BODEGA Share New Single ‘Weather Me’

BODEGA | Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana  

Today, NYC quintet BODEGA return with another standout from their upcoming fourth album, All Inside Aquarium (out October 9th on Chrysalis), in the form of the irresistible and immediate ‘Weather Me’.

The band's vocalist and percussionist Nikki Belfiglio had the following to say about their new single: "This is a track about living in an information kaleidoscope full of everyday grievances alongside very real problems. If you don’t know who or what to prioritize, this kaleidoscope can fracture your everyday existence. You must stand strong and weather the current."

All Inside Aquarium is available for pre-order, with a Dinked exclusive featuring 7” single and Cloudy Blue vinyl, along with a limited Bandcamp exclusive edition featuring hand-painted alt artwork from Nikki.

Pre-order All Inside Aquarium
Purchase ‘Weather Me’ 7” single

In addition today, BODEGA guitarist/vocalist Ben Hozie has announced his fourth feature full-length film, ‘Jack London Calling’. The punk rock rom com will begin shooting in Brooklyn later in August. A GoFundMe has been launched to assist in initial production costs. The film’s stars include Katie Alice Greer (of the band Priests) as Sue, Peter Vack (‘Mozart in the Jungle’) as Matthew, Vram Kherlopian (of the band Gustaf) as Jones, Tarra Thiessen (of the bands Gustaf/Tea Eater) and Nikki Belfiglio (of BODEGA), amongst others.  Hozie wrote and directed 2020’s ‘PVT Chat,’ starring Julia Fox (‘Uncut Gems’/’Him’) and Peter Vack.

BODEGA recently previewed the album in their hometown, with a performance last month at Central Park Summerstage with Spoon and Ratboys, and will follow this with a headline set, August 19 at Elsewhere Rooftop in Brooklyn, before a September tour of Spain, plus a sold out London and Paris performances. Today the band also announce further November UK dates, with more in the works.

Watch + share ‘Weather Me’ via YouTube

“I never thought of us as a post-punk band,” stresses Hozie. “I just thought of us as a conceptual rock band.” This might come as a surprise to those who’ve been following the band over the last several years. BODEGA’s previous albums — 2018’s Endless Scroll, 2022’s Broken Equipment, and 2024’s Our Brand Could Be Your Life — drew well-earned comparisons to post-punk icons like Talking Heads, the B-52s, Devo, and Sonic Youth. “Post-punk is conceptual punk, so that lent itself to our thing early on,” says Hozie, “but at the end of the day, it’s about our songwriting.”

With All Inside Aquarium, BODEGA stray further from their perceived post-punk origins. The group’s goal was, “Let's go back to melodic tunes, let's be more of a proper rock band,” Hozie explains. Sonically, the band aimed for “this late ‘80s/early ‘90s Stone Roses-meets-Jane’s Addiction thing, with more riffing and guitar solos.”

The latter, in particular, were a major influence (Jane’s Addiction have been Hozie’s favourite band since high school), and there is indeed a palpable “Lollapalooza ‘91 Main Stage” vibe to the proceedings. “We were aiming at something larger, warmer, watery, and metaphysical, inspired by the optimistic alt rock of our half-remembered youth,” he notes.

“The way that we listen to music is so eclectic, and that’s how we approached this album too,” says Belfiglio. “You can have a hardcore song next to a folk song, because there’s no punks on the corner waiting to beat you up.” To wit, the album includes BODEGA’s radical reinvention of Bob Dylan’s ‘Slow Train,’ the title track from his unfairly maligned 1979 album of the same name. Hozie cites the glammy, Navarro-esque solo on that track as one of his favourite moments on the album.

Where BODEGA’s previous LPs were largely recorded piecemeal, with the band members rarely in the same room, the group spent a month and a half in the UK working with producer Matt Peel (Yard Act, Eagulls) at the Nave, his studio set up in a deconsecrated church in Leeds (also featured in the album’s artwork). They played live, successfully capturing the energy of their shows in a way that previous albums hadn’t quite nailed. The album was then mixed in Brighton with Theo Verney (English Teacher, Lime Garden).

Where the band’s earlier material took a more explicitly sociopolitical bent, Hozie and Belfiglio’s writing on All Inside Aquarium is deliberately less didactic and more concerned with poetics.

For Hozie, “If there's one thesis song, it would be ‘Literary World.’ It’s kind of a playful tune, but it's really about how what we're lacking is not political consciousness - because one of the most amazing things post-2016 is that the whole world has developed a political consciousness - but literary or poetic consciousness. A literary perspective is an empathetic one, because if you're a novelist, you have to understand the thinking of all of your characters, even if they're the most egregious people.” The album’s first single, ‘Pick up the Check,’ exemplifies this approach.

BODEGA’s newfound focus on poetics also resulted in some of the most personal material to date. “I had this epiphany that on earlier LP’s, I thought of my rock tunes and my ballads as two separate categories. I realized that I mostly only delved into personal material on ballads,” Hozie says, “So I was like, ‘Why couldn't I write something emotionally direct and personal in a fast rock song?’"

Sonics aside, such a perspective is truly post-punk. Because this is what it looks like to grow beyond the righteous rage of youthful punk: An embrace of maturity, a sense of personal and interpersonal accountability, creative ambition, an open mind, an open heart, and the readiness to reinvent. That’s what All Inside Aquarium is all about.

Catch BODEGA live:
(Tickets)

19/08 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere Rooftop
04/09 – Tenerife, ES @ Phe Festival
05/09 – Miranda de Ebro, ES @ Ebrovisión Festival
07/09 – Madrid, ES @ El Sol
08/09 – Valencia, ES @ 16 Toneladas
09/09 – Barcelona, ES @ Upload
10/09 – Zaragoza, ES @ La Lata de Bombillas
11/09 – Donostia, ES @ Boga Boga Festival
13/09 – Asten-Heusden, NL @ Misty Fields Festival
15/09 – London, UK @ 100 Club [SOLD OUT]
16/09 – Paris, FR @ Pop Up! [SOLD OUT]
19/11 – Glasgow, UK @ Mono
20/11 – North Shields, UK @ King Street Social Club
21/11 – Manchester, UK @ The Abbey
22/11 – Manchester, UK @ The Abbey
24/11 – Bristol, UK @ Electric Bristol
25/11 – London, UK @ The Garage
26/11 – Leeds, UK @ Irish Centre
27/11 – Birkenhead, UK @ Future Yard

BODEGA
All Inside Aquarium
Out October 9th on Chrysalis Records
Pre-Order

01. All Inside Aquarium
02. Weather Me
03. Literary World
04. Astro Night Ride
05. Pick up the Check
06. Oxygen
07. Fear not the Fear
08. Slow Train
09. Combustible
10. Pile Driver
11. Backbeaten
12. Olivia

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