Wife Patrol Announces Debut Album Pre-Order, Releases First Single - Let's Hang Out
Indianapolis alt-rock trio Wife Patrol announces its debut LP, Too Prickly For This World, on Sept. 4, 2020, now available for pre-order, in addition to the first single premiere, “Let’s Hang Out”.
We’re proud to announce announces the release of our debut LP, Too Prickly For This World, on Sept. 4, 2020. The album is now available for pre-order on 12” vinyl LP, CD, and digital format on Bandcamp.
The album’s first single, “Let’s Hang Out” – and its accompanying lyric video – premiere July 3, 2020.
Too Prickly For This World
Wife Patrol recorded and mixed the 11-track album with their producer P. David Hazel (The Lemonheads, Extra Blue Kind, Bullet Points) throughout 2019. With touchstones in punk, pop, and metal – and vocal harmonies throughout – the record explores everything from power structures, toxic culture, and friendship, to the hellish winter weather phenomena of the Great Plains.
Anti-Racism Resources We Love
A list of our recommended anti-racism resources.
Racism is not new. It has plagued this world for generations and its end is long overdue. As an interracial band, we regularly confront and discuss racism and what it means to us as friends, as performers, as citizens of our community. Having these conversations has helped us understand, protect, and stand up for each other. It’s also changed the way we decide what shows to play, or not play.
Understanding and dismantling racism is an ongoing process and we must all continue learning. And so we decided to share some of our favorite resources and local ways to support below.
LEARNING RESOURCES
PODCAST: NPR’s Code Switch podcast
READ: Indy Reads Books #BlackLivesMatter Recommendations
LEARN: Vice - 100 Ways White People Can Make Life Less Frustrating For People of Color
WATCH: Segregated By Design short film
VOTE: Register or Update Your Voter Registration
WAYS TO SUPPORT
SUPPORT: Indy Black Bandcamp (started by Nicole!)
DONATE: The Bail Project
New Song + Process Video: "How To Lose"
The Arts Council of Indianapolis premieres the new Wife Patrol track “How To Lose” with its process video on how the band made it happen… amid stay-at-home orders.
On Friday, May 8, the Arts Council of Indianapolis premiered our new song, "How To Lose,” along with an accompanying video that documents our remote-recording process.
Recording remotely, using only the resources available to us in our homes, is a process that’s new to us, so we wanted to share how things came together.
Here are six tools we used to help us through the process:
DIY Vocal Booth
I made a makeshift vocal booth out of bed comforters and pillows to help isolate the sound for the recordings.
– Nicole
Metronome
While a metronome may seem like an obvious tool for recording, we don’t always use one, preferring instead to record our rhythm tracks (bass, rhythm guitar, drums) all together in one room, live, with no click. Then we’ll overdub vocals, guitar, keys, ukulele, sax, aux percussion, etc. What we like about this approach is how it results in a feel that mimics our live shows, with the energy and the natural locking in we do together as a band.
For this recording, however, a metronome was a vital tool that kept us together as we recorded each individual track from afar.
– Natasha
Spire Studio Mobile App
I have zero studio gear in my home so when this project came along, I started thinking about what I could use at my disposal and/or upgrade. I'd heard of a portable recording device called the Spire Studio, but it was not budget-friendly. However, I realized it had a free mobile app that could be used without the device to record on your phone. It had features that allowed me to set mic levels, record multi-track, and even a few mixing options so it seemed perfect for me. I used the Spire app to record my vocals and bass on my phone, then sent the files to Greg for final mixing.
– Nicole
“Modern Recording Techniques, 7th Edition” by David Miles Huber and Robert E. Runstein
Purchased at good old Half-Price Books about a year ago. Most of it goes WAY over my head and refers to gear none of us will ever own (A $10,000 microphone? Does it come with Celine Dion? Get real!), but what little of this manual DOES make sense definitely came in handy.
– Greg
Cell Phone As Room Mic
Also coming in handy is a good trick we learned last year while recording with David Hazel (Bullet Points, Beta Male, Extra Blue Kind) for our upcoming album, i.e., putting a mic in the unfinished half of our basement while recording drums in the other half. That's where the scuzzy drum sound came from (using a cell phone to record since we were out of mic inputs).
– Greg
HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder
When I went to edit together all of our video clips, I noticed that some of the footage was drifting out of sync from the audio track. Upon further research, I realized this was happening because of the way mobile devices capture video – with variable, rather than constant, framerates.
The fix was quick and simple. Using the free, open-source tool HandBrake, I pulled in the footage that was giving me trouble, selected the “Constant Framerate” option, and then exported the new clips, ready to be cut together in Premiere Pro.
– Natasha
Wife Patrol Covers Carly Rae Jepsen
Hear part three of the Wife Patrol’s Got You Covered series: Run Away With Me (Carly Rae Jespen).
We've been missing you and missing each other.
To help us stay connected, we've started a record-from-home covers project.
Track 3 in our cover series is a Natasha pick -- Carly Rae Jepsen’s "Run Away With Me" Check out the cover and Natasha’s notes on why she picked this song below.
Cover Notes:
Few songs sparkle quite like Carly Rae Jepsen's "Run Away With Me." My hope in choosing this song was that we could bottle that feeling and share four minutes and 11 seconds of joy with people at a time when they might need it most.
In addition to immersing ourselves in the pop perfection of "Run Away With Me," we all took the opportunity to record parts outside our typical onstage roles. Greg's drums, aux percussion, and keys ground our version of the song. Nicole's glittering ukulele part adds pure magic. And I had a blast playing that iconic sax line and singing lead.
I hope our take on the song makes you smile. Thanks for listening.
Wife Patrol Covers Magazine
Hear part two of the Wife Patrol’s Got You Covered series: “A Song From Under the Floorboards” (Magazine).
We've been missing you and missing each other.
To help us stay connected, we've started a record-from-home covers project.
Track 2 in our cover series is a Greg pick -- Magazine's "A Song From Under the Floorboards." Check out the cover and Greg’s notes on why he picked this song below.
Cover Notes:
Rumor has it this song was inspired by "Notes From Underground," Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1864 novella about an unnamed man who is so bitter that he feels unable to live in society. It's a real page-turner. I happened to finish reading it on March 13th. That date, for me, was the last day of pre-quarantine life.
I picked this song partly for that coincidence, but also because I think most of us are struggling with the isolation that is required from social distancing. This song and that book do a great job of expressing the spiritual GROSSNESS of feeling isolated. In doing so, they prove what is so valuable about human society. Luckily, this track is extremely catchy, so if the thought of a song about ISOLATION is the last thing you need right now, you can ignore the lyrics and hum the tune. Natasha and Nicole's vocals make it easy.
Wife Patrol Covers Blondie
Hear part one of the Wife Patrol’s Got You Covered series: “Hanging on the Telephone” (Blondie, The Nerves).
We've been missing you and missing each other.
To help us stay connected, we've started a record-from-home covers project.
The first song in our series is “Hanging on the Telephone”, first recorded by The Nerves for their 1976 self-titled EP, and later by Blondie for the 1978 album Parallel Lines. The song was picked out by Nicole, check out her notes below.
Cover Notes:
I’ve wanted to cover “Hanging on the Telephone” for a while now, and it seems fitting that we did it in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve never felt more of a longing to connect with the people I’m closest to than right now. Our interactions are primarily phone or screen-based these days, and it’s just not the same as being beside each other. I’m hanging on, one day at a time, for the day that we can all be physically close to one another again. In the meantime, I’ve been reading Debbie Harry’s “Face It” memoir so once again, this cover is super timely.
I’m sure The Nerves had their own meaning to this song when it was first recorded for their 1976 EP. And Blondie gave it new life on 1978’s infamous Parallel Lines. But beyond the desire to connect, for me, this song also speaks to that slightly obsessive feeling you get when you have a crush on someone. You want to talk to them all the time. You want to know what they’re doing, if they are spending time with someone else, and if they feel the same way that you do. So you wait for the text bubble to show that they are replying, or decide that waiting around is wasted time.
I recorded these vocals on my cell phone in a blanket fort. Natasha and Greg took care of the rest in the basement studio. And in a nod to Blondie’s nod to The Shangri-Las, we started it off with an appropriate sound effect. Enjoy, and (hopefully) see you soon.