Hitting a stride

“Catchy” is a word often used to describe Generationals’ music. The New Orleans-based duo met at LSU, and has produced plenty of peppy, airy hooks on their two previous albums, garnering inclusion on major movie soundtracks, HBO’s Girls and more. With a recent move to Polyvinyl Records, home to Japandroids, Deerhoof and others, Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer release their latest full-length album Heza this month. 


Early reviews have been positive, noting how they’ve carefully reshaped their sound without losing the familiarly tight pop structures.
”We’ve just gotten better at not fidgeting too much, not trying to force a big hook everywhere,” Widmer says. “Hooks can be in little things like phrasing, a simple beat compressed the right way. It doesn’t need to be a big banging chorus to be a hook. Only took us maybe 10 years to figure that out.”


Generationals take the stage at Mud and Water April 11 before heading up the East Coast, bringing along Lafayette band Brass Bed for several shows. generationals.com


While Generationals’ music has found its place on the national scene, the band still keeps it local. Baton Rouge native Daniel Black, who the band has worked with for years, produced the album in his Washington, D.C., studio and in Austin, Texas. Scott Campbell, a New Orleans-based designer, created the album cover (left).


Check out the video for “Put A Light On” from Heza below: