Ground Control Touring

When NYC-based experimental dance punks Guerilla Toss, active since time immemorial aka 2011, were in Vermont recording their new full-length album You’re Weird Now, frontwoman Kassie Carlson would prepare what she called ‘punk lunch’: a communal meal made by raiding the studio fridge for whatever was left and assembling a sandwich from the most random ingredients imaginable.

Regularly joining punk lunch were two legends from their own corners of the weird music world: Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, The Jicks) and Trey Anastasio, Phish guitarist and owner of The Barn; the recording studio where Guerilla Toss were making You’re Weird Now, with Malkmus in the producer’s seat. Engineer Bryce Goggin, who has worked with Malkmus since Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and Ben Collette, Phish’s longtime engineer at The Barn, were also part of the crew.

While the idea of the guy from Phish and the guy from Pavement sitting around with Guerilla Toss, congenially assembling sandwiches from random foodstuffs dug up from the depths of a studio fridge, might seem absurd, it also makes total sense. Because really, if there’s any band that serves as the natural bridge between slacker punks who saw Pavement way before you did, wild-eyed wooks who’ve seen Phish more times than you ever will, and even the eccentrics in ’90s drip following former GT tourmates Primus—it’s Guerilla Toss. A band so imaginative and unapologetically themselves, they’re basically the real-life manifestation of a utopian, post-snob world where all musical ideas are worthy of expression and everyone is welcome.

You’re Weird Now powers this message. Guerilla Toss’ fifth album and second for Sub Pop is a hugely creative and joyful statement about the joy of creativity. With You’re Weird Now Guerilla Toss reclaim the word “weird” for everyone brave enough to let their freak flag fly and stay true to their artistic vision no matter what—a way riskier act than it’s ever given credit for, and one that requires a certain amount of serene self-confidence that it takes time and effort to cultivate and sustain.

Serene self-confidence defines You’re Weird Now. In many ways, it’s Guerilla Toss at their most quintessential. The energy is still high, but there’s a new clarity behind it, with each musical choice crafted for maximum impact. Drummer Peter Negroponte half-jokingly calls the album “Guerilla Toss’s Greatest Hits that didn’t exist until now”, and honestly, it rings true. “As a band, we’re always trying to reinvent ourselves,’ he says. “But with this record, instead of asking what we haven’t tried, because we’ve done a lot of crazy stuff, we asked, what have we done that’s the strongest? And how can we build on that? Let’s dig into our own musical history and try to make the best parts even better.”

The record opens with ‘Krystal Ball,’ a charging, feel-good pop anthem featuring an industrial breakdown and a boingy-sproingy hook so catchy, it feels impossible you haven’t already lost your mind to it at some DIY festival, shouting along with Carlson as she declares, ‘I’m so sorry! I came to party!’ Next comes ‘Psychosis Is Just a Number,’ a no wave, skronk anthem about staying present in the chaos, giving post-punk Pylon meets The Contortions, and a healthy obsession with the No New York Compilation produced by Brian Eno. A standout moment arrives with ‘Red Flag to Angry Bull,’ which builds to a campfire sing-along-worthy outro featuring Malkmus and Carlson duetting over a chatty, classically Phish-y (there’s really no better word for it) solo from Anastasio. The band notes that the humble Anastasio was both shocked and honored when asked to contribute, proof that even music legends can feel like outsiders deep into their careers. The resulting cacophony of voices is triumphant and joyful, underscoring music’s power as a mode of expression and connection—communication at its purest and most free-flowing.

If it’s trendy now for rock-adjacent bands to add ambient, electronic, bubblegum, jungle, and dance elements into their music, it’s worth remembering that Guerilla Toss has been doing the genreless thing from the start, and they’re still doing it on You’re Weird Now, an impeccably stacked “14-layer cake” of musical ideas, to quote Carlson. Take the ice-cream-for-breakfast sugar rush of “Life’s a Zoo,” a breathless song about overstimulation that itself gleefully overstimulates by cramming a million sonic hairpins into its snappy run-time, everything sewn together with a zippy chiptune hook that’ll pixelate your brain. Negroponte notes that the song has so many disparate influences that Malkmus mentioned the impossibility of pinpointing a single one. “That’s winning,” he says proudly.

Malkmus’ laid back production style allowed GT the space to trust their own instincts, a lesson that Carlson found very meaningful. “His incredibly relatable down to earth approach to music and trusting yourself as an artist had a massive effect on this album and myself as a musician,” she says. “Working with Malkmus, Bryce Goggin, Trey Anastasio, touring with Primus—all of that made me realize that what I’m doing is not wrong. The work is clear, important, and necessary. It’s not always easy or clear in direction or purpose, but creating, making, performing music is vital to my life, and a healthy earth.”

“These people have been doing this forever, and they’ve internalized that they are musicians and their artistic choices are right for them and they believe in them,” she continues. “It’s really just realness and being true to yourself—whatever that means for you.”

The band hopes the message of You’re Weird Now will resonate not only with music heads but anyone who struggles with feeling weird in a world where it will always be hard to be different. At the end of the day, it’s all about the spirit of punk lunch: there’s room for everyone because music is for everyone. “Everyone loves and appreciates music,” says Carlson. “If you don’t like music, you’re kind of an asshole.” That’s not weird—that’s just true.