⚡️💥SINGLE PREMIERE: "DiMaggio"
⚡️💥SINGLE PREMIERE: "DiMaggio"
Plus An Interview With Teddy Grey & Carly Kerr Of Wifey
Power pop is alive and kicking in Brooklyn, even if that’s not exactly how the members of Wifey describe their music.
“I don’t think I ever sat down with the express purpose of wanting to write power pop specifically, but that’s just how the songs turned out naturally. We play catchy songs with loud guitars, and if that’s what power pop is to people, then yeah, we’re a power pop band,” guitarist/vocalist Teddy Grey told me for the interview below.
“When people ask me, I usually just say ‘loud guitars, catchy hooks.’ Pop music with edge. Some of my all-time favs are Material Issue, Lemonheads, GBV, The Exploding Hearts, that dog., The Muffs, and The Replacements (if they qualify). I could go on and on about bands that I like, but I'll stop there,” bassist/vocalist Carly Kerr concurs.
Wifey swings for the fences with “DiMaggio,” a hooky track packed with Fountains of Wayne storytelling, pop punk energy, and a dash of self-effacing rock star swagger.
Hall of fame’s
Pre-ordained
So why am I praying for it every day?
Shrine of cans
What’s the plan?
Fanatic doomed to never leave the stands
“This song is really about trying to hold on to the belief in your own greatness, even in the face of all evidence pointing to the contrary. So comparing yourself to Joe DiMaggio, despite having no hits under your belt, fit the theme of the song, and made for a good hook,” Grey said.
I caught up with Grey and Kerr by email as they prepare for the release of their debut EP, Just a Tease, September 13th on Mt. Crushmore Records (vinyl pre-order here). The band is also gearing up for handful of East Coast shows this Fall.
Teddy Grey & Carly Kerr Interview
Congrats on the great new single. Why did you choose Joe DiMaggio as the focus for this excellent pop punk-meets-power pop track?
Teddy Grey: Thank you! Glad you dig it. A while back, I had an idea to do a concept album inspired by Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941. Basically, I was going to try to write 56 songs that could all be hit singles, and string them all together to match DiMaggio’s record. (We are not known for our modesty here in Wifey.)
Eventually I wised up to that being too insane of an idea to pull off at this juncture, but I still wanted to use Joe DiMaggio in some way. I’m actually a Red Sox fan from Mass, so I’m a little ashamed to have written a song named after a legendary Yankee. But “Yastrzemski” just didn’t sound as good.
I love the band name. Is there a story behind it?
Teddy Grey: It fell out of the sky after days of Carly and I pitching shitty band names. “No Clout” was one of them. “Slippin’ Jimmy,” “Ex-Caterpillars,” “Mmmm” were others. So thank god we ended up with Wifey. It’s cute, flirty, tongue-in-cheek, and outdated in a way that when someone uses it now, they’re probably being ironic. So it very much fit the vibe of this band. And I think that after we had settled on Wifey as the name, that sort of helped guide the direction of our image and music as well. There are so, so many awful band names these days, probably because all the good ones are taken. So I’m glad that ours doesn’t suck and that I don’t have to be embarrassed whenever someone asks what our name is.
Carly Kerr: Sort of! It's the result of a lot of spitballing. We agonized over the name for a month or so. In the end it was between “Wifey” and “The Morning Sad” (I’m big into Veruca Salt), but we both came to the conclusion that “T.M.S.” sounds like a very serious indie band, which we are not. It was a decent name, but it wasn’t the right fit vibe-wise. Wifey has a nice ring to it and aligns more with our sound and feel. I can't really imagine being called anything else at this point, which probably means we made the right choice.
I discovered you guys through your debut single, "Mary Ann Leaves the Band." What was the inspiration for that hooky song?
Teddy Grey: As with most things Wifey does, the inspiration was just to try to write the catchiest song of all time. It’s somewhere between story song and novelty song. It’s not autobiographical but it has elements taken from my life, which helped me fill in some gaps when I was writing it. The same is true of all the songs on Just A Tease, but especially “Mary Ann.”
I went to Catholic school and played in jazz band and marching band and all that shit. I may have pined for a flutist at one point. It’s possible that someone in the band started dating a scuzzy 32-year old and it became a schoolwide scandal. The details are hazy. I suppose as with anyone, my upbringing shaped my worldview, and because of that, influenced the songs that I write. But I’m rarely approaching it from a confessional angle. Yogi Berra said to never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and I think the same rule should be applied to a good pop song.
There are nods to Fountains of Wayne on both tracks, especially in the specificity of the lyrics. Would you consider them an influence on Wifey?
Teddy Grey: Definitely! I think Adam Schlesinger as a songwriter in general was an influence on me, more so than specifically his work with Fountains of Wayne though. ‘That Thing You Do!’ has definitely inspired me more than any FoW song. I remember my parents used to play that movie soundtrack in the car, and hearing it in the backseat at age five was a transformative experience. Without that song, not a single person on earth would give a shit about that movie. It singlehandedly made it a classic.
Carly Kerr: Oh, for sure. I didn't get deep into FoW until Adam passed. I'm such a fan now. His songwriting's aspirational and it's always an honor when people compare us to them.
I hear FoW elements in a lot of modern power pop, but I don't see them cited as an influence by many bands. Why do you think that is?
Teddy Grey:I think writing narrative songs and character songs has very much fallen out of fashion, and most songwriters these days are more fixated on navel-gazing and obsessing over their own boring lives rather than writing from the perspective of a character, or telling a story. Which is a shame, because that’s some of the best shit.
There’s less of a focus on songwriting as a craft these days, because that’s less sexy to think about than just divine inspiration or whatever the hell. There’s a lot more focus on it being a conduit to rip your guts out and expose your soul. But I don’t really care about that stuff. I’d rather talk about my feelings in therapy than in a chorus. I like the songwriter-for-hire archetype; the people who view songwriting as an assignment, from Adam Schlesinger all the way back to someone like Cole Porter. I think I’m in the minority though, which is probably why Fountains of Wayne doesn’t get as much credit these days as they deserve. That and the fact that most artists are desperately trying to be taken seriously, and market themselves as sincere, sensitive souls. It’s harder to do that when you have songs like “Stacy’s Mom”—or “Mary Ann Leaves the Band,” for that matter. So I think Fountains of Wayne’s tendency to write narrative and character songs, as well as them not caring whether or not they’re taken seriously, has probably contributed to them being undervalued. But of course, those are the exact reasons why Wifey embraces them.
Carly Kerr: It’s really daunting to cite them as an influence because they really were one of the best to do it. Coolness might have something to do with it too, but I think that's becoming less of a factor. People seem to be more willing to unabashedly admit that they love whatever they love. We’re in a post-shame, post-cringe era. Usually when I tell people I’m in a power pop band, the response is, ‘that’s sick!.’ It’s cool to be lame now. So maybe we'll start to see more bands referencing FoW in the near future.
"DiMaggio" and "Mary Ann Leaves The Band" are the lead off tracks for your forthcoming EP, Just A Tease. Can you tell me a little about how this collection of songs was written and recorded?
Teddy Grey: Originally we were just going to make a demo, but the recordings turned out good enough that we decided to call it an EP. We don’t think of these as being the final versions of the songs though. The EP is called Just A Tease for a reason, it’s not a complete statement as much as it is a preview. Wifey’s debut album is all written (honestly, so is the bulk of the first 3 albums) and the five songs on Just A Tease only represent about 1/3 of it. They just seemed like a good group of five to introduce us to the world and get the ball rolling, but they’ll be re-recorded and re-mixed in higher quality when we’re able to actually put the full debut album out. We’re perfectionists, which I doubt most people would guess when they hear a song like “Mary Ann Leaves the Band.”
Carly Kerr: We actually tracked instrumentals for most of the album, but chose the 5 that we think will make for the best first taste of Wifey. We recorded everything aside from the drums at a church in East Norwalk, Connecticut, over the course of a few months. We cut a lot of corners recording the whole thing with zero budget. It caused us a lot more trouble than it saved us in hindsight, but I think it turned out alright!
Teddy Grey: Put that in the press release: “It turned out alright!”
You describe your own music as "power pop." How do you define it? Who are a few of your other favorite power pop bands of all time?
Teddy Grey: To be honest, I didn’t even think of us as necessarily being power pop until that’s what everyone told us we were. And yeah, we definitely are, but we also have no problem with being branded as pop punk, or pop rock, or punk, or whatever else would sound more marketable to a label that could help us sell the fuck out.
I think most of my favorites tend to be bands that are sort of power pop-adjacent, rather than those who are power pop in the purest sense, like Big Star or The Raspberries. So I’ll go with Guided By Voices, Lemonheads, Weezer, and The Replacements. I know in certain factions of the power pop community, I’d be beheaded for describing those bands as such, but we here in Wifey have no patience for purists.
There are other musical modes on the EP as well. "Playing Dead" features a country-tinged guitar solo and "Candysauce" swerves into post punk territory. Who are some of your biggest non-power pop influences?
Teddy Grey: The only strict rules that we have for this band is that the songs have to be melodic, catchy, and have guitars on them. So there’s enough wiggle room that we can do songs that are more country, or more post-punky or emo or theatrical or whatever. There’s definitely a particular vibe to Wifey that I adhere to when writing, but ultimately a good song is a good song. Some of my biggest influences that may be less obvious based on the music are Stephin Merritt, Randy Newman, and Lucinda Williams.
Carly Kerr: We both have roots in musical theatre, which I don’t like to admit, but it definitely shows. Aside from that, Mike Dirnt’s been a big influence—I wasn't really a bassist when I joined this band. I've learned a lot by practicing Green Day riffs. Other big influences for me personally are Liz Phair, My Chem and The Ergs! I probably listen to more emo than anything else.
We definitely have a couple of emo-tinged songs on the docket to record down the line. That’s why we sought out Billy Mannino to do the mix and master on this—we’re totally obsessed with his work with oso oso. I like to joke that if I were a more technically skilled musician, I’d be in an emo band, but my skill set is a little more well-suited to straightforward guitar pop/rock. It comes much easier to me.
Any plans to tour for the EP?
Carly Kerr: No plans as of yet, but hopes. In all likelihood, we’ll be doing a couple of weekenders and one-offs around the East Coast in conjunction with the Just A Tease release, and then a full-blown tour when we put out the album. Lots to look forward to!
Teddy Grey: If we aren’t headlining Glastonbury by 2025, stick a fork in us. We’re done.
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