Hamilton Leithauser has always had the voice of a man who’s read a lot of Camus and yelled at a jukebox about it. But these days, he’s less into existential howling and more into making grooves that make his kids stop complaining in the car.
Back with This Side of the Island, his first solo album in five years, Leithauser is in a different mode. “I always have stuff on the back burner,” he says. “Some of these songs I just couldn’t let go. I was married to them, which is sometimes a bad idea.”
Leithauser, speaking from his childhood home in D.C.—yes, the very house he grew up in—is clearly in a reflective mood. He credits his daughters for pushing him into pop territory. “They make me listen to pop music exclusively when we’re in the car,” he laughs. “Used to be Taylor Swift. Now it’s Charli XCX and Chappell Roan.”
If his daughters are the uncredited A&R department, his wife, along with producer Aaron Dessner, were the final polish. “My wife’s never really been involved before, but this time I just wore her down,” he says, adding that Dessner “made it sound much more modern… just gave me a last burst of energy to finish it.”
The result? A record that makes you want to air drum like an idiot.
Even with the new pop sheen, Hamilton hasn’t given up his lyrical precision. The album’s first single, “Knocking Hearts,” is described as “an estranged, stoned lover on their way home who is dying to get a message through to someone who is probably not listening.”
“It’s fiction, but it’s based on real life,” he explains. “I’m a happily married man, but a love song doesn’t always have to be about a person. It could be about a bottle of booze. Or a place."
Still, there’s a thread of grown-up sentimentality throughout the record, especially in the track “What Do I Think,” where he sings, “The kids today, they got everything wrong.” It’s a line he delivers with both deadpan humor and weary sincerity. “Every generation says that about the one coming next,” he smirks. “I thought it was a good time to say it. And then just not explain it.”
But lest anyone mistake him for a grump, Leithauser is quick to point out that this album has a bounce to it. “It’s funkier and groovier. There’s more space in the bass playing and the drums, and I was really proud of my drum tone,” he says.
If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see him play it live at New York’s famed Café Carlyle, where he’s doing a full-month residency this year—his seventh time, but who’s counting. “It’s a very tiring show,” he says. “But the room makes it worth it. We play a rock show, not standards. It works surprisingly well.”
Of course, the elephant in the room is The Walkmen reunion, which quietly wrapped after a longer-than-expected run. “It was supposed to be five shows,” he says. “Then it just kept going. It was fun. But I was ready when it ended.”
So, no new Walkmen album on the horizon?
“Not gonna happen,” he says, without hesitation. Sounds very definitive.
“It is.”
Leithauser’s done with nostalgia, at least for now. And if This Side of the Island is any indication, he’s traded in the raw edge of his past for something that grooves, that breathes, and occasionally—even makes the kids in the backseat stop asking, “Can we put on something good?”
And that, for any aging indie-rock dad, is the real Grammy.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
