ATO Records’ Chicago-based quintet Brigitte Calls Me Baby announce their debut album for the label today, The Future Is Our Way Out, set for release on August 2nd. Partially recorded at RCA Studio A in Nashville with previous collaborator and 9x Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton), The Future Is Our Way Out also features a selection of songs self-produced by lead singer Wes Leavins and his bandmates: guitarists Jack Fluegel and Trevor Lynch, bassist Devin Wessels, and drummer Jeremy Benshish. With the band’s poetic meditations on desire, anxiety, and the complexities of impermanence, it arrives as a potent evolution of Brigitte Calls Me Baby’s debut EP This House Is Made Of Corners— which earned acclaim from the likes of NPR, FLOOD, WXPN and NME, who said the “Chicago romantics deliver the thrills of a bygone era.”
Also out today is the lead single “We Were Never Alive” with shuddering rhythms and spectral guitar lines that meet in a gloriously bleak contemplation of mortality. “Devin wrote the music to that song and I loved how dramatic it felt, so the goal was to match that drama in the lyrics,” says Leavins. “It became a song about how in the grand scheme of existence, the time we’re alive is so brief and insignificant. At some point, after you’re gone, when everyone who knew you is gone as well, it’s almost as if you never existed at all.”
Watch/Listen to “We Were Never Alive” Here
In choosing a title for the full-length debut, Brigitte landed on a phrase Leavins impulsively scrawled onto a white t-shirt as a teenager and continued to revisit over the years, eventually transforming it into a lush and cinematic pop song. “I want to be earnest even when it’s uncomfortable, and write unapologetically about things like my intense fear of death,” says Leavins. “‘The Future is Our Way Out’ is about that fear, but it’s also about hoping there might be something beyond death, a way out of all the mess and the sadness that plagues us in life.
As The Future is Our Way Out unfolds, Brigitte Calls Me Baby explores the extremities of their genre with the jittery post-punk of “Fine Dining” to the stark and sleepy serenade of the album-closing “Always Be Fine.” On “Too Easy,” the band slips into a moment of new-wave majesty built on skittering guitar tones and darkly throbbing beats, with Leavins’ voice taking on a near-operatic grandeur as he questions the reliability of memory and the durability of love.
Since the release of the band’s debut EP This House Is Made of Corners, which shines with its pounding rhythms and shimmering guitar tones, Brigitte Calls Me Baby has achieved major feats such as performing on national TV. Recently the band made their national TV debut On CBS Saturday Morning. Revisit the performances here. They also took the stage as part of NPR’s World Cafe (who hailed Leavins’ “swoon-worthy voice and on-stage swagger that suggests he was always destined for bright lights and throngs of screaming fans”). The band has also kept up a relentless touring schedule, routinely captivating crowds with live favorites and touring behind legends and those in the making – the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Strokes, The Last Dinner Party, and more.
This year, after two sold-out hometown dates at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall and their first-ever performances at Summerfest and Lollapalooza in August, the band will head out on a string of headlining tour dates with stops in Austin, TX and Washington, D.C. before a series of shows with the Airborne Toxic Event continuing into the fall.
With their name nodding to frontman Wes Leavins’ teenage pen-pal correspondence with iconic French actress Brigitte Bardot, the Chicago-based five-piece emerged in early 2023 and soon scored a breakout hit with “Impressively Average”—a sublimely shimmering anthem that shot to the Top 10 at Triple A radio, setting the band on a swift rise that’s recently included embarking on a headline tour with sold-out dates across the country. Now, with their debut LP, The Future Is Our Way Out, Brigitte Calls Me Baby share a body of work that ingeniously spans genres and eras, merging the lavish romanticism of mid-century pop with the frenetic energy and spiky intensity of early-millennium indie-rock. Centered on Leavins’ hypnotically crooning vocal work, the result is a rare convergence of sophistication, style, and unabashed sincerity.
The band’s unusual path began when frontman and songwriter Wes Leavins moved from Texas to Chicago after high school. After arriving in Chicago, he joined forces with bassist Devin Wessels, drummer Jeremy Benshish, and guitarists Trevor Lynch and Jack Fluegel; and the group began gigging locally when Graceland came calling. Leavins was recruited to record music for Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film Elvis. While on set, he met the Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile) and the two hit it off.
Stay tuned for more to come from Brigitte Calls Me Baby.
PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE THE FUTURE IS OUR WAY OUT
THE FUTURE IS OUR WAY OUT TRACKLIST
- The Future Is Our Way Out
- Pink Palace
- Eddie My Love
- Fine Dining
- I Wanna Die In The Suburbs
- Too Easy
- Palm Of your Hand
- Impressively Average
- We Were Never Alive
- You Are Only Made Of Dreams
- Always Be Fine
BRIGITTE CALLS ME BABY 2024 TOUR DATES
6/21/24 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL (SOLD OUT)
6/22/24 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL (SOLD OUT)
6/27/24 – Summerfest – Milwaukee, WI
8/3/24 – Lollapalooza – Chicago, IL
9/7/24 – Fine Line – Minneapolis, MN
9/8/24 – High Noon Saloon – Madison, WI
9/10/24 – Resonant Head – Oklahoma City, OK
9/12/24 – Empire Control Room – Austin, TX
9/13/24 – White Oak Music Hall – Upstairs – Houston, TX
9/14/24 – Three Links – Dallas, TX
916/24 – Vinyl at Center Stage – Atlanta, GA’
9/17/24 – The End – Nashville, TN
9/18/24 – Upstairs at Avondale – Birmingham, AL
9/20/24 – Cat’s Cradle Back Room – Carrboro, NC
9/21/24 – XPoNential Music Festival – Camden, NJ
9/22/24 – The Atlantis – Washington, DC
9/25/24 – The Drake Underground – Toronto, ON
9/26/24 – The Stache at The Intersection – Grand Rapids, MI
9/27/24 – HI-FI Indianapolis – Indianapolis, IN
9/28/24 – Rose Bowl Tavern – Urbana, IL
10/1/24 – The Coast – Fort Collins, CO
10/2/24 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO
10/4/24 – Reverb Lounge – Omaha, NE
10/5/24 – The Raccoon Motel – Davenport, IA
10/7/24 – Paramount Theatre – Denver, CO *
10/8/24 – The Black Sheep – Colorado Springs, CO *
10/10/24 – Knitting Factory Concert House – Boise, ID *
10/11/24 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA *
10/12/24 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA *
10/13/24 – McMenamins Crystal Ballroom – Portland, OR *
10/15/24 – Ace of Spades – Sacramento, CA *
10/17/24 – The Warfield – San Francisco, CA *
10/19/24 – The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA *
10/21/24 – Humphreys Concerts By The Bay – San Diego, CA *
*opening for Airborne Toxic Event
