Photo credit: Pooneh Ghana
Calpurnia are back with ‘Cell,’ the first new music since the release of their debut Scout EP. Once again produced by Twin Peaks frontman Cadien Lake James and co-producer R. Andrew Hymphrey, the track showcases a surprising amount of growth for the young band. “This song is about being taken advantage of in anyway,” says frontman Finn Wolfhard. “It was amazing working with Cadien and Andrew again and I’m really excited for everyone to hear it!”
The video for ‘Cell’ was also released today and serves as a behind the scenes look at life on the road for the band. Guitarist Ayla Tesler-Mabe tells us “While on our first ever official American tour, we had the pleasure of being joined by the incredible Pooneh Ghana for our last two shows in Austin and Houston. She is easily one of the most prolific and talented photographers (and videographers!) on the music scene right now, and so we left it to her to capture the joy and adventure of packing all your bandmates into a single van and hitting the road. This video is set to our newest single, Cell, and we sincerely hope that this video makes you at least a bit as happy as we are in this footage.”
Calpurnia recently made headlines starring in Weezer’s latest video for their cover of ‘Take On Me.’ The video has already amassed more than 6 million streams with Rolling Stone writing “Wolfhard plays a young Rivers Cuomo, an aspiring rocker done-up with massive metalhead hair, who leads Calpurnia through Weezer’s rendition of “Take On Me” in the living room of his parents’ house. In a nod to a-ha’s famous music video, the clip jumps between live footage and intricate pencil animations of the band’s performance.” Check out Calpurnia’s cover of Weezer’s ‘Say It Ain’t So‘ here as well.
Scout is everything you’d want it to be, 6 infectious guitar driven tracks, influenced by everyone from Mac DeMarco to the Rolling Stones. The band – which in addition to Wolfhard includes lead guitarist Ayla Tesler-Mabe, a six-string prodigy whose bedroom-shredding viral videos have earned her legions of fans on social media, bassist Jack Anderson and drummer Malcolm Craig – all grew up within walking distance of one another.
The band spent 10 days in Chicago last November recording their debut EP with Twin Peaks’ frontman Cadien Lake James serving as executive producer, Calpurnia are primed to let others in on their inimitable union. “It’s like a four-way Venn diagram,” Anderson says of the band’s coalescing musical tastes that seamlessly come together on their six-song debut, a giddy rock riot that sits comfortably at the intersection of classic rock, punk and angsty blues.“We all have our own sounds and our own influences,” Tesler-Mabe offers, “but somehow when we all come together all our different sounds and styles amalgamate to create something new. It just works.”
“The poppy melody and simplistic lyrics transcend Calpurnia from a band that is literally and figuratively put on a stage to genuine young teenagers in pursuit of perfecting the modern indie-rock sound.” – LA Times
“A promising debut from the scrappy teenage rockers” – Consequence of Sound
“It’s an impressive debut for a band of 15-year-olds. Hell, it’s an impressive debut forany indie rock band.” – Esquire
