“Mersh.” That’s slang for “commercial,” which is how the daddy of Momma founding member and guitarist Allegra Weingarten first described the band’s 2022 breakout album Household Name.
The document, a shoo-in for end-of-the-year rock album lists, introduced the Los Angeles-bred band a superb little bit of reward and recognition. And in the end, her veteran music journalist dad mentioned it was the precise transfer to go business and lay the fuzzy guitars on thick throughout 12 poppy tracks invoking ’90s staples like Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins, Veruca Salt, and Pavement.
Weingarten, 23, who fashioned Momma with 24-year-old guitarist Etta Friedman in 2015, says her dad had an enormous affect on her early musical style, which shines by way of on the group’s newest launch. She particularly cited Nirvana as maybe the most important affect on the document, however not on the sound, per se.
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“It was not even that we were necessarily pulling ideas or genuinely being influenced by their music,” Weingarten tells Alternative Press. “I think it was just the lore surrounding Nirvana that was really interesting to us.”
The story of a struggling band within the ’90s colours Household Name, which is actually an idea album that longtime buddies Weingarten and Friedman wrote over a yr within the early pandemic days, quickly after relocating from LA to Brooklyn. With deadpan vocals, the duo sings intelligent songs of aimless drives, full infatuation, getting away on a loud bike, and taking part in a shitty bar with an unstable band lineup with a view to make that month’s hire.
“We really treated it as like a job almost — like we were in the studio for probably eight hours, three or four days a week, and that was just to write the record,” Weingarten says of the writing course of for the album, which occurred at pal, bassist and producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch’s place in Brooklyn. “It was a really creative, collaborative, intense process that was probably formative for all of us involved.”
Among the rigorously crafted tunes on Household Name is the one-two punch of “Medicine” and “Rockstar,” the album’s third and fourth tracks. “Medicine,” filled with tongue-in-cheek lyrics that liken being in love with being hooked on a drug, took place fairly effortlessly, Friedman says, as a result of it was written at a time when the 2 have been feeling excited in new relationships.
“We were talking about how we had never felt happier in our lives, and that’s a really exciting feeling because when we’ve talked about love or romance or whatever, it’s usually been pretty depressing,” they are saying. “It’s just easier to harp on the sadder, more emotional things. We were genuinely both feeling happy, so it was a pretty beautiful thing to try to express together.”
“Rockstar” then follows, which has change into an surprising hit for Momma, with the only turning into a fan favourite and getting love on different radio. And it’s all as a result of she and Friedman watched Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, a 2006 comedy a few duo who units out to be the “greatest band in the world,” at house in LA along with her rock journo dad in August 2020.
Right after the film ended, the 2 headed as much as Weingarten’s bed room, the place “Rockstar,” which tells the story of an aspiring rocker and what surrounds them in ’90s LA, was born. “I know this club called Tuesdays/I can get us backstage/The barback is our singer/The last one quit the band,” Weingarten sings within the second verse. “A real heavy drinker/He karaokes ‘Rocket Man.’”
Weingarten says she picked up her guitar and instantly performed these anthemic opening chords. The relaxation was written in 10 minutes. At the time, they “thought it was stupid,” however after they confirmed it to Kobayashi Ritch and later performed a demo for buddies, it was clear the track struck a much bigger chord than anticipated.
“It’s definitely not one that we thought was going to be a single or an important song on the record at all,” Weingarten says. “But then it really became like the blueprint for a lot of the themes of the record.”
Of the handful of music movies the band made for this album, “Rockstar” is a transparent favourite. It provides Momma the behind-the-music therapy by following the story of the track, with the band discovering an advert for a battle of the bands within the newspaper, flyering round city as a result of they “still need a drummer,” and discovering their approach backstage at a gritty venue. There’s even encouragement from a poster of Kurt Cobain, whose model Friedman emulates within the video.
There are “loud-quiet” moments and strong riffs discovered throughout Household Name, which Weingarten says is true to the sound the band have all the time been after. “For years I had never really sat down and been like, ‘OK, we need to get these pedals, and we need to get these amps, and we need to really make sure that we have a good tone,’” she says. “Doing this record, we’re like, ‘OK, let’s finally achieve that huge sound that we’ve been looking for.’”
Over the summer season, Momma took that vast sound on the street for a prolonged tour that lasted seven straight weeks throughout the U.S. “We thought seven weeks is normal, that touring musicians did back-to-back-to-back shows,” Friedman says. “Then we realized people have breaks and four-week-long tours.”
Sandwiching these weeks of tour dates have been two exhibits in Momma’s adopted hometown, New York City, the place they held a launch present in a small room upstairs on the Bushwick venue The Broadway in July, and ended with a sold-out present on the considerably bigger Music Hall of Williamsburg in October.
“At the very beginning of the tour — like when we were announcing the tickets — we really didn’t think we’re gonna sell it out or anything,” Friedman says. “The energy was pretty similar to The Broadway show in terms of people having fun, which is the best thing to see onstage. We were really feeling like, ‘Wow, we fucking did it.’ It was really a beautiful moment.”
Now, Momma are managing to squeeze in a month of relaxation earlier than going again out to play once more. The band are additionally beginning to demo new songs and hopes to dedicate ample time to put in writing the follow-up to Household Name, which was a product of pandemic free time. “Without that free time I don’t know if we would have been able to write the record in the same way,” Weingarten says. “We’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to be able to do it, now that we’re so busy.”
Meanwhile, Momma will quickly be opening for Surf Curse, Foals, Alex G and Death Cab for Cutie, with dates unfold out now by way of early April 2023.
Friedman and Weingarten, who work day jobs at house in Brooklyn once they’re not on tour, admitted it’s been difficult to function within the present monetary panorama that’s affecting many artists. Getting over to Europe with Alex G shall be far more pricey than anticipated, Friedman explains.“It’s a constant thing I think about: how to support yourself, but also make the work that you want to make and do what you want to be doing,” they are saying.
Ultimately, the band say it’s been attention-grabbing studying earn money as artists as a result of it means betting on your self and placing your self on the market. “It means spending money and losing money to then be able to profit in any way,” Friedman says. “It’s really a grueling process. But, I mean, the good thing is that we’re having a good time along the way.”
Even as Momma waiver between feeling just like the band they sing about on “Rockstar” and going “mersh,” it is little question been thrilling to see the current ascension of the Brooklyn-based group.
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