Nearly everyone who discovered Sleigh Bells on music blogs in 2010 knew the legend behind the duo’s formation well before they discovered the source of the sample on “Rill Rill”: that pop vocalist Alexis Krauss and hardcore guitarist Derek Miller were united on the spot by Krauss’ mother over dinner while Miller waited their table. Of course that storyline got increasingly buried as the band’s star rose with the help of four LPs that each carried the momentous contrasts of their breakout debut, Treats. Which may be why Krauss and Miller are busting the storyline out again on their newest single, “Wanna Start a Band?”
The explosive pop headbanger arrives four years after the band’s last album, Texis, reaching into the future with its elements of hyperpop as much as it references the past for its source material. “In 2008 while eating at a restaurant in Brooklyn with my mom, our server, Derek, wasted very little time asking me, essentially, ‘Wanna Start A Band?’” Krauss recounted in a press release. “Hard to believe that almost 17 years later we are still hyped and obsessively making records together. Derek started messing with the riff for this song around 2014—it needed a lot of work but a spark was there. We had a band by then but didn’t know how long it would last. For us, this song is a reminder of how we started but it’s also the first part of a new story we want to tell—more on that very soon!”
This new chapter will continue over the summer as the duo embarks on a North American tour. Check out the new single and the tour poster below.
