Brooklyn band are a unique proposition. Sonically, they grapple with extra-dimensional pop possibilities, with leader joined by musicians who all have close relationships – there’s ex-girlfriends on keys and bass, and an ex-husband on drums, for example.
The band are actually majority trans – five-sixths in fact – and this gives them alternative viewpoints, drawn from unique personal experiences. Rising from Brooklyn’s DIY networks, Grumpy’s emphatically creative stance has built into a glowing community of like minds.
New album ‘Unfindable Ring’ is out now, an interwoven tapestry of pop-adjacent ideas. CLASH linked up with Heaven Schmitt to discuss some of the creative pathways utilised by the band, and it turned into a potent reflection on her close relationship with .
The two have dealt with the transition from romantic partners to creative partners, in turn allowing this to power a remarkable new record.
Embarrassingly, the first thing I ever said to Anya (Anya Good, creative director and band member of Grumpy) was, “you’re really something, huh?” So lame. But she so obviously was. The first time I saw her I was riding the train with my friend Dev. Too tired to even look at my own phone I watched Dev’s screen as they flipped through Instagram stories. “Go back,” I said, “who is that?” Dev said, “oh her name is Anya, she’s a total, like, gremlin freakazoid” (a compliment).
She used instagram in such an odd way. Pages and pages of bizarro self portraits and hand drawn comics in a style so different from anything I’d seen before or since. She really did seem like an alien, pulling from worlds and experiences I couldn’t understand. I knew right away that I would fall in love with her and I did. We began functioning so side by side, so quickly, tinkering and thinking in sync. In our first conversation, over DM, I asked if she would make cover art for my band.
In the year or so that followed she became the sole artist of every cover art or promo pic that Grumpy put out. I felt like I had found my soulmate. She heard the ugliness in my songs and understood that that was what I wanted people to see. Before I found Anya, I figured that I must be a phony who wanted edgy art without having the substance to back it up. She made me feel that what I imagined was real and that it had always been there.
We tried to resist but we entered into a loop of breaking up and reuniting. Complimentary wounds bumping into each other over and over. Each time I just couldn’t understand why it would fall apart. But I couldn’t get over what we had together. She saw me the way I wanted everyone to see me and I loved her the way she wanted to be loved. I thought this meant we just had to rise to the occasion; we were meant to be together forever.
A little while before we broke up for the final time I wrote Queens. My songs always see what’s coming before I do. We had to let each other go as lovers. As someone who is incredibly close to all of their exes, I’m very familiar with love changing shape but I resisted this transformation for so long. Eventually we settled out of romantic love and into the place we were headed the whole time, creative soulmates. These days we’re together a lot but always working. Tinkering away without words. She always saves me when I feel like I can’t express who I want Grumpy to be.
Trying to fit how I feel about Anya into language feels so cheap. So much of our bond is unspoken. As soon as we met she understood me in a way I had been begging to be understood. She heard my music and saw its hideousness without me even asking for it. Everytime we have a new song, she makes the art and I don’t give her much direction and rarely have any edits. She hears my voice and she understands what I want.
In Queens I say “everybody thinks we’re in love, but we’re only practicing kissing.” From the outside people might see our freaky bond and think we’re supposed to be in love. But really we are soulmates and partners in art; “[she’s] insane, and I’m a pervert.”
‘Unfindable Ring’ is out now.