SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
When you're a band from the tiny Isle of Wight - that's an island off the southern coast of England - you don't expect much from your first single. But three years ago, the duo known as Wet Leg released this song, and it led to instant international popularity.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHAISE LONGUE")
WET LEG: (Singing) Hey, you, over there on the chaise longue in your underwear, what are you doing sitting down? You should be horizontal now.
MCCAMMON: Their rhythms were propulsive. Their lyrics were snarky. The song "Chaise Longue" got Wet Leg invited to play at massive festivals. So they scrambled to write a whole album.
RHIAN TEASDALE: The first album came as such a surprise that a lot of the songs were kind of, like, fresh to learning that we had the opportunity.
MCCAMMON: That's singer Rhian Teasdale. She and her bandmate Hester Chambers went on to win two Grammy Awards for that debut. But how do you follow a start like that? Wet Leg just released album No. 2. It's called "Moisturizer."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CPR")
WET LEG: (Singing) Hello, 999. What's your emergency? Well, the thing is, I, I, I, I, I - I'm in love.
MCCAMMON: Teasdale says that while there's still plenty of the same playful attitude here, their new music reveals a softer side.
TEASDALE: For the most part, the album is an album of love songs. And I think when you're writing love songs, you're giving a lot more of yourself away, I suppose, because, you know, to be in love is, you know, a very intimate feeling between you and another person.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POKEMON")
WET LEG: (Singing) Your kiss is all I'll ever need. You taste so sweet like grenadine. You are my favorite human being. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
MCCAMMON: How hard is it to be in love, be in a relationship and be on the road as much as a band like yours is and will be?
TEASDALE: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? Luckily, my partner is also an artist, and so we'd always kind of, like, find inventive ways to hang out and to be in the same part of the world at the same time (laughter). So it's good. It's romantic, yeah.
MCCAMMON: To be clear, Wet Leg hasn't gone completely sappy. Their first album featured a lot of funny, cynical takes on life as a young woman, and there's plenty of that here, too. The song "Mangetout" is a withering takedown of some poor schmuck.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MANGETOUT")
WET LEG: (Singing) Good job, give you an A. A golden star, you think you're clever. Good God, she took a break, made a mistake when she made Trevor.
MCCAMMON: Well, some of the lyrics are kind of brutal. Good God, she took a break, made a mistake when she made Trevor. I don't know what Trevor did...
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAMMON: ...But it must not have been good.
TEASDALE: Yeah, Trevor's just all of them. It's not one person. I'm sure there's a lot of people, but when they hear that song, will think it's a personal dig at them. But it's really - it's not personal. There's so many Trevors in the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MANGETOUT")
WET LEG: (Singing) You're in our way. Get lost forever.
MCCAMMON: Now, as you can tell, when Rhian Teasdale isn't threatening Trevor, she's a pretty soft-spoken person. Her bandmate Hester Chambers, she's even more media shy. Hester declined an interview with The New York Times, and in a photo shoot with The Guardian, she hid her face and would only answer questions by email. So for this story, we only asked to talk to Rhian. We could kind of read the room.
TEASDALE: I think that's badass. Like, it's so powerful to say, like, no, I'm not going to do that. This is my boundary. I'm not going to be, like, you know, like, smiling, pretty little spokesperson. And it's like it drives people insane. It's so funny.
MCCAMMON: Does it ever drive you insane because doesn't it mean that you have to be the one out front?
TEASDALE: No, 'cause, like, I just want her to be happy. I just want us both to be able to set boundaries and take up whatever space we want to take up.
MCCAMMON: Rhian Teasdale - whose voice you just heard - and Hester Chambers - who can be heard on the guitar, if nowhere else - are the core of the band Wet Leg. Their new album is called "Moisturizer."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "U AND ME AT HOME")
WET LEG: (Singing) Maybe we could start a band.
MCCAMMON: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Sarah McCammon.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. I want to get out and get some moisturizer.
MCCAMMON: (Laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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