If you followed along as music publications shared lists of the best albums released in 2023, you might think the show happening at the Broadberry on Monday, Jan. 22 was dreamed up by the list makers themselves.
Both groups scheduled to perform — the groups Wednesday, from Asheville, North Carolina, and Hotline TNT, which is based in Brooklyn — released loud, guitar-driven rock albums in 2023 that achieved breakthrough levels of acclaim. Wednesday’s “Rat Saw God” and Hotline TNT’s “Cartwheel” were both awarded Pitchfork’s coveted “Best New Music” designation upon release, and both earned a spot among the standard-bearing music website’s “37 Best Rock Albums of 2023.” It’s new territory for Hotline TNT leader Will Anderson.
“I’ve never had a response anything close to this before,” he says of the attention that’s been heaped on “Cartwheel” since its release on Third Man Records in November. “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel good.”
That said, this is hardly Anderson’s first album. Now in his mid-30s, the Wisconsin native is an experienced member of various DIY scenes. He’s shared multiple prior releases as Hotline TNT, including 2021’s “Nineteen in Love” LP, and Anderson built momentum in the 2010s with his previous group, the Vancouver-based noise band Weed.
He’s especially experienced when it comes to community building. Even during the pandemic, Hotline TNT fans had multiple options for interacting with Anderson online, whether he was acting as the administrator of a Discord or streaming video games like Mario Kart and Fortnite via Twitch. He also publishes a handwritten, NBA-focused zine called The Association Update, reporting on the ups and downs of Minnesota Timberwolves fandom as candidly as he reflects on heartbreak in his songwriting. “After the fall / I pretend that it’s all / My fault” could very well be sung in the voice of a superstitious fan after a bad loss.
One community-within-a-community he’s built recently is a mutual admiration society with Wednesday. This will be the groups’ first sustained tour together, but they’ve previously shared gigs here and there, and Wednesday’s guitarist, Jake “MJ” Lenderman, shares Anderson’s affinity for professional basketball. Think of Wednesday and Hotline TNT as two teams coming off their best seasons yet, ready to pick up some wins on the road.
“I think we’ll both be at full-power, full-strength for that,” Anderson says of the show coming up at the Broadberry.
Style Weekly: What has year-end list season been like, given all the attention “Cartwheel” is getting?
Will Anderson: Really exciting, for sure … I was already proud of it, and I’m proud of all the records I’ve put out. But I’m a music fan, so I read a lot of music journalism and reviews and I’m always trying to find new stuff to listen to. Over the years, I’ve read different publications and stopped reading other ones, but pretty much everyone kind of lined up behind this one, and was like, “Hey, we like this record. We like it a lot.” That’s cool to see …
I’ve never been on a year-end list before, but I was definitely aware of the timing of it, and how the year-end list for different places is their way of keeping a time capsule, like “Here’s what happened this year, and here’s what this year sounded like.” And people look back at those lists and try to understand the zeitgeist of what was happening. If I’m on those lists, it’s cool. For me, it’s a time capsule of this time in my life — that’s what “Cartwheel” is. If it’s part of someone else’s time capsule, that’s cool.
Have any of the reactions been surprising to you?
I didn’t think Pitchfork was going to like it. That’s the biggest domino of all these things. I’ve never even been reviewed by Pitchfork before, and they didn’t really — I think they covered one of the singles, so that was like, “We’re on a big label now, bigger than I’d ever been on, so they’ll probably throw it a review, but I doubt it’ll be anything crazy.” But then they put their stamp of approval on it, and I was like, “Oh, OK. That’s unexpected.”
You mentioned the reaction being different this time. In what ways did your approach to recording differ this time around?
Recording-wise, I did work with an outside producer. The only reason I did things self-recording [previously] was that’s all I had available, especially because the last LP was deep lockdown quarantine COVID times, so it was just me and GarageBand for that one. There was nothing I could really do about it. But before that, I put out a few 7-inches, which I always had engineers working with, so once we were free to move about the country, I enlisted Ian Teeple, who is in a band called Silicone Prairie. I had really loved his record and I love his vision, and I thought it would be kind of cool to combine our two powers to see what happened.
When you were making it, did it feel like you’d hit on something that would resonate so much with people?
No, not at all. I felt very similar to how I felt with the other albums … I remember saying, “Alright, I’m on a bigger label now,” but that’s not a guarantee that it’s going to resonate with a larger audience, or a more mainstream audience. I really figured this was just going to be another Hotline record that cements my legacy as an underground guy, and [I would] keep going that way.
I read in The Association Update that you’d been feeling especially busy of late. Has that been good-busy or hectic-busy?
Really good. Really happy. Very busy. I am missing out on some things from pre-“Cartwheel” life — being able to be home and watch a lot of basketball, and spend time with people in my city, and my dog … It’s a worthy trade, I think. I’ve been kind of swamped with band stuff and I haven’t really had to work at my day job too much, which has been really cool …
“OK, I gotta make new merch, I gotta line up this tour plan, I gotta book this Airbnb.” Pretty much every time we play onstage, I talk to the bandmates, and [say], “A lot of people wish they were doing what we’re doing. We have to appreciate every second of this.” I feel like I try to stay grounded in that way.
Growing up in Wisconsin, were you listening to the legendary Midwestern rock bands that are often mentioned in your reviews?
I didn’t really get into cool music until I was out of high school and out of this part of the country, so I was not aware of Hüsker Dü or even Dinosaur Jr. or anything cool. Replacements — didn’t even know who they were. None of that stuff until I was a few years into college, to be honest … We got put on the Rolling Stone list [and] that too is like, “Wisconsin dude, Bob Mould,” [and] I like that they’re talking about it, because I do feel proud to be from here, but one: I don’t live here anymore, and two: it’s not like I was raised on a steady diet of Bob Mould or anything like that.
When I was growing up, me getting into my own kind of music was Limp Bizkit, Weezer, a lot of nu metal, a lot of alternative radio rock, Foo Fighters, Incubus. A little bit later, my parents would buy me CDs, and took me to independent record stores in Minneapolis, but it was the Strokes and the White Stripes. It was still very MTV2. Nothing super-underground … I heard about Hüsker Dü when I started working at a record store in college, and I was like, “Wait, these guys are from Minneapolis? These guys are awesome.” Now they’re my favorite band of all time, but I can’t claim that I knew anything about them as a kid growing up close to the Twin Cities.
How did you connect with Wednesday?
We’ve played a couple of one-offs. We played a show with them in Philly — that was the first time. It was Wednesday, Hotline, and a band [called] They Are Gutting a Body of Water. I didn’t know either of them … I had heard a single [of Wednesday’s] and thought they were cool, but we got along really well, and they played in New York the next night. We passed on the show in New York because at the time we were only playing all ages shows. That was the rule for years, and they were playing Baby’s All Right, which is a bar, and I was like, “No, we’re not playing that show,” but we still hung out and they stayed at my house and stuff like that, and became close friends… Jake [MJ Lenderman] is a big basketball fan, too. We’ve bonded over that. Me and Karly [Hartzman] are pen pals. We keep in touch through the mail quite a bit…
This tour coming up has been in the works a long time, since before both of our records came out this year. I remember Karly was in New York and she was like, “Man, remember those shows we played together? We should do that again.” And I was like, “Yeah, of course. Let’s do it again.” Then the record came out, and they blew up, of course, and then we got word from our booking agent, like “Hey, Wednesday wants you to play one show with them in Brooklyn.” And I was like, “Yeah, of course we’ll play.” And then, “How about the whole tour?” And I was like, “Yeah, let’s do the whole tour.” And then our record came out, and that kind of blew up, and now I feel like it’s going to be a party every single night on this tour.
Before we go, what’s the state of the union for the Timberwolves fanbase?
It’s funny, because I was one of the last people on the Karl-Anthony Towns train. Last year, I was like, “Alright, I’m done. Trade his ass. His stock is only going to go down from here.” He’s one of the least fun players to watch. Even though he’s putting up good numbers, he is not fun to watch. And then we traded to get the actual least fun player to watch, Rudy Gobert, and I was just like, “This is so stupid…” This year, Anthony Edwards is obviously taking a huge leap — on the court. Off the court, maybe taking a few steps backwards. I won’t get into that.
It’s just very fun. We’re the best team in the league. To be there at this point in the season is unprecedented … Every night we’ve got something to play for, to protect our lead as the one seed in the West, so everyone’s pretty stoked. Everyone’s happy now we made that trade, seems like. We knew it was the plan all along. Just needed some time.
To hear “Cartwheel,” visit hotlinetnt.bandcamp.com. Hotline TNT and Wednesday will perform at the Broadberry on Monday, Jan. 22. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased at thebroadberry.com.
