“I have a lot of shit to say”: Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman on screaming as catharsis, DIY culture and consuming art with intention
Wednesday. Photo credit: Graham Tolbert
In the lead-up to the release of Wednesday’s sixth studio album Bleeds out 19 September, Karly Hartzman finds herself not just honing the sonic and lyrical palette introduced on Rat Saw God, but pushing it to its emotional edge.
“I have a lot of shit to say that I want people to fucking hear loud and clear,” Karly says. Picking up where Rat Saw God left off, the new Wednesday album doesn’t pivot, it digs in deeper. “Before we do something else... I wanted to make sure I put out the best version I possibly could of what we've been doing all these years,” she explains. There’s more immediacy in the writing, more emotional precision, and a rawness that sometimes only screaming can express: “Sometimes it's just screaming, because I need to at that part.”
In our recent chat, Karly opens up about everything from her love of DIY culture and noisy meditation playlists, to the album’s darkly whimsical artwork. We talk the value of staying in your hometown (“Why would you want to move to a place where there's more competition and more pressure?”), reclaiming the internet on her own terms, and why anger is never just one thing: “It’s also sadness and jealousy and heartbreak.”
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Anika: Hi Karly!
Karly: Hi, it’s good to see you again. How’ve you been?
Anika: Yeah really good! I'm going to start asking you about the album straight away.
Karly: Yeah definitely!
Anika: I know you mentioned when you played your Brisbane show that the next record was going to sort of be like a part two to Rat Saw God. Essentially, further songs set to the backdrop of the South, which I think your fans have really come to know and appreciate, which is amazing. You're putting Asheville on the map for everyone. What do you think separates Bleeds from your existing body of work on a thematic level? You've had a whole international tour since and so much has happened.
Karly: Yeah, I think with the goal with Bleeds, and I think we luckily accomplished it, was before we do something else, sound wise, sonically, lyrically, anything, I wanted to make sure I put out the best version I possibly could of what we've been doing all these years. And I think that's what this is, at least for now. I think just based on the chemistry we got from touring all that time, this is the best case scenario for an album to have been made with the amalgamation of all those things and the learning we did. I'm kind of just delving even deeper into that same world, just hopefully with more precision. I like that the songs are a little more succinct. I kind of get to what I want to say quicker and with more immediacy, it feels like.
Anika: I definitely got that impression listening to it as well. I mean, I don't know how much of the record I can actually spoil by talking about it, but especially on Wasp, it's like you're shouting at me [laughs].
Karly: Yeah, I think Wasp is a preview into whether it's a Wednesday record or something else. Especially just with everything going on in my life since this record, I need to do a whole record with vocals like that, I think, for myself.
Anika: I think when MJ Lenderman came earlier this year to Brisbane, Jake mentioned they were performing a song they put out on Cardinals at the Window, which was a benefit compilation for victims of Hurricane Helen, and I feel like I've witnessed a few artists who, their devotion to the hometown and the way they express that in their work is so prominent, and it's really inspiring to see. Even after international touring, your vision is still focused on this really deep connection to the South, and it's refreshing because I feel like in Brisbane, I've just started being inspired because I'm like, wow, maybe there is beauty in every little thing, even if I don't think the place that I'm from is very remarkable. When you played Season Three last year, right after the Felons show, you mentioned that the intimate space really suited the band more, and I would love to know more about DIY and Asheville. Do you think you can share some highlights from your local scene when Wednesday had just started performing?
Karly: Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, I want to say that where you're from is inherently interesting because that's where you're from. It informs so much of who you became, so I mean, even if your hometown doesn't have a lot going on, it still is this piece about you that is, like, at your core, and I think acknowledging that actually does you a lot more good than, I don't know, hating the spot will ever do for you, it's just a waste of energy, I think.
Yeah, DIY stuff, we started and learned what kind of band we wanted to be in a lot of those spaces. Two of our original band members, Xandy and then our original bassist, Margo, both had house show venues. And I think growing up in that space where you can make music and it's mostly like, drunk kids who just want to have a good time and there's not a tonne of pressure or industry pressure, I think it's a perfect environment to figure out what kind of stuff creates energy in an audience and what people are receptive to and just having a space to express yourself where you're not worried about coming off a certain way career-wise is really nice. And then learning how to play without being able to hear yourself in the monitor at all is also nice, because there's so many festivals and even big stages where I can't hear myself either, and I kind of can play through that. I think growing up in a DIY mindset just creates an industriousness that creates a lot more creative space than having access to anything you could possibly want, because when you do workarounds or have to figure shit out, it's a form of experimentation, but it's also just what you're given, and I think that creates a lot more interesting art in the long run.
Anika: Yeah, is that common for lots of bands… I guess, here, I feel like there's a mass exodus to Melbourne for people who live in Brisbane. Do you have a lot of bands in Asheville who just end up moving to New York or something?
Karly: Well, Asheville is more of a cultural hub, I feel like, for North Carolina. I mean, it's a very arty town, but yeah, I have friends in Greensboro who are in bands around here, and they're thinking of moving up to New York City, and they spend a lot of time there, and I guess I'm just like, why would you want to move to a place where there's more competition and more pressure, when you could just be the best, you have so much space to be the best thing, version of this thing you're doing. And then naturally, if you tour you're going to those places anyway, people will eventually, like, if your band is good, that'll work out for you ideally. But if you move up to New York before you've had a chance to be the best version of the band you could be, then no one's going to give a fuck, so, like, what's the point? You're just going to pay more and suffer and have to work three jobs, you know?
Anika: That's such an important message for so many local bands, I feel like. Thank you for sharing.
Karly: Yeah, I mean, I'm so thankful that we had three albums out before anyone gave a fuck. And if I had tried to capitalise on the music of my first record, I would have been so depressed, because that's not the kind of music I want to make. I had a lot more time before people cared.
Anika: Yeah. I wanted to talk about continuing on from the screaming on Wasp and the sort of wail that's on Wound Up Here (By Holdin On). I love that you're both a screamer and a singer. With some post-hardcore or screamo bands, which I do absolutely love so much—and this is not to discredit them—the screaming can lack dynamic range at times. Whereas when you scream, it's like, you're reaching your breaking point and it's really amazing to witness that. What inspired your shift towards that or this direction of heavier and more direct performance or delivery?
Karly: Yeah, I mean, I think it's true what you're saying, and I love hardcore music too, where screaming vocals are the whole time. It's very energising for me, and I love going to those shows. But I only scream where the music demands it, so it's creating an emotional landscape, and you get from A to B, you don't arrive as soon as the song starts at the climax of the song. I think people can, because that's how life works too. It's there, it ebbs and flows… emotional peaks and valleys like that. And also anger is never just anger, it's also sadness and jealousy and heartbreak. You can describe that if you're screaming the whole time, but it's a lot easier if you start in a quiet place or a mellow place and work your way up into screaming. It can just encapsulate so much more of the diversity of emotion you can feel within anger or sadness. And also people will hear the lyrics better if you're not screaming [laughs].
Anika: I always think that. It actually takes more guts to sing sometimes, because everyone can hear what you're trying to say.
Karly: …and I have a lot of shit to say that I want people to fucking hear loud and clear. That’s why when I'm screaming, sometimes it's just screaming. It's not always lyrics that I’m even screaming. Sometimes it's just screaming, because I need to at that part.
Anika: Just on a side note, the ending of Bull Believer, are there words that you're screaming, or is it just meant to be unintelligible?
Karly: In the recording it’s ‘Finish him’, but I realised I couldn't do that live for some reason, or I never tried even. I think when you're not screaming specific words, for me on tour, I just needed to scream about whatever I was feeling on that day, and that's easier to do if I'm not saying, like, a specific thing and just screaming to scream. Ah I miss singing that song, because I haven't played as many shows this year and I feel those screams just, like, inside of me. just needing to come out.
Anika: Just building up…
Karly: …yeah, I cannot wait to play that song again, it's really necessary for me to do live [laughs].
Anika: I know you've previously cited bands like Drive by Truckers, Unwound, Swirlies, as influences and greatest inspirations. I'm always curious to know, for anyone who makes music, what's something that you're really into, and inspires you, but you feel like people wouldn't expect you to be really into?
Karly: That's the thing, I just feel like, I don't know what people expect, so I don't know what would be surprising. I mean, I listen to a lot of just straight-up noise, music like Skullflower, a kind of wall of sound, but just grating noise. Noise is really meditative to me, because I feel like… I love ambient music, but I don't feel like it acknowledges the chaos that is within my brain when I need to meditate. And I think that's why when that's mirrored back to me through pure noise. Sometimes I just listen to the… there's a noisy feedback of Unwound songs, just super cut together, because Unwound makes my favourite feedback sound, so I'll just listen to that. Otherwise, I'm not sure. I mean, there's probably something that someone would be surprised by. Oh, a few months ago I was on this fucking Jonas Brothers song, I mean, I'll listen to anything that I relate to and enjoy. There's not much that I totally disavow.
Anika: Another thing I wanted to ask about is the artwork for Bleeds. It just fills me with so much childhood whimsy, it reminds me of The Gruffalo or Where the Wild Things Are, just heaps of childrens illustrations, which feels so warm and nostalgic. But also a little creepy and weird. I realised while thinking about your previous releases, maybe excluding Mowing the Leaves, all of the artwork has either had a photo or incorporated a photograph into the artwork. Even Rats Saw God was kind of a depiction of a photograph, maybe it's purely coincidental, but what sort of inspired the departure from the previous visual style for this album? It's so uniquely maximalist and I'm obsessed with this character that lives in the single art.
Karly: Yeah, I don't think anytime it was a photograph of myself, it was necessarily intentional. When I took a photo or found a piece that I felt like represented the art I just went with it, and I guess, coincidentally, a lot of that had to do with a personal depiction of myself or the band. Yeah I feel like what you're saying with the way I look back on my memory and childhood… like Camilla's art, when I first saw it I was instantly like, that is how I look back and see my own memories. I think a lot of that is because when I was growing up, a lot of my childhood was surrounded in Cartoon Network… like, that stuff was dark. I don't know if you had Cartoon Network, like, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Hey Arnold is another one that is kind of a lighter story one, but if you go back and look at that animation, it's all really dark colours. I just feel like there's a really big acknowledgement of darkness that lies within a child's existence that I grew up with in those television shows and I think stuff that acknowledges that just really gives me a lot of comfort and Camilla's art is just all about that, so I connected with it immediately.
Anika: I love it so much because I feel like it really accompanies the record, and I think it's probably the most refined visual accompaniment to an album that we've seen from Wednesday yet.
Karly: Ah, thanks!
Anika: Other than that, I want to know, are there any films or other media that inspire your creative process as well?
Karly: Yeah, I mean, a lot of that is a good reference. It’s weird to be, like, 28 and still watching coming of age stuff, but I feel like the mix of coming of age slash creature feature, acknowledging the monster that comes out inside of you as you're learning how to be an adult. I mean, Buffy is like that obviously and then I just watched The Faculty, which is a kind of scary movie about high schoolers and the adults in that space kind of turning evil and coming after and killing everyone. Then I watched Slumber Party Massacre, which is kind of same thing, it has to do with this murderer going around and killing all these young women who are kind of discovering themselves and their bodies, that's a movie from the 80s. Then I watched this movie, I didn't love it, but I watched this movie, Ginger Snaps, which is about, it's a werewolf movie, and it's kind of a puberty slash menstruation metaphor. She becomes a werewolf as she starts her period for the first time and kind of has sexual encounters. It's like the album art, like, acknowledging the darkness and those transitional times and that just feels like the most vivid. Eventhough my early 20s is more recent, my earlier memories are more vivid than that, because they were just so extreme and the feelings were so extreme, and I feel like those movies kind of capture that.
Anika: Yeah. I was going to say as well, your website, what inspired you to start it? I think you've had it for a while, where you were sharing some of the custom merch that you do, but I know that you've shifted off social media and I feel like it's honestly such a beautiful and earnest way to connect with the world rather than through this filter of slop on lots of social media.
Karly: Yeah, I think I just wanted to renegotiate my relationship with art and music and stay inspired and let it be on my own terms as opposed to it being shoved down my throat. I just started to feel kind of dark about being sold certain things and so I'm just trying to be more patient with stuff I'm consuming and intentional. A lot of the stuff I'm watching, I'm buying in physical format on DVD or on CD and that just really deepens your relationship with it inherently. There's just so much to see, and I'm trying to kind of slow my relationship with discovering that stuff, and also deepening the connection with the art, because the people that made it deeply care about it and that's how I want people to engage with my stuff, too. So, I don't know, just trying to give each thing its time. And yeah, I’ve loved making that website. It's been so fun. I don't know, my relationship with the internet when I was a kid was so fun, because I had Myspace and Neopets, Club Penguin. There's all these, like, fun, exciting, colourful ways to be on the internet. I didn't want to completely go offline because there is so much to be gained from the internet. I just wanted to kind of regain control over what that was.
Anika: It’s kind of more on your own terms.
Karly: Yeah, exactly.
Anika: Yeah, I feel like when I listen to Bleeds, it’s really telling that you've had time to connect with these other things that you love, like different forms of media or had time to sort of refine your storytelling outside of social media or what other people demand.
Karly: Well, I think there's a philosophy around fashion right now that I read somewhere and it was saying, and I was kind of doing this anyway, but this kind of reaffirmed it. The most fashionable people aren’t picking their outfits according to things they're reading and viewing about fashion. They're being inspired about by things that have nothing to do with that, and I think that creates a more interesting artistic expression when you're searching outside of that specific art form you're trying to pursue.
Anika: And I feel like if you just only consume what it is you want to make. All of your inspirations are going to be completely insular, but I feel like so much of what you've done on this record, and a lot of your previous work as well, it's all external and it's really inspiring to witness that.
Karly: Hell yeah. Thank you.
Anika: Well thank you so much. Much love.
Karly: Thank you so much. Have a good day!
Anika: Thank you, you too!
Pre-order and pre-save ‘Bleeds’ here. Out 19 September 2025.
Listen to Wednesday’s latest releases ‘Wound Up Here (By Holdin’ On')’ and ‘Elderberry Wine’ below.