Tea and Tequila With Wet Leg
Working in the music industry—even in the far periphery as a music journalist shoved into the freak corner with the roadies and vinyl collectors—you’ll soon discover that almost everyone is a bit of a dick.
Because of this, when you meet someone genuinely delightful, it’s a happy surprise. Hester from the UK’s Wet Leg is truly and distinctly delightful. Since becoming the most talked about band in guitar music, Hester Chambers and the other half of Wet Leg, Rhian Teasdale, have been performing, touring, speaking, singing, playing, and videoing non-fucking-stop for the last year-plus-change. I woke up a little bit early for this interview to accommodate a time difference, and despite a scratchy voice and presumed exhaustion at the end of another exceedingly taxing day, Hester had the nerve to apologise to me for my inconvenience. The gall! How dare she be so kind. An absolute delight. Anyway, if you don’t know Wet Leg by now, you’re probably not a music fan, you shouldn’t be at this festival and you probably aren’t reading this. If you are a music fan, here’s an interview with Hester Chambers of Wet Leg. You’re welcome.
First question: How are you handling your meteoric rise to stardom?
That sentence is a little bit funny to me and everyone else in the band. From our side, we don’t feel that we’ve risen to anything at all. We are just all of a sudden busier than we ever have been, taking it day by day as it comes, because my heart is already beating faster thinking about it, so I just have a cup of tea and do a bit of crochet and that’ll help me to feel that everything is nice and normal.
That’s what I mean, are you alright? It’s not a very easy thing to cope with.
Yes, definitely, but we are so busy that we don’t even have time in a room with drums set up and whatever else to be creative in that way. I think we’ll get time eventually—maybe at Christmas—to be more creative.
We’ll move away from the anxiety-inducing questions: what do you do outside of music?
Hmm….
What’ve you been doing recently?
I mean, I used to do a lot. We recently got to spend some time at home, the longest time at home in six months, and it was really nice. We were just catching up with friends and family – a lot of washing clothes, trying to cook some meals because it isn’t easy to be nourished on the road, that sort of thing.
That reminds me! I was asked by another Splendour artist, Fazerdaze, to ask you these two questions: What snacks are on your rider, and how do you arrive at creative decisions or deal with disagreements?
Something that we enjoyed a lot was not feeling like there were any rules and we could go wherever the wind takes us. When we first started writing, we were in a room together just jamming, finding the groove and smiling at each other when something sounds good. Encouraging each other. It was a really soupy thing that tastes delicious. When lockdown happened, we were in different cities, so we ended up demoing songs separately in GarageBand and sending them to each other. By the time we got together, there was this whole Dropbox of songs written in this period where we weren’t together. When we wrote ‘Chaise Longue’, we were at Joshua’s house and it was really late in the evening and we just decided to write a really fun, dumb song to pass the time and be silly. I think not having rules makes it easier to not have many creative disagreements.
And what snacks are on your rider?
Oh, yes! We’ve got some, like, prawn cocktail flavoured crisps, and we couldn’t find them in the US and it freaked me out because it’s one of the best flavours.
Is that like shrimp chips?
No, not at all. They don’t taste fishy. More like paprika, salt, and they’re just really good. What else… we have some cucumber? And hummus? Salsa… Things you can make a little sandwich with. Some salad, we try to stay nutritious which is difficult on tour.
Usually the first thing people say is beer.
That goes without saying. Lots of beer, tequila, but also salad to even it out. The yin and the yang. The beer and the cucumber.
Do you think that you’re quite anxious as performers?
Yes, I feel that I am an anxious performer and it freaks me out when people are like, ‘You looked so good up there, so confident!’ because I’m literally shitting myself the whole time. It has gotten easier over time but it is still so scary. I think it’s just being in front of all of those people, I wouldn’t want to do that in any other scenario, but you sort of have to with music. Then again, it depends on the day you had. Maybe you had a bad day, or a bad dream and it sticks with you and makes you feel off all day and that makes it hard to perform, but then we in the band give each other a lot of comfort and support. We are all in it together.
How can a fan support you up there?
I think just to enjoy the music… if they wish to do so. Just listening and enjoying is the best thing you can do for us and yourself. I know I should be saying go to wetleg.com and buy some merch or buy a ticket to something, but I think the most earnest thing you could do is listen and feel good when you do. That is where the relationship comes between an artist and a fan—that’s the most important thing.