“WE'D JUST HIT OUR GUITARS SOMETIMES. ACTUALLY HIT THEM!”

Wet Leg are creating a buzz with filthy songs and a novel approach to playing

- Jonny Scaramanga

Hester Chambers laughs when she is reminded of a recent headline in the NME: “Wet Leg: ‘We Want to be recognised as guitar heroes’”. It’s funny, she says, because she and Rhian Teasdale – the other half of Wet Leg – are pretty much the exact opposite of the guitar hero archetype. “I’m not really sure how that got to be the headline because we’d actually talked about how neither Rhian nor I are confident guitarists in the slightest!” she begins self-effacingly. “I don’t expect to get to the status of guitar hero. I think it might have come more from the fact that we love guitar music. It definitely sparked something in us seeing bands like Big Thief, and just listening to The Strokes and Kings Of Leon growing up. But it’s really fun to let go of our insecurities. We can say, ‘we’re not like those people, we’re not technical but we can still write songs and play gigs.’”

Wet Leg have caught a buzz with Chaise Longue and Wet Dream, two singles with fuzzy guitars, post-punk energy, and Rhian’s deadpan delivery of some truly filthy lyrics. The project has the refreshing energy of musicians just discovering the joy of guitar, and that’s because, well, they were.