Having the time to write this album together in the remote English seaside town of Southwold, I’m sure, was quite special. Maybe one of the first moments you got to be still together?
That felt like a milestone moment. Touring was our normality. Having the resources to hire a house and jam together to make a new record, and that’s the job? It’s a pinch-me moment, when your job is just to make music. Touring is great, but it can feel like you go gig to gig and the luck might eventually run out.
It also felt very cathartic for us five writing together. We toured for so long with the first album that Hester and I mostly wrote together. We signed as a duo, but [the five of us] have gone through so much together. Still, there were too many occasions where Henry, Joshua, and Ellis would be perceived as session players, and it’s always been more than that. It was nice to draw the second chapter out as a whole, mad, five-person operation. It was very fluid and relaxed, allowing ourselves a lot of space to jam, put things down, and pick things back up.
Is there a parent figure in the group?
Well, Ellis is just the most chill—the most well-adjusted, as my friend described it recently. I can get quite bad imposter syndrome, or worry I can’t hear music anymore—I’ll be a bit overdramatic. Well, we all have the capacity for the drama, but Ellis can say nothing, give you a little pat: “It’s chill, don’t worry about it.” He snaps you out of it.
How did you come into love song territory?
When we started trying to find time to write the second album, I got nervous. We had spent so much of the last few years touring, going from venues to buses and airports. I felt like I hadn’t been in the social situations, been at the parties, or talked to the friends that inspired the first album. I was a bit worried that there would be nothing to write.
Then I thought less about the physical spaces and more about my emotional spaces. I started writing and all these love songs came out. I thought, Oh, that’s it—I’m really in love. My partner has been a huge part of these last two years. I’m someone who wears their heart on their sleeve, and that’s how it came out.
What makes a love song compelling? I think a Wet Leg love song has to have some subversive, visceral detail. It’s not really a Celine Dion number.
Well, never say never. It’s funny, I never really try to be off-kilter. I pull a string with a line that comes into my head and it all unravels.
Where are you finding joy right now?
Being out on the roads and doing festivals is really why Hester and I started the band. I truly love that we’ve settled into a natural rhythm as a group, and we’re so in touch with what makes us a good touring band. We all feel so much power in having more experience and understanding of the industry. I feel like our hands are on the steering wheel.
Moisturizer by Wet Leg is out now
