FEATURE:
Spotlight
Brennan Wedl
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IF you are new…
to the tremendous Breannan Wedl, then you really need to check out her music. This is an incredible U.S. artist who fuses Grunge and Country. A tremendous combination. Her eponymous album is released on 26th August. I am going to start with an interview from UCL Radio. A fantastic artist that I am new to, I am looking forward to her album coming out:
“Brennan Wedl is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter known for her distinct “grungetry” (that is, grunge and country) sound. They recently announced their upcoming album, Brennan Wedl, set to release August 21. Despite only recently signing to ANTI- Records for her self-titled record, Wedl is far from a music industry newbie.
Back in 2016, she co-founded the punk rock, queercore band Dazey and the Scouts, whose singular, angst-ridden album, Maggot, amassed online virality during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the group disbanding in 2018. Lesser known than The Scouts is Brennan Wedl’s solo project, where they’ve been releasing tracks under their own name since 2019.
Wedl’s solo discography strikes a markedly different chord, distinguished by country influences and their raw, twangy vocals. Still, Wedl’s punk past endures in their personal ethos as well as their music, often incorporating noisy guitar riffs, distortion, and defiant lyricism — hence the “grungetry” label. Featuring production by alternative Americana act Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield) alongside indie rocker Snail Mail (Lindsey Jordan) on guitar, Brennan Wedl masterfully interweaves these seemingly opposing influences.
Wedl’s unique persona embodies her multifaceted sound. Her style, sporting a bleach-blonde pixie cut and tattooed sleeves, lends to an intimidatingly cool aura, but her charismatic charm and down-to-earth approachability betray this façade. Both parts cool and authentically kind, Brennan Wedl is well-equipped to become the alt folk scene’s next indie darling.
Dylan: I think that’s also something really interesting: this rising grungetry, alt folk wave with Wednesday, Jake, Katie, Geese– a lot of artists like you, but also with so many other distinct sounds. I think it’s interesting how it’s like– I don’t want to say “co-opting,” because I feel like there’s always been a lot of anti-establishment roots in folk and country artists — it’s not just the patriotic, MAGA stereotype that a lot of people think of when they think of country music — but I do think it’s interesting that there is such a strong movement now to more alternative folk scenes, with people that are so outspoken about Palestine and being queer and all these things that seem to be “incompatible” with Southern culture or American culture. I think that’s just a really interesting sentiment, hearing you say that as well, like wanting to have that tie-in of social justice in your art.
Brennan: Totally. You said it so well, that folk music is about sending your message. Storytelling. Punk music is storytelling– It’s all storytelling, and the stories we tell are really important. I’m realizing that more and more, and I think it’s our duty as artists to really be in touch with our hearts and our communities and work together to be the ones that change things. Because we can. The government isn’t gonna save us; we save us.
Dylan: Very true. And music has always been the tool for bringing people together, as long as humans have existed, and that’s what folk music is about. It’s about tradition and community, and I think that’s really cool to like almost [go] against that stereotype of what mainstream country music has become, especially to have more alternative people — AKA not straight white cis male people — telling those stories as well, because it kind of shows like the idea of America shouldn’t be incompatible with queerness and alternative cultures and stuff. This is such a random reference that just came to mind, but I love the movie Brokeback Mountain, because it really subverts the idea of the strong masculine cowboy [with] homosexual men being associated with femininity and the opposite of masculinity– The way that that film kind of subverts those two different identities and shows that these are the same people, we’re all Americans, we’re all cowboys, you know?
Brennan: I love that.
Dylan: It also makes sense, [the] tidbits of noise rock and grunge that like bleed through your songs, even as you’ve taken this more like Americana direction. [Punk and Americana] seem so different, but [they’re] really not.
Brennan: They like merge so well. Seeing a live show with both of those components [is] so cool: full band rocking, and then solo acoustic. It’s chef’s kiss.
Dylan: And I love that both of those things can exist in the same album, much less the same person. Listening to your record, it definitely explores both of those worlds, and I think you guys did a really good job of having that through line and incorporating all those elements in a way that sounds very consistent [and] thematic.
Brennan: Thank you. We set out to find the marriage between punk and Americana, and I’m just so, so happy we found somethin’.
Dylan: I know some of the songs on this upcoming self-titled album have already been released as singles in the past, but it sounds like all of them have been re-recorded for the album. How did the overall recording process go? Did you find that any of your older songs changed significantly? And over what span of time did you write these songs?
Brennan: I think the oldest song is probably “Scorpio.” I started writing it like eight years ago, and that’s the song that I have the most versions of. There’s like four to five different studio recordings of “Scorpio.” I think [in] bringing back some of the singles, our intent was I didn’t want them to live in singles world forever; I wanted them to live in a body of work. So they aren’t super different at all, but they live in the same world as the self-titled album. I love both versions so much. And just the creative freedom to say, “F*ck it, let’s do a new version of this old song,” was something I didn’t realize I could do. Katie was like, “Have you ever thought about bringing some of these old ones back?” And I was like, “No, but I like this idea.” So their titles are now like “Scorpio (Album Version),” “Fake Cowboy (Album version).” The old ones will still live online, because I love them, and they’re absolutely a part of my artist journey. I can’t imagine taking those away, because they’ve been out for so long, but it’s just like a creative exercise to see how we can reframe these old songs to put them in this new album. It was really fun.
Dylan: That makes perfect sense, and especially for this being your self-titled album, too. I don’t think it’s at all thematically off-base to bring back old songs and be like, “This is me, over a span of years,” and seeing those changes in your solo artistry throughout the album itself.
Brennan: Totally. I think there’s a few years difference in between the recordings of “I Wanna Be Your TV” and “2 Dollar Pistol,” et cetera. So hearing the time pass through the different versions is time travel, personally”.
I am going to move to Paste and their conversation with the unique and utterly brilliant Brennan Wedl. They urged one to inquire within if you like “Sheryl Crow singing punk songs, growing up Catholic in the Midwest, transcontinental DIY heroes, and queer Geminis”:
“Nashville is Wedl’s home now, but Boston still rents a big room in her heart. “When we work together, great things are possible,” she says of her scene there. “I was shown, time and time again, that we can really influence each other and help each other when we cheer for each other and we want our friends to win.” It’s not the full picture of the Boston music community, but Wedl’s experience was always collaborative, before the Great Scott was turned into a Taco Bell Cantina. “There were a lot of band members in multiple bands. People were going to shows. People were going out. Everybody was eager to see music. It was a beautiful time for that.”
They call Nashville a ten-year town, though TikTok has probably made it more like a five-year town. “It’s been quite Saturnian down here,” Wedl laughs. “There’s a sense of collaboration here, too, where, if you want to go for it, you go to Dino’s, you get a hamburger, you sit down, and you talk about it.” A lot of people there are doing some version of what Wedl is doing, and there’s a camaraderie in that. Your coworkers at your day-jobs are musicians. “I’ve played shows with coworkers, bosses, people I’ve met at the YMCA,” she adds. “It can be very cute, very kind. It’s been good to me so far.” She was curious about everything at the beginning, trying on a bunch of hats. Wedl tried commercial country co-songwriting, which she says required her to leave her insecurities at the door and be okay with hearing “no.” Now, she finds more joy in writing songs with friends in their home studios, and a few of those songs wound up on Brennan Wedl. “I think it works best for me when I approach it through friendship rather than through a mindset of ‘we’re going to the top with this one.’”
The rollout for Brennan Wedl began in 2024, when Wedl started sharing singles like “2 Dollar Pistol,” “Fake Cowboy,” and the aforementioned “Scorpio”—none of which sound alike. That was intentional. “I try not to write the same song twice,” she says. “Maybe in the future I’ll have an album where I do the exact reverse of it, but I’m a Gemini. I love the hats. I’m not trying to jump around genres. I’m trying to have a throughline, and that is the emotion.” Those singles were a good litmus test for connecting with people and playing live. It was empowering for Wedl, even if she never stays anywhere for too long. “Kudzu” didn’t make the record, because Wedl felt like it “wasn’t part of the world I’m working in now,” but it’s always going to show up in her live sets.
Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan is a presence is felt on Brennan Wedl. She brings unmistakable guitar chops to “Pretty Little Fantasy” and “Tasmanian Devil.” The tone is fairly incredible on the latter. Wedl says there was very little brainstorming or direction. “She came over one afternoon, when we had maybe four more days of tracking left out of ten,” Wedl remembers. “The feeling of the album was really there. We played her a few songs, and Brad was like, ‘Do you want to play some?’ And she said, ‘I mean, yeah.’ We started with ‘Tasmanian Devil,’ and she did that lead line. It completely reframes the song in a way that speaks to the improvisational nature of her playing. She came in and did some magic.”
Jordan also helped get Wedl’s music in front of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, texting her the song “I Wanna Be Your TV.” After “2 Dollar Pistol” dropped, Crutchfield shouted Wedl out on a Nashville radio show. A few DMs and emails later and they were hanging out at Homestate in Los Angeles. “Katie is such a timeless creative force,” Wedl beams. “To be in that orbit is endlessly inspiring.” Crutchfield was in the crowd during Wedl’s Paste set a year ago, singing and swaying along.
Wedl co-produced her new album with Crutchfield and indie super-producer Brad Cook. They brought an X-factor to the album, Wedl says: cohesion. “They were able to see my blind spots and identify things that were in the garden but weren’t getting the water they needed. They were in the garden with me, putting their gloves on and going through the dirt and helping me make a bouquet.” Wedl needed people like that, people who encouraged her to plunge deeper into her songwriting psyche. “They really saw me.” Wedl has coined her work as “grunge-try,” harnessing all her sides: punk, Americana, blues, and country. Crutchfield and Cook listened to her earlier works and wanted to marry those together. “It’s important to be very clear about what you want out of a recording,” Wedl says. “We spent a lot of time before tracking making sure we were all on the same page. We weren’t making a country album. We weren’t making a rock album. We were making something that could be all those things. I love to rock. I really do. But, sometimes, I don’t give enough credit to the quieter parts of my musicality.”
It’s one thing to say, “I want to make this album for you,” but Crutchfield and Cook also said, “We want you to play these songs on the road with us,” inviting Wedl to open for them on their recent national tour with MJ Lenderman. For a month, she workshopped her boldest work to new audiences, telling stories about the Midwest and Boston and Nashville in-between expertly sequenced confessionals. “I became fascinated by the difference between someone’s speaking voice and their singing voice,” she says. “I’ve always loved hearing artists talk. I’ve also fallen in love with Neil Young’s live albums because he’s constantly going off on tangents and making people laugh. I think storytelling adds another layer to the live show. I have a lot I want to share. You can personalize the experience. Make it one-of-one.” I ask her how monumental that gesture from Crutchfield and Cook was, and she doesn’t hesitate to call it priceless. “It’s instilled so many life lessons. One of the biggest ones is that I have this confidence in my thoughts and feelings more so than ever. It showed me that life itself can be a creative act.”
Almost seven years have passed since Wedl released Holy Water Branch. “How did you find the patience to let this record come when it was truly ready?” I ask her, thinking about our current music culture, which puts so much value in instant gratification. “That’s been the affirmation on the sticky note on my bathroom mirror for the last seven years: trust the timing,” she says, before clarifying: “I have not been patient. I think it’s been factors beyond my control, and maybe divine factors too, saying, ‘We’re going to kick this down the road a bit, or you’re going to have a mental breakdown.’ Life was happening, and I was growing and learning—gathering the intel to be prepared for this.” Wedl reveals to me that, if these opportunities had happened to her in her early twenties, she’s not sure she would have had the tools to be mentally okay with them. She’s spent this decade of her life working on self-preservation, preserving that spirit of her fifth-grade self learning to play guitar. COVID was definitely a factor, but she quickly figured out that listening to her body, her mind, and her spirit mattered more than what the industry might have expected from her.
Spirituality has always been a big part of Wedl’s life and her music. One of the first things she revealed about herself in our interview was that she was brought up Catholic, which was a major theme on Holy Water Branch especially. Now, it’s become an unbridled, unapologetic trust in her shadow—in the things that used to be sins when she was little. “I think becoming friends with the God of my own design—influenced by paganism and Catholicism—has really helped me take charge of my life. It’s helped me dream and helped me learn that the fruits are most delicious when everybody gets to eat them.” The community part of organized religion—the gathering—is now the central guiding force in her creative soul. “We’re gathering at concerts. We’re gathering in studios. We’re gathering to rehearse. Life is a big question mark, and I think together we get a lot more clarity when we talk about the harder, necessary things… when we’re able to use our talents for good, to bring the light in”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Topete
Brennan Wedl has a following here in the U.K. I think, when her new album arrives later this month, there will be more demand and fans heading her way. At the moment, she has tour dates in the U.S. heading into late-autumn. It would be great if she played here at some point. I am going to end with The Guardian and their interview. Laura Snapes asking the questions. The singer-songwriter explored “how sobriety and self-analysis powered her classic new Waxahatchee-produced album”:
“Music also helped Wedl see herself more clearly. Her album’s rockiest moment, Pretty Little Fantasy, attacks perceptions of her as “somebody’s daughter … prim and proper”. Growing up as the eldest and only girl, she says, “I wanted to be so helpful, and I think girls are taught that a lot. But then I was introduced to riot grrrl and Marina Abramović and disgraced women throughout history, and it took most of my 20s to come to the conclusion that I was still carrying the self-imposed life’s work of being delightful, and that doesn’t help anyone – actually, it really hurts me. I think ‘delightful’ is the mask I wore out of not dealing with my own shit – and so if I was a delight, no one would have to investigate further.”
On stage, Wedl cultivated being “dead serious about having fun – the ambition to live the life I want”. It filtered into the rehearsal space, then her everyday confidence. Recently, she was reminiscing on an earlier version of her solo project. “There was an upright bass player and an electric bass player because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by saying they couldn’t play,” she says, laughing. “I’m sure that sounded horrible!” That was 10 years ago now. “Being the leader of a band is a constant crash course in people-pleasing, self-assuredness and respect, and I’m so grateful that I get to learn these huge life lessons through music.”
She also credits “various 12-step programmes” with breaking these moulds. “Twenty-one has found me sober,” she sang on her last album, 2019’s Holy Water Branch. “A lot of my life boils down to: how do my daily habits make up who I am?” she says. “When I was drinking, I was really focused on the next time I was gonna do that, who was gonna be there – this mental obsession with the wrong things.” Quitting drinking didn’t erase her problems, but it made them clearer. She realised she had become someone who wasn’t writing, neglecting “this shortcut for when I couldn’t really explain what’s on my heart to others; I could explain it to my guitar and to my journal.”
Go and follow Brennan Wahl. Her eponymous album comes out on 21st August. I am new to her, though I have a feeling this is an artist who will grow and grow and play some enormous dates and major festivals. In the new U.K., perhaps she is less well-known, but her fan numbers are increasing here. Do go and follow…
THIS amazing artist.
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Follow Brennan Wedl
