Doug Richards, a former member of Wet Leg and ex-boyfriend of the band’s current vocalist Rhian Teasdale, has accused the indie rock breakout stars of not crediting him for songs he said he co-wrote.
In a new interview with The Times UK, Richards explained that he formed Wet Leg with Teasdale and Hester Chambers in 2019, but was kicked out of the group once his seven-year, on-and-off relationship with Teasdale came to an end for good.
Richards’ first gripe with his former bandmates is the name they continue to use. Teasdale and Chambers have shared a couple origin stories of “Wet Leg” — one being a game of combining two random emojis together, another referencing hometown slang — but Richards apparently remembers it differently.
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“For years me and a couple of friends had lists of stupid band names,” he said. “Anytime you’d think of a funny combination of words you’d just write it down. One of them was Wet Book. My brother misheard me and said, ‘Oh you should call it Wet Leg.’ Rhian wasn’t sure. Seems to have worked though.”
That’s quite an inconsequential hill to die on, but there’s more where that came from. He claims he helped write two songs — “Oh No” and “Too Late Now” — that appear on Wet Leg’s Grammy-winning debut album. “I feel frightened to try and approach that subject,” he added. “But I did write [on those songs] and they are on the record. So I probably should get recognized.”
Teasdale has said that a good chunk of Wet Leg was inspired by a breakup, but she’s never named Richards directly. Still, he has an issue with the five or so songs that vaguely reference him, namely “Ur Mum” and “Wet Dream,” the latter of which incudes the zinger: “What makes you think you’re good enough to think about me when you’re touching yourself?”
“Wet Dream” helped propel Wet Leg to international fame, so much so that Harry Styles even covered the song. “It was pretty funny that Harry Styles did a cover of a song about me ejaculating,” Richards said. (If you ask us, he owes Teasdale a “thank you” for that alone.)
Never mind the fact that Richards is now affianced and with child — he’s still very, very bitter that he’s not included in the success story of two talented women. “I keep thinking, ‘Why does it have to be the No. 1 album? Could it not just be No. 4 or something?’” he said, adding that he finds it “tricky to feel happy” for Teasdale. Even in the grand scheme of men riding the coattails of women’s success, this feels particularly pathetic.
Richards concludes by saying that he’d “like to feel more at peace with it all,” which has us dumbfounded as to why he’d willingly let a major publication interview him about that exact story. To paraphrase Teasdale’s own words, he seems a bit like a “piece of shit,” indeed.
Wet Leg still get the last laugh, however, as they’ll soon be supporting Foo Fighters on their UK tour. Grab tickets here.
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