Teen Suicide are entering a new era

The main reason for the move? “The weather, of course!” Kitty laughs, the sun gleaning down as she shifts, revealing her soon-to-be former Floridian residence full of cardboard boxes. Apologising if they both seem frazzled as they enter the final stages of their move, she adds: “we’re really hot, the weather is terrible here. Sam and I have lived in a lot of places and towards the end of lockdown my mental health was not great, so we moved here in order to be closer to my family.” 

Having resided in Florida for several years, Kitty feels satisfied that she got what she needed from the move, and has now arrived at the point where leaving her hometown once again makes sense. With their other bandmates joining the live ensemble from Seattle, ultimately this move seems like a necessary decision for the future of Teen Suicide itself. 

Incepted in 2009 from Sam’s Baltimore bedroom as a teenager, Teen Suicide are a hard project to define; ranging from controlled bursts of guitar driven noise pop, blissful solitary acoustic moments and endless ambient soundscapes. While Sam has a number of projects under other monikers and with friends alike (Julia Brown, Starry Cat, Ricky Eat Acid and Heroin Party), Teen Suicide is his main passion project.

The first lineup of Teen Suicide dissolved in 2012, before returning two years later and eventually signing to Run For Cover records for the release of It’s the Big Joyous Celebration, Lets Stir The Honeypot in 2016. With a significant solo career under Kitty’s own belt, the couple announced their marriage fittingly on Tumblr, releasing bedroom pop under the name The Pom-Poms together before Kitty came onboard as a full-time Teen Suicide band member.

In 2018, the project was briefly renamed American Pleasure Club. Looking back, Sam reflects that to him the name was always “superfluous”, noting early pressure from their label to make the change. “They got it into their heads that we could never play Jimmy Fallon if we kept the name. I really wanted to change the name to ‘Dumpster’ but the rest of the band talked me out of it,” he smirks. “Those same outside forces at one point turned around and said ‘oh, you could actually do a lot of good with this’. So when the time came, I just put out a tweet along the lines of ‘good news, the label said we’ll be Teen Suicide again’.”

Both Sam and Kitty agree that reverting back to their original name also meant carrying a responsibility to use it for good, especially in regards to how it comes across to younger fans – both positive and negative. On every stop of last year’s debut UK tour, Sam and Kitty on stage made sure to bring awareness of local and national charities that specialise in suicide prevention. By doing so, they hope to remove the grey areas where the name could potentially cause unintentional emotional distress.

Sam admits that the name has also caused problems in the past with booking shows. He recalls a moment where Teen Suicide were scheduled to perform at The House of Blues in Anaheim, California on the Disneyland campus. Understandably, the theme park opposed having their name associated with the headline act on the Marquee outside the Disney resort venue, resulting in the band performing under the name ‘Hot Sloppy Joe Boys’ – one of the 20+ names that Sam Ray has released music under.

Regardless of Teen Suicide’s name being a topic of debate, the Ray’s want their fans to know that they are approachable at shows. On their first UK tour in March 2025, fans both new and old were warmly receptive to their presence. As with their shows back home, many of the stops included parents of young fans attending, sometimes even won over: “They’re like ‘Woah, I never thought I would love a band called Teen Suicide! That is the happiest that I am.” Sam laughs. Supported by indie punk collective ItoldyouIwouldeatyou, Sam recalls that their paths first crossed when they had toured together in Europe with their friends Awakebutstillinbed.

Around this time, ItoldyouIwouldeatyou’s drummer and vocalist Maeve Westall showed Sam Liverpool frantic indie emo band University, playing their music around them constantly and influencing their decision to bring University out for select dates on their upcoming US tour. “We are always very conscious about who we want to open shows. We fell in love with them through Maeve’s exposure, and because one of their songs is a Peep Show reference!”

With the band remaining self-managed for the majority of their career, much of their online interaction with fans has been transparent in terms of love, praise and the occasional unpleasant moments. Sam and Kitty, having both become public figures in their own niche of DIY emo and adjacent genres, are aware of “outlandish” anecdotes said about them online, such as allegedly ‘not being approachable’. They both agree that this could not be further from the truth – as long as fans are willing to accept boundaries, especially as they regard the idea of artists charging for VIP Meet and Greet experiences as “crass commercialism.”

On balance, for every negative comment, plenty are present from fans who have enjoyed their live shows.  Whilst Sam is acutely aware that a version of himself that he is not proud of exists online, he has come to peace with it and has become “more Zen” about it over time. He suggests that as he gets older, you have a choice to either double down on that version of yourself that you presented as a defence mechanism, or you dismantle it.  “Both Kitty and I have been oversharing, especially as teenagers, the messiest parts of our lives. That’s the thing that bugs me when someone says they don’t like me because we fell out over something at a show in 2012. I don’t dislike you, I dislike the version of myself that was willing to get heated. On the other hand, it’s like ‘you are also 12-14 years older – let's put that behind us’, that kind of thing.”

Despite Kitty being a member of Teen Suicide for almost a decade at this point, she admits that at times it can be difficult reading perceptions of herself by fans, some even comparing her negatively to Yoko Ono. “I’m used to people being assholes online, but I feel like if the fans knew that I was the one begging for heavier songs to be written for our latest album, they wouldn’t be so pissed at me! Or maybe they would be more mad, who knows?” she shrugs. “People always find a way to be mad at us,” Sam adds.

After returning from their UK tour and taking some time away to physically recover, Teen Suicide set about recording their new album, Nude Descending Staircase Headless. Taking to the Barber Shop Studios in New Jersey under the guidance of legendary alt rock producer Mike Sapone (Taking Back Sunday, Boston Manor and Anxious), the track “Suffering (Mike’s Way)” is a tongue in cheek reference to Sapone’s work ethic and how he and the band came together after sitting on various unreleased demos for years. Given that the pair’s music has largely been self-produced, especially early in their careers, they felt like Sapone was someone they could trust to bring their vision to life.

Reflecting on the first time Teen Suicide came to record with Sapone, Sam remembers the producer saying: ‘Look, I don't care how dumb I might think your idea is, I will trust you. I will try it no matter what.’ Continuing, he adds, “Sapone would be the first to say, ‘nope, we went down the wrong road with this. We're wasting time’. That's the best thing you can ever ask for. We learned a fucking lot from him. I can't wait to do that again, to do it longer, to spend more time with him and just watch you know how he does things, because you learn so much too.”

One notable example of Sapone’s influence is in the way the harmonies were recorded on “Knives”, coming from his desire to want the track to sound like The Beach Boys for the section’s 3 second duration. For Kitty, she feels like the experience was healing, having previously attended studios in New York and being around people who she felt had little-to-no care for the quality of music being recorded. Her presence is even more apparent this time around, taking lead vocals for cuts like “Spiders”, “Candy / Squeeze” and “Hypnotic Poison". She insists that Sapone only works with artists that he knows he can make sound “fucking awesome,” with healthy contention in terms of discussing which ideas would make it onto the final release. Sam compares ideas being challenged as like two tennis players going back and forth, with their ultimately being a winner in the decisions made.

When listening to the 13-track album for the first time, it’s apparent that Teen Suicide have warmly retained the band’s endearing charm. Sam and Kitty believe that Sapone also helped push the band into more abrasive territories, with tracks like “Keeping Her Keys” pushing oppressive guitar riffs and whaling feedback to the forefront.

While Sam is very enthusiastic about potentially working with Sapone again in the future, he notes that the band have no plans to re-record any of their early 8-track material. “A country artist that I love, Bonnie Prince Billy, has three versions of my favourite song of his, ‘Beast for Thee’,” offers Sam, by way of explanation. “One of the versions has a guitar with a woodwind section, and it’s all in harmony and it’s gorgeous. Another version exists with a quartet of marimbas and violins, it’s a whole arrangement. That to me is how you do something like that extraordinarily artfully. When it comes down to it, we just have so many songs unreleased and unrecorded that we would rather share instead.”

“I think it would be weird,” Kitty adds. “Those old recordings from way back are the way they are. Up until Teen Suicide, I never had a live band before. When it comes to recording in a studio, I’m still in the mindset of ‘oh my god, there’s a real person playing the drums!’ If Sam wanted to record a new version of “Haunt Me”, I would be like…” She turns to Sam and frowns before the pair erupt into laughter, a playful moment that exemplifies the duo’s colourful energy.

As the conversation draws to a close, Sam and Kitty reminisce about their biggest accomplishments to date. Aside from their excitement at completing this new Teen Suicide album, under Sam’s ‘Ricky Eat Acid’ moniker they supported Sam’s favourite artist of 15 years, Black Moth Super Rainbow. Sam describes their live setup as “almost entirely improvised”, and getting to speak with founder Thomas Fec as a longtime fan felt like a full circle moment.

Kitty concludes that their appearance at Kilby Block Party alongside New Order and Yo La Tengo was her personal highlight. “When they were testing out the main stage and projected the Teen Suicide logo onto the backdrop, that was the coolest moment ever! Myself and Sam’s lives are always changing. It’s been hard for so long, [but now] we feel like touring is way easier than ever before.”