CREATIVE DIRECTION & WORDS Tori West
PHOTOGRAPHY Jasmine Engel-Malone
MUA Callie Foulsham
HAIR Kornelija Cecetaite
ILLUSTRATIONS Kamila Mlynarczyk
While discussing this year’s best album releases, whether amongst music insiders, critics, or waffling through a first date, Wednesday inevitably comes up. Bleeds, the band’s sixth album, is one of 2025’s undeniable alternative-rock standouts, and everyone seems to be in agreement.
Fronted by 28-year-old Karly Hartzman, alongside bandmates Xandy Chelmis (lap steel, pedal steel), Alan Miller (drums), Ethan Baechtold (bass, piano), and Jake “MJ” Lenderman (guitar), Wednesday have been steadily building their reputation as one of the most exciting alternative rock bands. Released in September, Bleeds has already received praise from fans and critics alike, with The Guardian calling it “the year’s best alt-rock album”, and receiving a reputable 8.7 from Pitchfork. It follows Rat Saw God, the 2023 record that catapulted the band onto the global stage and landed on multiple best-albums lists, thanks to Hartzman’s heart-wrenching semi-autobiographical storytelling.
Hartzman has previously claimed she often cares more about her songs than she cares about herself; she wears her heart not just on her sleeve, but in every lyric. “There’s not really anything too painful for me to describe in a song,” she assures over a Zoom call after completing the first leg of the band’s Bleeds tour.
Her songwriting is raw and startlingly articulate, filtering everyday tragedies, heartbreak, and personal trauma through a lens that feels both intimate, yet universally relatable. While her songs often draw from deeply personal and unique stories, she’s still surprised by how many people see themselves in them: “It doesn’t matter where we go, people somehow connect with aspects of what I’m writing in some way.” She admits there was a time when she wrote with the audience in mind, but soon realised, “In a way, it’s easier to connect with something niche than something really general. The most fulfilling thing you can do is write for yourself, unless it’s a love song. That one’s for someone else.”
It doesn’t matter where we go, people somehow connect with aspects of what I’m writing in some way. In a way, it’s easier to connect with something niche than something really general. The most fulfilling thing you can do is write for yourself, unless it’s a love song. That one’s for someone else.
I can’t help but wonder if translating her own life into song ever takes an emotional toll, or if it’s ever led her to wrestle with separating Karly from Wednesday – a conflict that often shadows anyone who turns their creative inner world into their day job. “I’m still kind of figuring out how to do that. I think that’s going to be like a lifelong journey,” she reveals.
Yet, beyond the band’s success, Hartzman is remarkably grounded. “I feel really lucky that I don’t make music under my name, because I think that it would be harder, much harder, to not assign some sort of unparsable distinction between the two,” she says. “The band and myself are inherently separate, because it’s five people and I’m just one. But I mean, it does get complicated sometimes… I still haven’t quite figured that out.”
You might expect complications – after all, Bleeds is Wednesday’s first release since the end of her six-year relationship with the band’s guitarist, MJ Lenderman, but if you’re expecting a dramatic breakup album, think again. Back in August, after Wednesday already announced that Lenderman would no longer tour with the band and only contribute to studio recordings, Hartzman surprised fans by joining her ex-boyfriend on stage during his sold-out solo show at London’s Roundhouse. ”One of my deepest connections in my life is with him,” she shares. “It just seems like an utter waste to lose someone completely just because you’re not dating, especially if they were your best friend for that long. The way he contributes to Wednesday’s music, and the way I’ll just always be a fan of his, it would just be a waste if we weren’t still hanging out.”
It just seems like an utter waste to lose someone completely just because you’re not dating, especially if they were your best friend for that long. The way [MJ Lenderman] contributes to Wednesday’s music, and the way I’ll just always be a fan of his, it would just be a waste if we weren’t still hanging out.
As someone who’s never quite mastered the art of seeing eye-to-eye with their exes and the chaotic destruction of heartbreak, I find her empathy, understanding and compassion genuinely admirable. “Everything good about myself is from my mom,” she affirms. Her mother, a social worker for teen moms, perhaps helped her inherit such traits, but she’s also one of Hartzman’s biggest supporters. She insists her mom isn’t some overbearing “stage mom.” Laughing, she tells me a story about how her mom recently grabbed a brew at a local coffee shop where they were playing Wednesday through the cafe speakers, so she proudly thanked the server for playing her daughter’s album by screaming excitedly at them. “She sends little emails to the people that are writing about the album being like, ‘oh my goodness, thank you so much for supporting my daughter’s work’. Everything she does is so intentional and sweet, I don’t know how she has room for that after the work that she does.”
While Bleeds certainly brushes across themes of love and loss, you’d also be mistaken to think it solely followed the breakdown of her and MJ Lenderman’s romantic relationship, most of the tracks were written before the break up. Ultimately, it’s a gritty heartfelt ode to the debauchery of her hometown of Ashville, in North Carolina. It’s a tale of hope, while also serving as a tender love letter to the misfits she met along the way.
Hartzman is a Carolina girl through and through – even while traveling, the state never quite lets her go: ”When I first came to the UK, it was really shocking, because it’s kind of like home.” While walking with her through Brixton on the way to Brockwell park for her BRICKS cover shoot, a passerby stopped us, drawn in by her “Carolina Girl” tramp stamp, which happened to be his old stomping ground too. Later, our cover shoot’s hairstylist Korn, mentioned her partner was from the same small Carolina town, and the two spent part of the shoot swapping stories about the local high schools. Carolina, it seems, is always in her orbit – no matter how far she roams.
Everything good about myself is from my mom… She sends little emails to the people that are writing about the album being like, ‘oh my goodness, thank you so much for supporting my daughter’s work’.
Having never been, it felt only right to ask her where we should take someone to experience the true grit of her stomping ground. “I feel the reason I love North Carolina is mostly because it’s where I’m from, and the things that are beautiful to me are given to me through my lifelong connection to the place. Outside of my deep connection to it, nothing is that dazzling really. But maybe the rodeo, the Appalachian Rodeo on the Fourth of July.”
As the band (minus Lenderman for the band’s new guitarist Jake Pugh, AKA Spyder) prepares to pack their bags to leave Carolina once more for the second leg of the tour, the self-confessed “workaholic” is already thinking about what’s next post-Bleeds. “I probably have three or so ideas for different musical projects,” she teases. “I really want to do another cover album. Thinking of our song “Wasp”, I really want to do a record that’s fully that sound. I don’t know if that’s a Wednesday record or something else – maybe not exactly a solo project under my name, but just something really sonically experimental, just to get out some creativity.”
From an outside perspective, Hartzman needs no help with releasing her creativity – on Bleeds, the Asheville-based singer-songwriter has shed her sound to its sharpest edge yet.
Wednesday’s Bleeds is out now, and is playing a trio of UK dates in February, 2026.
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