Wolf Alice

Britain’s Wolf Alice return with their new single “Smile” from their third album, Blue Weekend which was released on June 4th on Dirty Hit/RCA Records. The album was recorded in Brussels during the lockdown. The track was inspired by lead singer Ellie Rowsell’s desire to fight back against those who try to define her. Rowsell said, “This is one of the songs we wrote thinking that we would play it live. I miss that feeling of singing on stage. It’s like screaming into a pillow or something — you can get away with being more nasty. There’s a whole other part of me missing."

The band’s sound has been described as “the lovechild of folk and grunge.” They are inspired by artists like The Beatles, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Blur and Courtney Love. It’s been a decade since Wolf Alice began as a duo featuring  Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie. They’ve expanded to a four-piece, with Joel Amey and Theo Ellis joining the group. They released an EP 2013 and 2014 followed by their debut album My Love Is Cool in 2015 and sophmore album Visions Of A Life in 2018. The latter won the Hyundai Mercury prize (best album in UK), and they got a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Performance. The band played a massive 187 shows on the “Visions Of A Life” world tour - including two sold out dates at Brixton Academy, and a set on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. 

When it came time to work on their latest album, Wolf Alice decamped to an Airbnb in Somerset, and it was there that they reconfigured who they were together, far away from festival stages, tour buses, awards shows, and fans. They cemented their friendship and set to work on some fledgling demos in a converted church. These demos evolved into their new Blue Weekend album, a record produced by Markus Dravs (Arcade Fire, Björk, Brian Eno, Florence + The Machine) who has aided the band in refining their sound to an even sharper point. Rowsell’s personal storytelling is at the core of Blue Weekend, an album that sees Wolf Alice embrace a newfound boldness and vulnerability in equal measure. 

Wolf Alice will be headlining a U.S. tour this fall, which kicks off in Seattle on October 25th and takes the band across the country before wrapping in Atlanta on November 20th.

Photo Credit: Jordan Hemingway

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