Hotline TNT's Will Anderson Talks New York Band's Growing Success: ‘I Feel Like I'm About to Blow Your Minds'
'It was a full circle for a lot of reasons,' frontman and onetime Wisconsinite Will Anderson tells Billboard from his Ridgewood home, his pet chihuahua perched on his bed behind him. 'Being back in my home state definitely was part of the appeal.'
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For more than a decade, Anderson, 36, has been something of a transcontinental indie-rock journeyman: After one of his former bands, the Vancouver-based Weed, earned some buzz in the mid-'10s, he kept making music as a hobby in Minneapolis – while he pursued a graduate degree to become a guidance counselor – before eventually landing in New York City shortly before the pandemic began.
Anderson had already been releasing music under the Hotline TNT moniker for a couple years, but the project blossomed as live music got back up and running in 2021. Fans quickly gravitated to Hotline TNT's debut album, 2021's Nineteen in Love, and Anderson grew his following by picking up coveted support slots for buzzy indie bands like Snail Mail, Momma and Horsegirl.
But when Hotline TNT made its Third Man Records debut with its second album, Cartwheel, in late 2023, it exploded. The set of anthemic shoegaze and power-pop gems earned raves from indie-rock tastemakers and catapulted Hotline TNT to the forefront of the genre – even if Anderson wryly shrugs off the success as 'right place, right time.'
Which brings the story back to Appleton. When it came time to make another record, Anderson chased down Amos Pitsch, best known for fronting the punk band Tenement, to record it with him at his studio in the Wisconsin town. And in a first for Hotline TNT, whose studio recordings had previously been the work of Anderson alone, the band's touring quartet made the record together, across two sessions totaling a week. So while Raspberry Moon mostly sounds like the Hotline TNT fans already know and love, it pulses with the energy that only a full band can bring to the studio – and has a smattering of adornments, courtesy of Pitsch, that differentiate it from Hotline's previous work.
For Anderson, all these small changes added up. 'If you get into a time machine and change one little thing, it could have ripple effects, you know?' he says. 'That's the whole thing. This is very much a snapshot of what happened in this timeline.'
How did coming up with other young bands from the region, like Snail Mail and Momma, help Hotline TNT break out a few years ago?
Early on, when we played with Snail Mail and Momma, that was a pretty important cosign that made other people took notice – and this was kind of before even we were on streaming services.
You initially released exclusively on YouTube, as one long track. Why?
It comes up over and over again: 'Why did you do that?' I push back against the narrative that it wasn't accessible – because it was on YouTube. This is, like, the number one most accessible free platform; you don't have to have an account, anything like that. Yeah, it wasn't presented in the way that people are used to consuming music – like, 'I want my Spotify playlist' or whatever – but it's still there. You can still listen to it anytime you want, for free. The choice was aesthetic more than anything. I wanted to present the album in a way that I had curated, basically, which was 'I want the songs to be listened to in this order.' I kind of liked the idea of making it a little bit harder for people to skip around to their favorite songs.
Then you signed with Third Man Records. How have they supported you, with and now ?
Well, that was the end of the YouTube strategy. [Laughs.] No, they've been great. As you can probably guess, I was pretty hesitant to have anyone besides myself handling the release strategy – or, I mean, there wasn't really a strategy [before], it was just like, I'm doing things the way I want to do it. Getting involved with, for lack of a better word, music industry people, has been a growing process for me. But, overall, they've made it pretty painless. They let me handle the creative side of things: 'Cool, here's a budget. Go do your thing.' I think it's gone pretty well. I love working with them. I hope we can keep doing it for a long time.
You're managed by Rusty Sutton and Libby Webster of The Glow Management, which also represents Wednesday and MJ Lenderman – and in Raspberry Moon's liner notes, you thank 'everybody in the Wendesday and Lenderman extended universe.' When did you start working with Rusty?
Right before Cartwheel came out. We met him through playing with Jake [Lenderman] and [Wednesday's] Karly [Hartzman]. We're definitely a different lane than those guys, but hopefully we can carve our own path. When I need Rusty's help, he's there for me. He's guided me through a lot of difficult situations, and I appreciate him a lot.
You did a big tour supporting Wednesday in early 2024, right after dropped. How did you adjust to playing bigger rooms?
That's been easy for me. Not to toot my own horn, but every time we play a big show, I feel like I thrive in those moments. Especially if we're a support band, I feel like I'm like, 'You guys don't know who we are. I'm about to blow your minds. I'm gonna change your night. We're gonna be way louder than the headliner.' If there's heads to convert, that's kind of my favorite setting. I want us to be the headliner, don't get me wrong. But in the meantime, this is how we're gonna play in front of 1,000 people – I have a bit of an antagonist in me that's like, 'You don't think we're gonna be capable, but we are. So, check this out.'
Tell me about the decision to record as a full band, rather than on your own.
It was just a matter of circumstance, really. It's harder than one might think to find people who are down to tour as much as we do; these four people, including me, were down to do it. They deserve to be a part of every aspect of the band, whether it's recording or songwriting or touring. It's not fair to be like 'Alright, guys, thanks for your work. Now I'm gonna do all the creative stuff with the record.'
What do Amos and Tenement mean to you, and what did he add to this record?
I met Amos [when he was] playing in a different band, Technicolor Teeth. They were kind of my favorite live band that I had ever seen. I saw them twice, and they blew my mind both times. Tenement I didn't come to till later, but I love all the Tenement records and everything Amos has done. He's got the Midas touch, in my opinion.
I wanted to see what happened when he got involved. After we finished tracking everything, I told Amos, 'I want you to go through the whole album and add whatever you hear, on your own.' So a lot of the stuff you hear on this album, we weren't even in the studio. We obviously wrote all the songs and recorded all the guitars and drums and everything, but then, any piano you hear, vibraphone, there's some soaring vocal harmonies – that's all Amos. I kind of wanted him to be like a fifth member of the band for this recording project, and I think he delivered.
What's next for Hotline TNT?
A lot of touring. Just started demoing for the new album. I know it sounds like, 'Oh, you're already back in the studio?' Like, yeah. I mean, what else are we gonna do? That's the job. It'll take a while for us to have another album, for sure, but I'm already thinking about it and excited about it – but I'm excited to see how this one goes.
What's been on Hotline TNT's playlist?
Currently, we're all really hooked on this band The Tubs. Really obsessed with both their albums, but the new one [2025's Cotton Crown] especially captured our attention in a major way. We listen to a lot of ML Buch, a lot of Daryl Johns. And then all the classics: Red House Painters, Teenage Fanclub, early My Bloody Valentine.
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