Grumpy’s Latest Record Finds the Beauty Within the Grotesque
Grumpy. Photo credit: Anya Good.
There’s nothing delicate about Grumpy’s latest EP Piebald. It’s too jagged to sit neatly within the folk genre, though the inspiration is clearly present across the tracks. Underneath the band’s lo-fi folk-rock beginnings, a hyper-pop influence seeped in through the cracks and warped their songs into something sticky, sweet, and strange.
Before their latest work, Grumpy were still finding their footing. Their earliest releases, by their own admission, were “a great first try.” But the turning point came when Heaven Schmitt, Grumpy’s frontperson, first heard 100 gecs’ song “Money Machine.” “Funny enough, I heard a 100 gecs song and it like changed my life. I was like, what is this?” When they tried to share the song amongst their indie music peers in Nashville, most of them dismissed it. “They were like, this sucks,” they laugh as they put on the voice of a disaffected teenager, “and I was like, you don’t get it.”
Shortly after, they connected with Lulu Prost of Frost Children — a collaborator who shared their vision for absurdity and excess in the genre. From there, the path forward was clear: take their folk-rooted songwriting and “just get goofy with it.”
Then came their single “Protein” in the summer of last year, which set the stage for further experimentation. Their label, Bayonet Records described their sound as “hyper-folk,” and it fits, their music devours influences, taking folk’s intimacy and hyperpop’s excess and stitching them both together.
“What inspires me so heavily about it is hyperpop is it has such a sense of humour,” they say. “It's so funny and crazy and is able to laugh at itself.”
Piebald.
The lyrics across Piebald are deeply personal. While reading the lyrics outside of the theatricality present on the album, they feel as if they were scrawled within a diary you weren’t supposed to find. Piebald thrives on these contradictions and as it turns every inspiration up to a 10, listeners are left engulfed in the grotesque and glamorous performance.
“Most of the lyrics to my songs are a lot more about showing ugliness and how much can I reveal about myself,” says Schmitt. “How much can I embarrass myself with sharing my thoughts and embrace the things that I'm afraid of?” They laugh, adding: “It’s like publishing my diary. This project is a tabloid, but about non-famous people like myself.”
Embarrassment is part of the process. Instead of sanding down the raw edges, Schmitt leans into them. “I think there's something really fun about writing in such a conversational way, it’s so unexpected. I think it's almost kind of awkward and jarring sometimes. The more I start to be like, ‘oh, like, can I just say it that plainly?’ I'm always like, ‘okay, I should lean into that.’” It’s a strategy that turns the internal discomfort into something completely magnetic.
On their track Protein they sing, “When you walked me out I swear you tried to kiss me / When you're with the others I wonder if you miss me / I know you like me but you got a better offer / If I was beautiful would you be with me over the others?”
Their ability to lean into the crushing heartaches and turn them into an earworm makes the project so enticing. “You might think [their song lyrics] are something someone would want to hide… but highlighting weaknesses or flaws is a strength.” Their vulnerability and openness is all part of the charm.
If their sound is chaotic and complex, so is the band itself. “Every song we’re playing is about someone in this band, But I think that's pretty funny” Schmitt says. The group includes their ex-husband Austin Arnold on drums, and two other exes, Lane Rodges on keys, and ex-girlfriend in Anya Good on bass. While explaining the group dynamic to me, Schmitt mentions their girlfriend Ellie Long has also joined the band and now, Arnold and Rodges are also dating. It’s a dynamic that outsiders might gawk at, but within the band, it feels more like family.
“It's a very sweet thing,” they say. “There’s such an intimacy in our band and we all love each other so much. And I think I write a lot about the way that love evolves or changes shape and finding ways to not let that love disappear when you break up.”
There’s a warmth in the way Schmitt describes these relationships, the romances that have shifted into friendships and the deeply creative bonds that have formed in their place. That intimacy fuels the band’s process. They recorded Piebald collectively, “we record together and produce together. It's one computer that we're producing on and it's truly, it's like people swapping around, taking turns, playing with instruments and sitting together on the floor.”
It’s a messy, communal energy, but it works. The band is a chosen family stitched together not despite flaws and failures, but because of them. What makes Piebald resonate isn’t just the rawness of the lyrics or the exuberance in their sound, it’s the way they’re able to keep finding beauty in the mess. Ugliness isn’t something to hide, it’s the very source of their power.