After being dropped by Fueled by Ramen last summer and successfully releasing music independently, New York-based indie-pop band MisterWives are entering a new era in their nearly decade-long career. In a homecoming of sorts, the five-person group is re-teaming with indie label Photo Finish to launch their own imprint, aptly named Resilient Little Records.
MisterWives — consisting of lead singer Mandy Lee, percussionist Etienne Bowler, bassist William Hehir, guitarist Marc Campbell and saxophonist Mike Murphy — first signed to Photo Finish, now distributed by Virgin, in 2013. It was the home of breakout EP, “Reflections,” as well as the band’s first two studio albums, “Our Own House” and “Connect the Dots.” But MisterWives and Photo Finish diverged in 2017 as the label exited its deal with then-distributor Universal.
“When we parted ways it was very much against our wishes,” Hehir tells PvNew. “It was probably the first and only time I cried, when we found out about it… So the reason that we’re going back to them, in so many ways, is the reason we wanted to work with them from the get-go. It’s a small team, they’re all incredibly driven, they’re all incredibly talented and they just want to work together. They have this never-ending work ethic, which I think we missed so much with all the other labels that we’ve gone to because, in one way or another, we were kind of falling through the cracks.”
MisterWives, whose sunny, synth-heavy grooves and endlessly entertaining live shows have made them a staple of the indie-rock scene for years, signed to Fueled by Ramen in 2019 and released third album “Superbloom” in 2020. But when they were told in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that the label wouldn’t be looking for another album, MisterWives faced a hefty decision: give up or go independent. The band decided on the latter, turning social media into their own marketing department and shooting music videos on a $900 budget.
“It was really fuel for us. It gave us so much more motivation and determination,” Lee says, looking back on the experience. “I feel like the band was the most excited about creating the music we were creating and feeling like, well, we’ve already been doing it ourselves basically this whole time, so let’s actually double down and put this out independently.”
Lee also started posting on MisterWives’ TikTok account more frequently, using it as a tool to be transparent about what they were going through. In October 2021, Lee announced that they had been dropped from the label while applying clown makeup with the caption “naming your tour Resilient Little Tour before your label dropped you,” leading to hundreds of comments from supportive fans. Despite the setback, MisterWives kept writing and recording during this time, releasing their first independent single, “Stepped on a Bee” in December 2021. To their surprise, the single not only received immense support from fans, but also from streaming services in the form of playlist placement.
@misterwives resilient little clown
