When Wet Dream, Chaise Longue and Ur Mum came out, my best friend and I would dance and sing around to them while we got ready for university parties. If you weren’t early adopters like us, you doubtless fell in love with Wet Leg when they rocketed up to the stratosphere and into everyone’s ‘On Repeat’ playlists while they accompanied fellow It-Brit Harry Styles on tour.

Three years later, Rhian Teasedale, lead singer and songwriter of the band, sat down with me to tell me about their highly-anticipated sophomore album moisturizer – out on 11 July 2025, renting a country house to write it, and how being in a band is being part of a team. She also kindly listened to me gush through the aforementioned anecdote.

I’m dying to know about the new album (which is so good, by the way. Right off the bat with CPR I was hooked)! Can you describe moisturizer?

White, creamy and wet.

I love that! When did you start writing moisturizer? What was the inspiration, 'the muse', the concept for this new album?

I couldn't tell you which song we wrote first, because we rented this big house in the countryside, set up, started everything kind of all at once and had loads of songs going at the same time. I think after touring so extensively and relentlessly for a bit over two years, we just really wanted to make songs that were going to be fun to play live, like night after night. So hopefully we've done that.

"I couldn't tell you which song we wrote first, because we rented this big house in the countryside, set up, started everything kind of all at once and had loads of songs going at the same time."

I have been absolutely loving catch these fists. Why did you choose it to be the first song released off moisturizer?

I think it's really interesting that that was the first song that we released because it was also the last song that we made. It was just very last minute; a spur of the moment. It kind of snuck in there. I think it was written in a very similar headspace to Chaise and Wet Dream in that sense. Some of the other songs had a little bit of a sense of "we've really got to write the second album now". But I think this one was just written as a kind of throwaway song, as though “whatever, this probably won't go on the album but like, let's just keep writing because we're in the habit of it.”

I’m utterly obsessed with the visuals you’ve released so far for the single and the album. The claws! The worm! The colours! How did you come up with the direction for that? Is that something you have a lot of say in?

I think Hester [Chambers, the band's guitarist] and I have always been big into the visual aspect of being in a band and making music. It's an extension of the songs. I love making music, but I also love creating this visual world around it.
Juxtaposition is something that I think we've always played with. But I think for this album in particular, I wanted to focus on this kind of subversion and playing with stuff that's sexy and disgusting at the same time. The two are kind of linked more often than you think. So we had a lot of fun kind of playing with that side of things.

"I think for this album in particular, I wanted to focus on this kind of subversion and playing with stuff that's sexy and disgusting at the same time."

After the massive success of your self-titled debut album, including #1 chart placements in Australia and the UK, three Grammys, two Brits and over half a billion streams, were you at all apprehensive approaching your second album?

I've always been one of those people at school who just won't start an essay until the last minute and then get so overwhelmed by the blank piece of paper. So, I definitely think the hardest part was starting. But then once we'd decided to start, one thing led to the next.

In a way, I feel like it was quite a quick turnaround. We started writing mid-March and had the whole album wrapped up and recorded by November. We tried not to hesitate or think too much about whether, “Oh, is this cool, is it not, is it good, is it not?” I think some of your best ideas are often the first ideas that you have, before your inner critic has a chance to censor you in those first ideas.

I think it's more uncomfortable to receive “success” in inverted commas. It's more uncomfortable if someone's giving you a pat on the back for something that you're not comfortable with or you think could have been better or even has bad memories attached to it. But this album just has so many great memories attached to the recordings and the whole process; getting to write and record together as a five-piece band. It's just long overdue so it's cool.

Can you tell me about the tracklist of moisturizer? Do you have a favourite song on the album? It’s early days for me, but on first listen I’m really feeling mangetout...

Yeah, that one's fun. It's fun to play live as well.

I like it when you guys do a bit of French.

It's because we're very sophisticated, you see [grins]. It's tricky because I think there's a song for anything. My favourite song changes depending on what mood I'm in. I think as a pairing of 'sister songs' I really like Don't Speak and Davina. Yeah, I think those two coupled together are my favourites.

"I think some of your best ideas are often the first ideas that you have, before your inner critic has a chance to censor you in those first ideas."

Speaking of Davina, the tracklist is rife with pop culture references (Davina Mccall, Jennifer’s Body, Pokémon, and so on), but they’re very disparate. How do you synthesise so many references?

I don't really make any conscious decisions of “this song's going to be about this and I'm going to put this reference in". I don't think you really have a choice in the matter when you're writing. It's just kind of... organic. When I look back, I can recognise that I was watching a lot of Big Brother just before we started writing the album. Five years ago, Davina posted a picture of her at one of our gigs with a Wet Leg T-shirt on. Then five years later we'll understand why Davina McCall was on my radar.

Before joining Wet Leg as the lead songwriter and vocalist, you released a number of songs as a solo artist. How’s it been different being part of this band now and collaborating with the other members, particularly Hester?

Before this band, I didn't play guitar at all and single-handedly I have Hester to thank for encouraging me to keep going, and telling me that I was really good when I really wasn't very good. Everyone is just really patient with each other and I think that is the great thing about being in a band. The human condition means that you can have days where your inner critic is really loud. So I think being in a band is really, really helpful for silencing that inner critic. Your friends are able to just sweep you up. It sounds kind of corny but that is how it is: you lift each other up whether you know that you're doing it or not. We all need that.

Wet Leg's new album moisturizer will be released on 11 July 2025.