Grumpy

Ambition and play have always defined the Grumpy sound. Late last year, the Fader praised their “demented, hooky” EP, “Piebald,” whose innovative fuzz-pop confections earned them coverage in NPR and the New York Times. Stereogum heralded them as “wonderfully weird,” and Paste designated them “the best of what’s next.”” Through boisterous collaborations with the likes of Sidney Gish and Claire Rousay, they’ve effortlessly ingratiated themselves with the titans of DIY, and, more recently, Schmitt has become an unlikely favored collaborator of chart-topping country giant Zach Bryan. In Grumpy, Heaven Schmitt is joined by Anya Good, Ellie Long (Kid Lake), Austin Arnold, Diego Clare (D.A. Crimson), and Lane Rodgers, who each contribute to every step of the process—engineering and recording, mixing, drafting artwork, producing, and making music videos. A kind of interdisciplinary thieves’ guild, the project, while once Schmitt’s solo eponym, is a labor of communal love. “We are living these happy lives, and there are people we come across who don’t know us at all who want us to die,” Schmitt, explains. Often the visibility of the joy itself is what prompts the vitriol—“I’m so happy I could die,” Schmitt belts over and over on the chorus, A middle finger to fate, Good started asking, “What are you going to do with your One Beautiful Life?” Grumpy is going to keep playing, touring, searching, finding.