Wet Leg: from a chaise longue to the 2023 Brit Awards - the stunning rise of the Isle of Wight duo

They have the second most nominations at the BRIT Awards 2023, only sitting behind future touring buddy Harry Styles. They’re up for three Grammy awards off the strength of their debut album, which hit number one in the UK album charts in early 2022 and they are currently in the midst of an international tour.

To say it has been a whirlwind 2022 for Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, collectively known as Wet Leg, since they were signed to Domino - home of a certain Sheffield outfit who also blew up after the release of their debut single, I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

But how did the Isle of Wight pair ascend from their earworm single Chaise Longue to now being on the brink of more awards success? How did the duo also meet and why oh why did they decide to choose the name Wet Leg for a band name?

PeopleWorld takes a look at the rise of one of the UK’s hottest post-punk groups to emerge from the new wave of post-punk revival - and why Wet Leg are set to continue their dominance over the British music scene ahead of their performance at the BRIT Awards on February 11.

RHAIN

Though it may seem like Wet Leg appeared from nowhere, one of the members did have some success as a solo musician in their own right. Rhian Teasdale, who moved over to the Isle of Wight when he was 8, used to perform under the moniker RHAIN. As part of the Bristol music scene in 2016, RHAIN were championed by PRS Music as "childlike innocence into something far more unsettling – think early Kate Bush, Bjork or Joanna Newsome."

Tessdale’s first foray into the music industry as RHAIN released the debut EP, Oscar November Echo, released on her personal Bandcamp page in February 2016 followed by winning live slots at Sŵn Festival, the Drowned in Sound showcase and Cecil Sharp House’s The Gathering armed with just her piano and haunting melodies.

But RHAIN didn't last very long, with Teasdale admitting in an interview with The Guardian that she stopped writing 'unlistenable' piano pieces and learned guitar, which she discovered future bandmate Hester Chambers already played.

Festivals and emojis - the foundations of Wet Leg

Both Teasdale and Chambers knew each other, having attended the same college on the Isle of Wight and collaborating on-and-off throughout their friendship. When the RHAIN project came to its conclusion, it led to the pair finally starting to write full time with each other - or as they put it, to take it a little less seriously.

This revelation came to the pair as they both attended a music festival together, where after witnessing Idles perform at the End of the Road Festival 2018, came to the conclusion that they should be writing guitar based music. A conclusion that they came to sat on a ferris wheel in a drunken state, so stories have been suggested.

"We agreed on the premise of our band there and then: as long as you’re having fun, then everything will be alright," Teasdale recalled in an interview with NME. "And we’ve told ourselves that we’ll stick to that, always."

The duo experimented with the use of emojis to figure out what their new band’s name would be; for some reason a combination of a water emoji and a leg emoji stuck with them - leading to their official union to be known as Wet Leg. Though a 'wet leg' also refers to those that are not from the Isle of Wight visiting the island - the wet leg refers to what may happen when stepping off the boat when arriving at the island.

Chaise Longue and streaming success

The band signed to Domino in 2019 and have had a string of success in breaking through new and exciting musical talent in the UK. Their track record speaks for itself - working with Arctic Monkeys, Portshead’s Beth Gibbons and The Kills. The pair then released their debut single through Domino, the Mean Girls referencing Chaise Longue in 2021.

It became an immediate success (and another feather in the cap of Domino’s A&R team), and after the release of follow-up single Wet Dream in late 2021, the pair saw upwards of more than six million streams on Spotify alone.

“The reaction to those two songs has been so good and the opportunities we’re receiving are unbelievable,” Teasdale told Radio 1’s Newsbeat in 2021, leading many to anticipate what the debut album would hold for the duo.

Wet Leg and Harry Styles tour

The duo released their self-titled debut through Domino in April 2022, where the record immediately reached the top of the UK album chart and almost unanimous critical acclaim. The pair now also hold the honour of being the only band from the Isle of Wight to have achieved a number one album in the UK.

Clash writer Robin Murray called it "the most infectious, alluring, irresistible, and downright fun debut record that’s come our way in a long, long time," while in a Rolling Stone review, the hallowed music publication explained that the duo "are a couple of artsy rock & rollers who want too much, feel too much, hate too much, while chasing too many good times. No wonder the world was so ready to fall madly in love with them.

"After two years of quarantine blues, there was just a widespread cultural craving for this kind of action, and Wet Leg were as surprised as anyone when they tapped into it. But the album makes it sound like they're just getting started."

Their popularity had also been noticed within music circles - they were announced to be supporting pop-star Harry Styles during his Australia and New Zealand dates of his Harry’s House tour later this year. Not that they need Harry Styles's to validate their popularity in the Southern Hemisphere, with radio in both countries having thrashed all the singles on each occasion they were released to broadcasters.

But it is interesting to note that both Styles and Wet Leg have the most and second most nominations at February's BRIT Awards ceremony also - a sense of synergy between the pop star and the post-punk duo?

Wet Leg are up for Album of the Year, Group of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Alternative Rock act, the latter being decided upon a public vote through TikTok. "Somebody hold our horses while we get to grips with this wild news," the pair told Domino Recordings when the news broke. "Being nominated for a Brit award is too hard to comprehend, we never could have expected for our wee band to achieve this."