Middle Kids: 2024

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

The title of Middle Kids' third album, Faith Crisis Pt 1, sounds like a reckoning, but it's actually a renewal for this band made up of singer, lyricist and guitarist Hannah Joy, bassist Tim Fitz and drummer Harry Day. 

Hannah and Tim are also a couple — and the exhausted and ecstatic parents of a toddler and a brand new baby. Since 2016, Middle Kids has released many singles, two EPs and three albums, all chiming with cathartic melodies and lyrical heft and depth.

Middle Kids — a touring quartet with the addition of guitarist Miles Elkington — dipped into three songs from their new album for this FUV Live session: "Dramamine," "Bend," and the beautiful "Bootleg Firecracker."

As I learned in our chat, Middle Kids considers FUV as part of their origin story — their first Stateside session was at the station. Joy described her hard crash into writer's block for the first time and how the road to the album almost "killed" her, as she swam against currents through the experience and aftermath of the pandemic. There was fortunately a happy ending: the reward of this new release has been a warm reception and a refreshed momentum. "You learn something really important with every album you put out," observes Fitz.

As they approach the tenth anniversary of their debut single, "Edge of Town," in 2026, Hannah, Tim, and Harry also speak at length about why that song still resonates powerfully for them.

[Recorded: 6/28/24; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Erin Merriman; produced by Meghan Offtermatt; Videographers: Olivia Iannaccone, Bella Lipayon, Anna Fahy and Louisa Schramm]