Following the release of his debut LP as GIRL SKIN, Sid Simons revealed his sophomore collection of songs would be put out under his own name last month when his forthcoming LP Beneath the Brightest Smiles was announced. Along with the news came the record’s bouncy first single, “Wendy,” which takes a much more metropolitan turn from Simons’ previous record. Additionally recalling the tight jams The Strokes were turning out in their early years (thanks in part to Is This It and Room on Fire producer Gordon Raphael working on Beneath the Brightest Smiles) with a considerably more upbeat energy, the single presents itself as a plea to a distracted lover. Well, not quite.
“This song is about a GPS,” Simons clarifies. “An old GPS that I was given by a relative for a road trip. On the GPS you could select different voices that came with it and we chose the voice of Wendy. Our Wendy GPS ended up being a disaster and malfunctioned every other hour, trying to send us off into a lake or drive us off a bridge. Wendy even told us she loved us at one point. It was a bit of a love/hate relationship.”
Today, Simons revisits the track with a brand new black-and-white music video in which (in spite of the change to a solo moniker) a full band complete with backup singers rips through the track in a tight studio space. While the subject of the song never makes a cameo in the visual, Simons clarifies that she’s still in his life: “I still have Wendy buried in my closet somewhere. May need her for the next tour, who knows.”
Watch the video below, and expect Beneath the Brightest Smiles to arrive June 23 via Jullian Records.
