It's Wetsuit's World, And We're Just Living In It

The first thing you notice about Allison Becker, the lead singer of Wetsuit, is her warmth. Well–okay, admittedly the first thing you notice is her glorious head of ginger curls, but her warmth is a close second. Allison and I first met after Wetsuit opened for Haley Blais back in March, and although we spoke for a maximum of maybe five minutes that night, her kindness and passion were palpable. When we reconnected on a cool, rainy Friday night at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, I was hit with the relief of familiarity. Even now, as I listen back to my voice-memo notes, I can’t help but smile and recount the genuine joy it was to talk to her and the entire Wetsuit team. 

That joy is just the cherry on top, though. The sundae? Allison and her fellow bandmates, Paul DeSilva, Tess Kramer, and her partner, Anders Nils, make up one of the hardest working bands in Brooklyn today. With the recent release of two singles, it is clear that Wetsuit is guiding us into a new era, one that I can confidently say is some of their best work yet. With lyrics that are reminiscent of Fiona Apple and Sharon Van Etten, and melodies that take you on a sonic rollercoaster, Wetsuit has quickly become one of my favorite bands of 2025.

When I sit down with Becker, DeSilva, and Nils they are humming with anticipation, and they’re not alone. As we talked, audience members began arriving, with so many stopping by our back corner booth to tell the band how excited they were to see them play. And not for nothing. When Wetsuit took the stage after our brief interview, they filled the room with their unmistakable dedication for their craft. Every lyric, every melody was played at 110%, conveying so much emotion and love into each and every second of their performance. Becker commands the stage with intimidating grace, and after every song you’ll feel like you’re coming back down to Earth from another planet. To be honest, though, I think I’d be happy staying up there with them.

How did Wetsuit Get Started?

Allison Becker: “In 2020 my New Years Resolution was that I wanted to start a band, but I had never written a song up until the Covid-19 pandemic. Right around that time, I had started taking guitar lessons, and to keep myself busy while I was staying at my parents house in Saint Louis, I just decided to try to write a song every day. When I was finally able to come back to Brooklyn, I brought all of the songs to Anders and Paul and it just started from there.”

How would you define your sound?

Allison Becker: “I think it is so hard to define your sound. Indie rock is the best label I think, although there are some moments where we lean into the natural twang of my voice. Anders also brings a lot of Shoegaze influence based on his previous work.”

Anders Nils: “Allison and I have different musical backgrounds, but I think that they meet in a really cool space. Allison writes the songs and then when we are working out the arrangements it really becomes a collaboration of ideas and becomes a combination of what we both like.”

Do you feel like you’re playing a character when you’re on stage?

Allison Becker: “A little bit. But it’s really just the most emotional version of myself, or whatever self is in that particular song.”

You just released two new singles, “Midwest Dream” and “Hashem.” Why did you decide to make “Midwest Dream” the first single in this new Wetsuit era? 

Allison Becker: “I feel like Midwest Dream is a whole declaration of our new sound. On our last record, we went with a sound that was a little more along the lines of dream indie. On this one I really wanted to just go full force indie rock with some twang. I wanted to go back to my Midwest roots, and embrace the feeling of just being myself. We’re not trying to sound super cool all the time, we’re just focused on the stories we want to tell.”

(They still sound…very cool.)

You talk about wanting to get back to your roots. How do you use what music influenced you growing up and apply it to now?

Anders Nils: “In college I would just go to Market Hotel on the weekends. I wouldn’t even know who was playing, but I ended up getting inspired by so many different types of sound just by immersing myself in music I wasn’t familiar with.”

Allison Becker: “When I was first figuring out my own taste in music, I started by listening to Guster and Dave Matthews Band, Ben Folds – truly just whatever whatever my classmates in high school were listening to. But then I started finding music I related to more on MySpace. I would look at profiles of other girls I thought were cool and just started looking at the bands they were listening to. I kind of went from there. I feel like the Midwest boy influence is still there though. It doesn’t go away.”

Let’s talk about this new era of Wetsuit. You’re putting out singles, and potentially gearing up for more music down the line. How did that start to come together?

Allison Becker: “It started as just a combination of everything we have been playing live for the last two years. We were workshopping a lot of our new music live in the Brooklyn music scene, but then we went to Asheville to work with our producer Alex Farrar (Indigo De Souza), and he took the songs and helped us flesh them out a bit. Now they’re more emotive, more structurally sound. Alex kept referring to our songs as ‘epic,’ and I think now we know exactly how we want to convey that.”

I know you talked about Guster and Dave Matthews. What Artists inspire you?

Allison Becker: “When I was writing these songs I listened to Lomelda a lot and their record Hannah over and over again last year. I feel like the emotive way I sing comes from strange melodies that I like to find and that record really inspired me. I think in general, when I started writing music I listened to a lot of Waxahatchee, Angel Olsen, Big Thief.”

If someone hadn’t listened to Wetsuit before, what would you recommend they start with?

Allison Becker: “‘Midwest Dream,’ I think! It’s the strongest statement of where we are right now.”

Your newest single though, “Hashem,” seems very special. Could you touch on that a bit?

Allison Becker: “I think ‘Hashem’ is the closest I’ll ever write to a spiritual or religious song. "‘Hashem,’ means ‘the name’, literally the name of God in Hebrew. I started writing it when I was training to be a yoga instructor two years ago. There are a lot of textual references to God in yoga training, but my teacher at the time just had me think about the concept of love and what I hold closest to me. I started thinking about how much I love my family and I ended up getting inspired to write a song about that. I took lyrics I learned at summer camp and combined them with some sayings from my grandmother and my mother to make up the verses, and then the chorus lyrics are, ‘My body bends and folds, I breathe in and out,’ which is a reference to how spiritual I feel when I’m practicing yoga. I wanted to put it all together. I think the most exciting part about this release though is the music video. I filmed with four generations of women from family in Saint Louis. A lot of the video consists of me and my mom, Bubby, sister, and cousins, all making challah together. All of our music videos I’ve conceptualized, but this is the first one I’ve gotten to direct. Plus, me and Anders edited it together. So it just feels incredibly personal.”

What excites you about the Brooklyn Indie Rock scene in Brooklyn? What keeps you in Brooklyn? 

Allison Becker: “I think there are a lot more female fronted bands in it, and that is so exciting to me. Way more than there were ten years ago. I used to go see local band shows with all dude bills and that's very easy to avoid now. It's really fun to see more representation in the indie rock scene. I’m really excited to see what’s coming next, and how we can be a part of that.”

Any bands in the Brooklyn scene you love these days? 

Allison Becker: “Some of my favorite bands in the scene these days are OK Cowgirl, Colatura, Debbie Dopamine, Go Home, Sweetbreads and Big Girl. Also A Very Special Episode and Navel Grazr who we're playing our ‘Hashem’ single release show with on April 30th!”

When I caught up with the band after their set, they were glowing, and went home feeling addicted to wanting to see them play over and over again. Luckily for all of us, Wetsuit is just getting started.

Wetsuit’s new single, “Hashem” is out now wherever you listen to music, and you can catch them live on April 30th at Main Drag. Tickets are available here.