It's probably a shame for the solid quartet — which includes Pavement's Stephen Malkmus, Chavez/Superwolves' Matt Sweeney, Dirty Three's Jim White, and Bonnie Prince Billy/Ty Segall's Emmett Kelly — to be called an independent supergroup, but as the lyrics above show, the shoe fits.
The band announced the release of their eponymous debut album on Matador Records on October 4, and they did so in style with a video for “Rio’s Song,” which almost perfectly mimics the Rolling Stones’ 1981 hit “Waiting on a Friend,” arriving at the same building and bar on St. Marks Place in New York City’s East Village. The video was directed by Jared Sherbert.
“The video for Rio is Hard Quartet’s tribute to street rock on a hot afternoon and fun with friends in downtown New York City,” the group said in a statement. “Director Jared Sherbert shot the guerrilla-style video at St Mark’s Place and the International Bar on July 15, 2024. It features artists, musicians, activists, skateboarders and local New York City icons dear to the band.”
The origins of the “leaderless” group were detailed in a recent profile in GQ . “Soon, the entire group would begin to think, laugh, and offer a window into the freewheeling process that shaped their new, leaderless collaboration: an idea Sweeney first suggested to Malkmus over the phone during the early days of the pandemic. After collaborating in various forms and bumping into each other frequently on the road, the idea of making music together—by no one’s rules but their own, and different from any industry trends or norms—seemed like a no-brainer. Sweeney looks back with wonder at their first week of working together for Hard Quartet, where they quickly assembled nearly an album’s worth of songs and settled into an identity that felt unlike any of their previous projects. (“This isn’t a project—it’s a band,” Malkmus says firmly. Sweeney responds with a triumphant, “Yes!”)”
The band, which is planning a large-scale tour next year, will play its first shows in October:
October 10 – Los Angeles at the Belasco Hotel
October 17 – New York at Webster Hall
22nd October – London @ Electric Ballroom
Playlist
1. Chrome chaos
2. Earth hater
3. Rio Song
4. Our Town Boy
5. rogue
6. Heel Road
7. Kill by death
8. Hello
9. It suits you
10. Six deaf mice
11. Work for military children
12. Crazy Existence
13. North of the border
14. Thug breed
15. Catch the Updraft
