Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and CMAT Tell Us How It Feels to Get Famous Fast

If the Grammy wins, sold-out festival gigs, and viral TikToks are any indication, Rhian Teasdale and CMAT appear to be living the life. When the pair got on Zoom last month shortly after crossing paths at Glastonbury, they admitted as much. “All of our dreams have already come true,” said the Irish pop princess, “so it’s kind of just plane sailing from here.” Teasdale, frontwoman of the British rock band Wet Leg, couldn’t help but smile in agreement, though she will admit that living life in the public eye makes her a bit uneasy. “I feel really uncomfortable with it,” the 32-year-old confided. A few days before the release of CMAT’s new album Euro-Country, and before Teasdale herself set out on Wet Leg’s North American tour, the pair spiraled about packing cubes, the price of fame, and making their small towns proud.—ARY RUSSELL

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CMAT: Look at this delivery that I just received. [Shows plate of cookies].\

RHIAN TEASDALE: Wow.

CMAT: Maybe fashion is okay.

TEASDALE: That’s so cute. That’s so English.

CMAT: What’s really funny about this delivery of biscuits that I just received from Stella McCartney herself is that I’m really gluten-intolerant, but I’m probably just going to eat them out of shame because it’s so nice that they brought them to me.

TEASDALE: You can’t not, really. It’d be rude not to.

CMAT: It’ll be really rude not to. How are you?

TEASDALE: I’m good. How are you?

CMAT: I’m good. Are you tired?

TEASDALE: I’m all right. I managed to stay in last night even though there are lots of Carnival after parties to go to.

CMAT: That’s so nice. I don’t go to Carnival because I don’t really belong there.

TEASDALE: Everyone belongs there.

CMAT: I know everyone does belong there, but I don’t want to get in the way. And also, I had to do All Points East, which is Indie Carnival.

TEASDALE: How was that? It looked really good.

CMAT: It was really funny. And the dust was not a joke. My snots were really black afterwards. Lots of people made a joke about it, so they got everybody to do the Dunboyne County Meath Two-Step and it made the dust kind of kick up and then a dust cloud forms. And then someone was like, “I think I have emphysema.” And I was like, “That’s a 10/10 joke.” It was really good.

TEASDALE: That’s so creative. I love that.

CMAT: Did you have any festivals this weekend?

TEASDALE: No, it’s the last weekend before we go to America for two months, so it’s been nice to be at home. I’m sad that we couldn’t do this in real life. It’s so funny to chat on Zoom.

CMAT: I know. But the powers that be, it has to be audited and watched by other people, our conversations that we’re having. But we have so many conversations not on Zoom, so that’s nice.

TEASDALE: Yeah, that is nice.

CMAT: So your festival season is finished?

TEASDALE: Yeah, it’s done.

CMAT: How was Cabaret Vert for you?

TEASDALE: I’m trying to remember.

CMAT: We had a really bad time. We had a really bad time at Cabaret Vert.

TEASDALE: Why?

CMAT: Because they didn’t like us. That was a dance music festival. This was the thing, there were a lot of dance people on our day. So then I was like, “Put your hand up, shake your hand.” And the French people were like, “I would rather die than do that.” And then the Dunboyne County Meath Two-Step was like pulling teeth. They did not want to do it, they hated it and they hated us. But Green Man was the best day of my life.

TEASDALE: Yeah. Green Man was the best day of my life. I really loved that festival. It was so fun to go back there after so long. I wish we could have stuck around, but all good things must come to an end and we really made the most of our time there.

CMAT: Would you come to a festival that’s that small now? Would you do that?

TEASDALE: Definitely. What about you?

CMAT: I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s my personality or something, but in the past six months, I haven’t been able to do anything. No matter where I go, even if I’m in Hackney, people want to come up and want to have a full conversation with me about something. And I think it’s so lovely and I think it’s so nice. But for example, even Glastonbury, I really struggled. I couldn’t go anywhere because of the CMAT of it all. And I find it really interesting because I think you are much more famous-looking than me. When I bumped into you at Glastonbury, you were in full Rhian drag. You were basically wearing stage clothes. And I was like, “How is she just going around?”

TEASDALE: I’m scary and you’re approachable.

CMAT: But I don’t think you’re scary at all. I think you’re the least scary person alive. You’re like a Cabbage Patch doll or something. You’re so sweet.

TEASDALE: That’s actually so accurate.

CMAT: I’m thinking specifically of the cartoon of the Cabbage Patch kids. There’s like a ginger one that wears glasses and thinks about stuff a lot. You remind me of her.

TEASDALE: Yeah, I’ll take that.

CMAT: Maybe it’s the approachable thing, or being Irish. But it’s fine. I don’t mind it. I think I will go to small festivals again when all of the news dies down.

TEASDALE: Your album’s out in 3 days. It’s not going to die down anytime soon.

CMAT: No, I think actually it’s just going to keep spiraling for a while regardless of what I do. Someone said to me recently that I could disappear from public life right now and not do any more interviews or gigs and I’d still be waiting about a year-and-a-half for normal life to return. But it’s nice to know that it can come back anyway. You know what I mean?

TEASDALE: Yeah, it is funny. When you step off and out of people’s radars, you’re just more at the back of people’s minds. How do you feel when people say, “Oh, you’re famous.”

CMAT: I think I didn’t believe it until about three months ago and now I think it’s true. It’s really funny because when I was a kid—this is so embarrassing. But if your eyelash falls off and you blow it and you make a wish, or it’s your birthday and you have candles and you blow it and you make a wish, I wished to be famous every single time, without fail.

TEASDALE: That just goes to show that when you put your mind to something, with a bit of luck…

CMAT: How do you feel when people call you famous?

TEASDALE: I feel really uncomfortable with it.

CMAT: Do you?

TEASDALE: Yeah, because I guess I don’t really think that I am.

CMAT: You are though.

TEASDALE: I think if it was Six Music Festival, those kind of little scenes, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty chill. And also living in London as well, I think there’s a lot of anonymity. I don’t know how the other guys in the band cope living on the Isle of Wight. I think I would just get really in my head about being perceived.

CMAT: Do you go back home a lot?

TEASDALE: No. I don’t really go very much at all.

CMAT: Me neither.

TEASDALE: How is it when you go home?

CMAT: So today my sister went on a walk in our local village and, at this current moment in time, there is a 15-foot-high mural of me being painted on the side of a pub. I feel like the Isle of Wight is one thing, but I’m from Dunboyne, County Meath, which had a population of 5,000 people when I was growing up.

TEASDALE: Crazy.

CMAT: They love it. I feel like you will definitely relate to this from conversations I know we’ve had before, but there’s this kind of thing called “Irish begrudgery,” which is when you become a famous Irish person and other Irish people that grew up around you are really jealous and bitter and they begrudge your success. This is something that people say about Irish people often, but I have not found it to be true about Dunboyne at all. People in Dunboyne are just, like, buzzing.

TEASDALE: When I was 20 or whatever, I moved to Bristol because I was like, “Oh, there’s an amazing music scene there.” I moved from the Isle of Wight to Bristol and I was just shocked at how supportive everyone was of each other and how, no matter what genre you were playing around in, there was just such a good sense of community there that I never really had on the Isle of Wight.

CMAT: And Dublin is quite a powder keg because everyone’s broke. Do you know what I mean? But the thing I find amazing about London is everyone is really happy for each other and people are very supportive. The stakes are a little bit lower because they just have a little bit more money.

TEASDALE: Yeah, you’re not trying to make it so that you can then support your whole family or whatever. You’re just like, “I want to be a pop star and if I don’t get to be a pop star, then I’ll probably just be a creative.”

CMAT: That’s really true. Are you looking forward to America?

TEASDALE: I’m sure I’ll be fine when I get there, but I’m pretty nervous. It’s just a long time to be away from home and I’m such a homebody. It was so mad the first time around, just scrambling for a grip on anything, but it was amazing. There’s no way any of us could have really prepared ourselves for just how well things went. So I think I’m scared to be away from home for so long because I’m such a creature of habit, but also I’m excited to play the shows and I like playing the shows.

CMAT: We’re going on tour to the States at the same time as you. So I’ve got a week of in-stores and then I go out for three weeks.

TEASDALE: I wonder if we’ve got any crossover.

CMAT: We’re starting in L.A. and then it’s not a really long American tour, just spot towns. And then we’re coming back for the UK tour. But I have a rule, which is two shows in a row, no more. My immune system doesn’t last anymore. Every single big, long tour we’ve ever done, I have gotten really sick and had to cancel a show and I just hate cancelling shows. It makes me want to fucking die. Do you get sick a lot on tour?

TEASDALE: Not really. I’ve been really lucky. Not physically sick, but emotionally sick, like burnout. Which is as valid as any, because you wouldn’t expect someone to go to work with an open wound.

CMAT: I agree. Do you think it’s the lack of routine that does it? Do you think you have an underlying mental illness, as we all do, that gets exacerbated by the craziness of touring? Or do you think that touring is actively contributing to mental illness?

TEASDALE: No, I think I’m a very neurotic person, and it’s hard chemically in your brain to stay happy and I think going on tour will just knock you out of whack. It’s just very high highs and very low lows, isn’t it? 

CMAT: I’m about to ask you a really boring question, but it feels really important to me and my life at this moment in time. Have you gotten into packing cubes?

TEASDALE: Oh my god, I bought them today. I bought more packing cubes today and I was like, “I wonder if I’m going to get the opportunity to talk to Ciara about my packing cubes.”

CMAT: Oh my god, this is so exciting. I got like, free SponCon packing cubes before festival season and it’s like a drug. It’s like opening up a whole new world of joy for touring, but it’s so pathetic and sad.

TEASDALE: No, no, it’s not. I literally just went on a little pre-tour shopping spree and I got these candles.

CMAT: I’ve never thought to travel with a candle.

TEASDALE: They’re scented. It’s important because places are stinky.

CMAT: Jo Malone, Diptyque, give me that shit. It might be a false economy, but I don’t care.

TEASDALE: I like to wait for my birthday and hope that a friend will buy me an expensive candle.

CMAT: Well, we’re really getting into the conversation of women. Are you 30?

TEASDALE: I’m 32.

CMAT: Wow. I’m turning 30 in February.

TEASDALE: How are you feeling about that?

CMAT: I can’t wait. I don’t think being in my twenties really ever suited me.

TEASDALE: I love being in my thirties so much more. I spent so much time not knowing who I was and not knowing what I wanted to do and not having any money, so being 30 is great.

CMAT: All of our dreams have already come true, so it’s kind of just plane sailing from here.