The symptoms of love are antithetical to coolness, but cool guys need love too.
"I think music is so saturated with love songs," Wet Leg's Rhian Teasdale admits. "I remember when I was starting to songwrite, when I was 17 or 18 or something, I was like, 'I will never write a love song. Love songs are so boring. There's so many of them.' And then I fell in love, I guess. And then I had to get over it. What's the [phrase]? 'There's no cool guy in love'?"
In the years since the release of their reality-altering self-titled debut album, Wet Leg have had their own realities shifted, twisted toward career paths previously thought unviable. Reluctant heroes, they've kept their cool as the accolades rolled in, maintaining the ethos that they're here for a good time, not a long one.
"We wanted the songs to be fun to play live and fun to play in a festival environment," Teasdale reiterates, "because that's why me and Hester [Chambers] even started the band — so that we could go to festivals and play music."
She continues, "It's funny now, having the same kind of incentive, but having so much more knowledge and experience of what that actually feels like to play a big venue, or to play the same songs night after night, and what's gonna keep us… amused, for want of a better word."
That formula has followed the band — now rounded out with the official member-status of drummer Henry Holmes, guitarist Joshua Mobaraki and bassist Ellis Durand, in addition to founding co-lead Chambers — through to their sophomore album, moisturizer, out July 11 through Domino.
They've spent the first half of the 2020s with the boys on the road, actively gelling as a quintet following Chambers and Teasdale's initial debut as a duo. "When I listen to the first album, I don't recognize it, because I'm just so used to hearing what the live rendition of the song sounds like," says Teasdale. That shift was evident in early live previews from soundstages in Los Angeles and on Fallon in NYC; old tunes are stronger than ever, backed with more rock-oriented flourishes, and new ones are being introduced fittingly alongside Teasdale's fresh muscle-mommy biceps.
Even after all the fanfare that came with their debut, external pressures to avoid the sophomore slump seem to have largely evaded the Isle of Wight group. At first, when the band were met with questions about the debut's follow-up, they lied — all the way back in 2022, they announced that LP2 was "in the bag," perhaps in an effort to get the industry off their backs, or maybe just as a bit. In reality, the record's inception would come a full two years later, after they spent "enough time doing nothing."
"I think we did a really good job of cocooning ourselves," says Teasdale. "The five of us, having known each other so long, there's a lot of comfort. I think maybe it's easier to come back down to earth a little bit quicker."
This go around, all five members have writing credits. Like their first album, moisturizer comes peppered with pop-culture references in its song titles — "jennifer's body," "pokémon" and "davina mccall," for example — further exposing the band as film- and TV-raised millennials, if that wasn't already evident from the days of "Chaise Longue" hat-tipping to Mean Girls' buttered muffins or name-dropping Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 in "Wet Dream." It's all very much in keeping with their modus operandi: making songs that are fun to play live, even if the silliness, at times, functions as a veil for earnest emotions.
"It wasn't this shift-gear kind of moment when we were writing the second album," Teasdale explains. "It was just very natural. When we went into writing, we were just jamming some things out. You know how it feels in soundcheck when you're waiting around to be told to play something and just have a little jam?"
Back in the studio with Dan Carey of Speedy Wunderground renown, the tracks revealed themselves at their own pace. Working for the second time with the producer — whose album credits include black midi, Squid, Caroline Polachek, Fontaines D.C. and more — brought up feelings of nostalgia, with Teasdale remembering how nervous she was initially to team up with him, calling the experience both "joyful" and "nerve-racking."
"I'd only ever read about him in music magazines and blogs and stuff," she says, "and I knew all about Speedy Wunderground. I was living on the Isle of Wight at this point and would just dream of going to the Windmill in Brixton, which is, from what I was reading, and from where I was stood in the countryside — I thought that's where indie rock was made."
Despite all that's happened since then, "I still get impostor syndrome now, but I'm much better equipped to move past it," Teasdale shares, adding that she's much more confident now than when they were recording Wet Leg. "I just remember being very nervous and very, like, 'What are we doing here?' But then also, at the same time, having a lot of fun, because Dan is really great to work with, and is really patient and is really passionate about music."
She continues, "I felt a lot more secure in the people I was in there making music with, the five of us, and secure in feeling like a proper band, I suppose."
That confidence extends to the themes of moisturizer. One part queer love songs, another part fuck-you anthems, this era of Wet Leg marks a tonal graduation for the band, whose interests have matured alongside their demeanour.
"When I'm writing songs … they're like diary entries. Like, I'm definitely one of those people [who] overshares and wears their heart on their sleeve, for better or for worse," says Teasdale, "and for the most part of writing this album, I've just been very, very in love."
As much is heard on the record's two opening tracks, "CPR" and "liquidize" — which both find Teasdale confronting a new dimension of romance, one that seems to have caught her by surprise; "How did I get so lucky? / It's not like me to fall so head over heels," she sings on the latter. So too does the aforementioned Megan Fox-themed track, which deals in gay obsession.
Teasdale started up with her current partner (whose identity is only kind of a secret) over three years ago now, but gay revelations — like that of the queer subtext in the titular Jennifer's friendship with Amanda Seyfried's Needy — just keep coming, like she's in a constant state of discovery.
It's a well-worn narrative, that of a woman entering her first queer relationship, and for good reason. "I just found it so much more interesting and empowering to be writing love songs where I'm not lusting over a man — it feels a little bit different," Teasdale shared in early press materials.
"I'm in over my head / But I'm enjoying the view / The sky is looking so lovely / But I'm just looking at you," she sings in reverence of her beau on "jennifer's body," with further lyrics pointing to a certain sense of safety: "Every day starts and ends with you / Hold me down, I get high on you / Oh to sleep just so I can dream of you."
On "pond song," another fictional couple functions as a stand-in for Teasdale's adoration: "So sweet even when you're sour / You're the sun and I'm a flower / You could be my Beetlejuice / And I your Bellatrix."
While Teasdale's earlier writing may have dipped a toe into romance here and there, it was always with a sense of apprehension or resentment at best. She's now cut wide open, heart exposed.
"A lot of the love songs, although they are written from a queer perspective… I just think love is like a universal feeling that we all feel, so I guess it's for everyone," Teasdale says. And thank goodness for that — Chambers's first love song, "don't speak" (written from the perspective of Mobaraki, with whom she's in a long-term relationship), also appears on the record.
Teasdale admits that some of the record's less lovey-dovey tracks, namely "pillow talk," are inversely "very aggressively horny." She rhymes off lyrics about licking and fucking with the pace of someone possessed by a sex demon: "You know that when I am gone, yeah, that is when I want it bad / If you ask me nicely, you know that I'll let you be on top / Practicing your art, come here, fold me over, hit the spot."
Then there's the aggressive-aggressive end of things, with "mangetout" and lead single "catch these fists," on which Teasdale packages a "fuck you" to shitty men in general ("Yeah, don't approach me / I just wanna dance with my friends").
She's no stranger to dudes swinging it where it doesn't belong; after Wet Leg's whirlwind success, an ex-boyfriend came out of the woodwork to claim credit for their band name, as well as writing on some songs. "It was pretty funny that Harry Styles did a cover of a song about me ejaculating," he said of "Wet Dream" at the time.
There's also that "industry plant" accusation that women in music never can seem to shake, which is all the more reason to pay tribute to women where tribute is due. Noted Wet Leg fan Davina McCall, the British media personality best known for presenting Big Brother in the 2000s, shares a name with a song on the record. In the wake of her own health troubles, McCall has pivoted in her career to become a sex-positive podcaster and fitness advocate. Whether consciously or not, she's seemingly made an impact on Teasdale, who has gotten noticeable gains since she was last in the public eye.
"I just lift heavy things," she says of her workout routine. "I don't do any cardio at all. … I think gyms are quite intimidating, especially in the weight-lifting section."
When I point to some queer folks' tendency to get fit as a means of protection against would-be attackers — something that may become especially necessary with fascistic ideals of sexuality and able-bodiedness on the rise — she agrees with the notion: "It's scary. The unimaginable has happened. I do think it is important to be able to defend yourself if you need to, now more than ever."
The practicality of strengthening one's body aside, the artist's newfound brawn plays nicely with the album's confrontational visuals, headed up by returning collaborator Iris Luz. Its cover is especially disarming: Chambers sits facing away from the camera, holding herself in a makeout position with yellowed claws clutching at her own back, while Teasdale sits perched like a gargoyle, face marked with bleached eyebrows and a demonic smile. In person, the band are routinely styled in lotion-white, Teasdale in elaborate layers of athletic wear and lingerie, making sure her arms are exposed to flex menacingly toward whoever is watching.
"The visual side of things has been really important for us, and just a really fun playground," she says.
The contrast between this image of Wet Leg and the one we were introduced to in 2021 is stark. Back then, it was all whispers, telepathic glances and inside jokes; now, even Chambers playing with her back to the crowd feels like a form of confidence. It will be interesting to see how they've transformed their live production when they make their way across North America in September and October.
This levelling up is present on all fronts, especially on moisturizer. In Teasdale's personal life, it has resulted, at least, in her mum's peace of mind — which is all any career artist can ask for.
"She's very relieved that it seems to have worked out for me after years and years of reading all these newspaper articles or things online about how musicians are so depressed, and so fragile and have like, tragic endings at younger ages," she says.
"Now that the band seems to be doing all right, she's really proud," she concludes.