In the present day, Seattle’s self-described Northwest Emo band Pet Toes premiere the primary two singles from their upcoming full-length. Am I writing about these songs due to the band identify? After all I’m. It was the identify that grabbed my consideration: Pet Toes. Cute. Disarmingly candy. Generally, they scent like Fritos. And as artists proceed to wade by the backwash of respectable (or no less than attention-grabbing) band names, it is uncommon to see a reputation that evokes confidence. Pet Toes stood out in my inbox simply sufficient to make me click on and hope for a candy escape.
I had seen Pet Toes’s identify earlier than. The band—Johannes Heine, Greg Hermann, Chris Moore, Jared Auwarter—performed round city within the 2020s and launched a handful of singles and EPs between 2021-2023. Then they went quiet, as many bands do. I assumed they had been completed.
So did they.
In an e-mail asserting their new materials, the band wrote, “This album is our first, but it surely feels just like the story of a reunion. 4 individuals who thought they’d left music behind after the pandemic—buying and selling it for jobs, homes, and routines—discovered their approach again to it collectively.”

They bring about that renewed love of music—and making music collectively—into their new self-titled album, due out Could 23. It is considerably of an ode to the songs that made them need to make music within the first place, recorded on the historic Corridor of Justice in Ballard.
The primary single, “Deal with Line 2” is straight out of the early Weezer playbook. “The album displays the place we’ve been and the music we would have saved making in our twenties, reconnecting with outdated inspirations and new concepts,” they are saying. “‘Deal with Line 2’ is impressed by the bands we grew up on, with huge choruses and a dynamic, emotional bridge.”
“8 Days a Week” is on the opposite finish of the indie rock spectrum—a 68-second anthem for fuck-ups. The lyrics doc a litany of private failures whereas pummeling percussion and gang vocals underscore the painfully relatable one-liner, “I’m one fuck up away from shedding all of it!!” It’s an invite to embrace your errors, a enjoyable music to blast into your headphones and loudly sing alongside to. As a result of we’re all one fuck up away from shedding all of it, tbh! (I’m additionally a sucker for a well-placed “Woo!” in an indie rock or punk music a la Refused’s “New Noise,” Get Up Children’ “Near House,” The Anniversary’s “The Coronary heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” and this music delivers.)
To mark Pet Toes’s return, I requested them a number of questions concerning the upcoming album, what it was like recording within the legendary Corridor of Justice, and canines.
Because you’re all transplants, I’ve to ask—the Seattle Freeze: Actual or bullshit?
The freeze solely exists in winter—Seattle individuals are nice within the summertime!
I hear huge guitar-driven indie and energy pop like early Weezer and Get Up Children in “Deal with Line 2,” after which “8 Days a Week” sounds extra up to date—I hear Pup, I hear Jeff Rosenstock. Is the entire report a back-and-forth of eras like that?
The album does have this back-and-forth between traditional indie/emo and extra trendy punk/alt-rock sounds. “Deal with Line 2” was really a little bit of an outlier for us in that regard. That observe went by a whole lot of revisions and tempo adjustments earlier than we lastly landed on the driving, guitar-centric model you hear. We initially had extra uptempo power-pop, however in the end felt slowing it down and layering the guitars gave it a much bigger, extra Weezer-y sound. “8 Days a Week” was written across the guitar hook in the course of the music. We’ve got a operating joke about songs being too lengthy and determined to do one thing about it! As with lots of the songs, it has a enjoyable tone that’s really fairly miserable whenever you dive into the lyrics.
You recorded your new album on the Corridor of Justice in Ballard. That constructing has been a recording studio for the reason that 70s—a lot music has been made there! What are your all-time favourite information to ever be recorded there? (One per particular person, I am making it powerful!)
The Corridor of Justice is such an iconic studio—a lot unimaginable music has come out of these partitions over the a long time. It’s additionally surprisingly tiny, actually only one dwell room and a console. Throughout our recording classes vacationers would cease by to take a look at the area, together with one group from France who had been there to see the place Nirvana and Soundgarden recorded their early work. As for favorites…
Johannes: Constructed to Spill, There’s Nothing Improper with Love. This album was my go-to after my first critical breakup. It was so uncooked and pure, hitting superbly crafted hooks and hard-hitting musical breaks. An enormous inspiration for me and a report I maintain very near my coronary heart.
Greg: Demise Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism was the soundtrack to my most youth, arriving at precisely the second I wanted it. It is an ideal mixture of songwriting and storytelling that has at all times stayed with me. Additionally, whereas recording at Corridor of Justice, we had the chance to make use of the identical tape machine used on the album, so it was a significant strategy to join our music to a report that formed me.
Chris: Postal Service’s Give Up. This needs to be probably the greatest indie-emo-pop albums ever created! Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis’s voices are so easy on prime of the indie synths from Jimmy Tamborello.
Jared: Mine can also be Postal Service. I do know it wasn’t fully recorded on the Corridor, but it surely’s so good and totally different for its time!
With a reputation like Pet Toes, I am gonna assume no less than one in all you has a canine. Can I see some canine pics?
Sure! A few of us have canines right here in Seattle!

