Lucky Stars

Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers are sitting in a turret above a cinema in central London, tapping their fingers together and emitting a maniacal cackle in unison. “Good luck!” their publicist wishes me before closing a curtain behind her. The pair looks at me conspiratorially. Together, they are Wet Leg.

Fresh from a recording session, and with the publicist gone, they settle into their seats. “We just played three songs and it felt like we hadn’t played a gig in a year, but it’s only been two weeks,” says Chambers. “It always happens like that, even if it’s only been two days,” Teasdale adds. “It feels alien. It’s almost like a high, playing every night, and then you have a week off…” To which Chambers replies: “There are a lot of things that don’t feel real.”

Named in part after a potent emoji combo and the colloquial nickname for down-from-Londoners to their native Isle of Wight, the duo has, in the space of three or so years, debuted a single, Chaise Longue, complete with a self-directed video; released a self-titled album that went straight to number one in the UK; toured with Florence Welch and Harry Styles; performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!; and taken home two Grammys and two Brits while receiving numerous other nominations. At a time when the music industry could not be harder to break into unless your demo involves nepotism or sounds like identikit pop primed for TikTok, Wet Leg has achieved all this with no more than three chords and a sense of humor about life. Lyrics include: “On my phone, all alone / In the zone, oh no / Hours pass, pizza rat / I like that, oh no / 3am, I feel zen / Fucking zen, oh no / Suck the life from my eyes / It feels nice, I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling…”

The pair seems in a state of mild disbelief of their achievements. Chambers, the quieter of the two, who is wearing a T-shirt with a map of The Shire from The Hobbit, sits semi-hidden behind messy blonde braids, and before I can even ask a question, starts to laugh. “We are actually professional musicians who get interviewed quite a lot,” Teasdale insists while Chambers pulls herself together. “It’s weird to say that; like when you go to America and you have to fill in the form [stating your profession]…” Chambers interrupts, finger aloft with an ‘ah-ha’ moment. “I might put entertainer! And then when people ask, I could say I’m in the circus.”

“Early on, when we hadn’t done anything, there wasn’t much to talk about,” says Teasdale, “and quite often people ask artists what their story or agenda is. We were like, ‘We just want to have fun and for other people to have fun.’ But when you write that up, it makes you sound a bit…” She trails off. On stage, you’d be mistaken for thinking Teasdale holds the fort – she is in charge of most of the singing, but here in the turret they finish each other’s sentences, disagreeing and agreeing and encouraging and interrupting each other. It’s an equal partnership. Teasdale wears a necklace with a tiny gold ‘Wet’ around her neck; Chambers, a ‘Leg’. “I think it’s ok,” disagrees Chambers. “There aren’t any rules. That’s why we were a bit like, ‘Why are you asking us these questions?!’ From the get-go, it was about having a good time.” She looks baffled that anyone would pick up a plectrum for any other reason than to have fun.

A vast double standard in the music industry is that women who dare to play guitar have been getting flak since time began. Does Teasdale find that she gets a lot of criticism from men? She rolls her eyes so far back it’s possible she saw her past life, and says wryly: “I love being told what I should wear and how to behave. It’s hard to know, as a woman, what to do. But there’s always some Uncle Disgusting on the internet to help me out. I love it when they reach out to tell me how to write a song.” Chambers chimes in: “I don’t really go on the internet. It doesn’t feel safe there anymore.”

At the 2023 Brit Awards, Wet Leg beat both Arctic Monkeys and The 1975 in a ceremony that, without them, would have been male-central. The band played live, accompanied by tufts of grass and a maverick Morris-dancing troupe. It was brilliant, like an icy blast of air in an industry that can be fairly claustrophobic. “I like working with other women and queer and non-binary people, and I wish there was more of that,” Teasdale says. “Everyone on our team for the Brits was female or non-binary and that was great. But why are there fewer women doing music? Why on our [music] course were we among the only girls?” I point out that their band is made up of men – Joshua Mobaraki (additional guitar/synth), Henry Holmes (drums) and Ellis Durand (bass). “That’s the thing: bringing up women and shouting about women doesn’t mean, ‘No thank you, boys.’ It’s like, ‘We love you, boys, but you already have this advantage, so let’s shout about the other people for a second,’” she says.