Brooklyn experimenters Grumpy are tearing down expectations of gender and genre

There’s a standout track on Grumpy’s new album ‘Unfindable Ring’, called ‘Twenty Five’, on which songwriter Heaven Schmitt imagines for a minute that time travel is real. “The concept for that song came up at home,” he says, speaking on Zoom alongside Grumpy bassist and his girlfriend, Ellie Long (synthesist Anya Good and guitarist Diego Clare also join from their respective homes). “Ellie and I were talking about being trans, and Ellie said that if she had the opportunity, she would go back in time and transition at a younger age. And I initially had such a selfish thought about that – I was like, ‘Oh my god, but what if then we don’t meet?’” The song ended up being, in part, a plea from Schmitt to Long to come and find him when she makes it back to the present day; but also – time travel or not – a sweet ode to trans love. “I love watching you as you’re changing”, Schmitt sings. The acceptance of change and fluidity that is essential to the trans experience is ever-present in Grumpy’s music. Lyrically, it’s all over ‘Unfindable Ring’ – in the jubilant songs that celebrate a love that changes shape (‘Twenty Five’, ‘OBL’), and the sadder ones that work their way to acceptance that some love can’t last (‘Football Tour’, ‘Cool Ranch’). It’s also there musically – the way that they liberally smash together electronica, alt-rock and folk, and the way that each subsequent release pushes the now-six-piece (completed by keyboardist Lane Rodges and drummer Austin Arnold, absent from our call) deeper into collaboration and exploration. For Grumpy – of whom all except for Arnold are trans – experimenting with gender and genre go hand-in-hand. “I think being trans, you have to get so creative with how you live your life. There’s not a prescribed blueprint, and I think that expands your boundaries in music and art too. You have to train yourself to really trust yourself,” says Schmitt. “And being OK with just tearing down any expectations of what things are supposed to be,” Long adds. “Which I think the best music comes from, and the best genders come from.” Grumpy initially began as a solo project of Schmitt’s. Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, he studied songwriting at Belmont University in Nashville, a sort of unofficial feeder school for the music industry. After getting burnt out by that, he quit music and worked at a marketing agency for a year after graduation. But eventually he started writing again, without any thoughts of making it a career, resulting in the 2020 album ‘Loser’. “That was very eye-opening: [by] having fun, I was making the best stuff I’d ever made,” he says. At this point, Schmitt still identified as cisgender, and he was married to drummer Arnold. Over the course of Grumpy’s evolution, he began to realise that he was queer, and then that he was non-binary and trans. He and Arnold divorced, but Arnold remained in the band. Schmitt has also previously dated Good and Rodges; the only member of the band he hasn’t been romantically involved with is Clare. Schmitt chuckles a little when this is brought up. “I think the fact that I’ve dated everyone but Diego sounds like a lot of drama, but really it just results in us being a real family. Everyone in this band knows me very intimately, the good and the bad. [And] that intimacy can result in bickering, but also results in a deep comfort, and respect, and love, and belief in each other. “I’m someone who’s very comfortable with love changing shape,” he continues. “It’s something I said to Ellie in our early relationship – I’m like, ‘This is my track record. The closest people in my life are my exes; I’m not ever gonna punish you for needing this love to be a different shape.’”Recommended While Grumpy has been collecting its collaborators one by one over the years, ‘Unfindable Ring’ is the proper full-band debut. They recorded at Arnold’s studio in Brooklyn, each writing parts as they went and taking turns in the producer’s chair. “The six of us were present for every moment of making this album – all in this small, damp, stinky room with not enough chairs,” Schmitt says. “This album is very much what I always wanted for Grumpy, which was to be this big band [where] everyone is vital to making the songs what they are.” They pushed themselves to make their intimacy audible, moving away from the bedroom-pop insularity of their prior EPs, toward warmer, more tactile sounds and more celebratory, traditionally structured songs. “There’s not a prescribed blueprint [for being trans], and I think that expands your boundaries in music and art too” – Heaven Schmitt Still, there are plenty of fun twists across the album: the AutoTune and vocal processing on tracks like ‘Yr Bitch’ and ‘WTF’, the piano balladry of ‘Queens’, the heavy grunge guitars of ‘Twenty Five’. Often, Good would sit with headphones on as the rest of the band tracked, creating a synth soundscape without hearing all the other instruments, just to see what surprises she’d come up with. “It feels like there was pressure to have created a more distinctive sound as a band, and I think we wanna push up against that,” Clare offers. “A lot of our favourite projects are eclectic artists who make a pretty wide range of work, and we wanted to feel free to do that.” “The most fun thing is listening to what the song wants,” Good adds. “We were six people listening really close and being like, ‘What exactly does this song wanna be shaped like?’” Amid this diversity, the throughline is Schmitt’s lyrical voice, which is consistently both funny and intensely honest. “I’m [always] looking for like, where’s the laugh in this? How can I reveal myself and embarrass myself?” he says. For the last few years, Schmitt has kept busy as a favoured backing vocalist of the country-pop superstar Zach Bryan. He got connected with Bryan, who he describes as “a real music discovery guy”, through an old college pal; Schmitt went on to sing backing vocals on Bryan’s latest album, ‘With Heaven On Top’ (the title an accidentally poetic phrase that Bryan once used while talking about Schmitt’s harmonies), and both he and Long have been touring stadiums as part of his 23-piece live band. Grumpy. Credit: Michael Tyrone Delaney “I really relate to how he operates as a bandleader. I think Zach and I are really similar in that we don’t have very much technical know-how, but we have really strong gut instincts,” Schmitt says. “All 23 members of his band have the right attitude and are kind, collaborative people; he picks people that he can trust, and then just lets them fly. It was a good affirmation in how I approach Grumpy. “But I think what it will affect [the most] is thinking about what I wanna do and experience on stage,” he continues. “Basically, I just wanna rock harder.” Grumpy will be getting the opportunity to test that out going into 2027; they want to do as much touring “as humanly possible,” says Schmitt. ‘Unfindable Ring’ seems made for euphoric live performances, and it’s touching to imagine a crowd of trans and queer fans, feeling the same freedom, love and joy with which the songs were created. It sounds like an arrival, but not a final destination; a promise of more evolution to come. Grumpy’s ‘Unfindable Ring’ is out on October 23 via Bayonet Records.