With a new album on the horizon, Teen Suicide prepares for an upcoming summer tour that also happens to include a Chicago date at Bottom Lounge.
We had a few questions and they told us about the new ass-kicking release, songwriting, and art with intention.
Don’t forget to get your tickets to the gig!
With your new album “Nude Descending Staircase Headless” coming out in April, are there things sonically you’ve explored or done differently than your previous release?
Yeah, pretty much everything honestly. We wanted to make a record that felt true to our past as a band but totally new and different sonically. It’s the first album we’ve ever recorded in a studio, with a producer. First time trusting someone else instead of doing everything ourselves. Hell, first time we ever asked our label for a budget for anything.
It’s also our first time recording with our new drummer Niko (Wood), who is amazing. We wrote a lot of these songs together with him, writing them with touring in mind, performing. We wanted to play something bigger, louder, more impactful, more fun to perform and more fun to experience as well. Where you can play something new that no one’s heard before and still get a big reaction from your fans anyway, get a big reaction from people who’ve never heard of you, even.
The new single, Idiot, we recorded a lot of the drums & guitars totally live in the studio. Kitty found an incredible old synth while on tour (in 2024) at Atomic Music in Beltsville, which Mike (Sapone) and her ran through some insane effects, to her amp, to get this absolutely wild sound. There’s a lot of tonal stuff on this record that we’re really proud of, honestly. Some of it’s completely new for us, and some of it’s from finding totally new ways to use what we already had available.
When fans listen to this new album, what are you hoping they take away from it?
That it kicks fucking ass.
Pre-save the album out on April 17
Are there songs from the album you’re excited to perform for your fans? Any songs in particular you really enjoyed writing?
While we’ve been playing a lot of these songs for a while, two that we’ve only recently worked into our set are ‘Idiot’ and ‘Living Death’, both of which are absolutely a blast to play. We’re really excited to work in ‘Hypnotic Poison’ and ‘Candy / Squeeze’ as well.
Most of these songs were written over many years, but one that stands out on the writing & recording side is ‘Hypnotic Poison’. Kitty wrote and recoded the original demo in 2018, for her solo work, and it was much more subdued back then. Filled with quiet, moody synths & drum machines. We knew we wanted to turn it into something really wild for the album, though we weren’t sure how. Mike (Sapone) heard it and just totally turned it inside out in a way I don’t think any of us would have ever thought of. It’s crazy, and definitely one of our favorite moments on the record.
The music video for Idiot is depicted in a beautiful paint on glass animation style. Was there anything specific about this art style that drew you in to tell the story of the song?
Honestly, Wyatt (Carson) just hit us up out of the blue and showed us his work, and we were blown away. When it came time to make a video for Idiot, we immediately thought of him and how well his style would fit the song and we’re incredibly glad he wanted to work with us on it.
You’ve partnered and collaborated with a lot of indie illustrators and artists over the course of being a band. Is that intentional? As a band, do you find there’s importance behind supporting indie creators and makers?
Yes, absolutely intentional, although I don’t think we’ve ever thought of it in those terms before really. Art is an extremely important part of music. We want to be very intentional about it. The artists we’ve worked closely with over the years are all friends of ours. Others are people we’ve met through music, or who we’ve been fans of for a long time, whose work we’ve been inspired by. All of them are people who are also making art just because it’s what they’re compelled to do, just like us. You can always tell when someone views their work as a means to an end, as ‘content’ essentially – it comes through. We want to avoid that. We don’t want to work with anyone who isn’t making something because they need to, because they love to.
Adam (Pichardo) who created the album art for ‘Nude descending staircase headless’ is one of our oldest friends, and probably the artist we’ve worked with the most over the years. We call him the band’s resident artist. He did the album cover for 2012’s ‘Waste yrself’ and 2016’s ‘It’s the big joyous celebration let’s stir the honeypot’. For the latter record, we had him create a beautiful, wordless black & white comic book to go with the album, and we had it printed and packaged with every LP. I think we lost money technically on every copy, but it was worth it, because it was beautiful.
Another artist we love & work with a lot is a Chicagoan, a Chicago Legend, Brad Rohloff. We just want to shout him out because he’s great.
Some incredible bands are supporting you on this tour! Cloud Nothings and Liquid Mike on the Chicago date, do you have any favorite songs from them?
We couldn’t be more excited about it. When we first started playing together, in 2010 or so, we wanted nothing more than to be just like Cloud Nothings; they’re a huge inspiration. My personal favorite song of theirs will probably always be ‘Even if it worked out’ which was the b side to the ‘Didn’t You’ single. I still have the 7”, it’s the first 7” record I ever bought. That and Cousin Brian (a cool old band from Philly). I also love how they’ve grown so much as a band over the years. They just keep getting better.
Liquid Mike are also really sick. A friend showed me the record ‘You can live forever in paradise on earth’ a few years ago and I’ve really liked them ever since. We honestly couldn’t be more excited about all the bands we’re playing with this spring.
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