A Complete Unknown: MJ Lenderman Is Blowing Up The Right Way (Cover Story)

“How many roads must a man walk down/Till he learns/He’s just a jerk who flirts with the clergy nurse till it burns.”
“Rudolph” by MJ Lenderman

“I’ve never seen the Mona Lisa / I’ve never really left my room / I’ve been up here too late with guitar hero / Playing Bark at the Moon.””
“Bark At The Moon”  by MJ Lenderman

How many young artists are out there today who can spit bars referencing Bob Dylan, Ozzy Osbourne, faith-based health care and long-gone video games? Or do it with a slacker lilt, foot-stomping rock, nods to Americana and Skynyrd-like jam outs? Or who freely admits to not being a “social media guy” and hasn’t been on “Instagram in two or three years”? And yet, at the same time, this rising 26-year-old has more than 100 dates slated for this year.

MJ Lenderman is on a roll. He’s amidst a touring jag with a fan-base and critical accolades increasing exponentially as his career has steadily grown over the last year from club artist to playing increasingly larger clubs and theaters, festival plays and international touring. He just played two two-shows at the 1,200-cap Fonda in L.A. in February. Those came after playing the 300-cap Zebulon and the 500-cap Lodge Room the year before. This September, he’ll play the 5,600-capacity Shrine Expo Hall. The buzz surrounding Lenderman right now is palpable.

“It’s been weird in a lot of ways.” says Lenderman, whose just awoken at 1:00 p.m. from his home in Chapel Hill, NC, which he recently moved to from his native Asheville. “It’s nice to play shows and have people come to them. Previously, we’d done only a couple of headline tours, so we didn’t really know what to expect. Part of all this growing means being on the road most of the time.” Indeed after our interview he’ll be heading to play Australia.

Six short years ago, Mark Jacob Lenderman – Jake to his friends – was a 20-year-old college dropout dishing out ice cream scoops in Asheville. A self-taught guitarist (learned in part through endless sessions of Guitar Hero), MJ, as he dubbed himself (“I felt Jake wasn’t a great name for a rock musician”), self-booked the occasional solo gig. At the same time, he became a guitarist for local rock group Wednesday, striking up a professional and (since-split) personal partnership with its founding member, singer/songwriter Karly Hartzman (their meta collaboration on “She’s Leaving You” will melt your hardened heart — see below). Though he’s no longer touring with Wednesday, MJ Lenderman & the Wind, as his band is called, still share two brilliant musicians in pedal steel, dobro and fiddle player Xandy Chelmis and bassist/keyboardist Ethan Baechtold.

“I recognize how much time it takes to be on the road with both bands,” Lenderman says about the overlap, which has made for a an incredibly busy touring schedule.. “They’re able to take time off from my tour for when the Wednesday album cycle hits. My band has always been more fluid in that regard. The current line-up for my band has been the most firm for this amount of time. The way my music works and is organized, it makes sense to keep things as flexible as possible in my band.”

Whem COVID arrived, MJ left his day job and concentrated on painting and making music. A pair of Bandcamp releases preceded 2022’s surprise breakthrough, Boat Songs, which Pitchfork awarded an 8.3 and dubbed Best New Music drawing the attention of the rock-crit cognoscenti. And fresh off the following year’s Wednesday album Rat Saw God, on leading indie Dead Oceans, dominating 2023’s year-end critic polls, MJ’s solo follow-up, Manning Fireworks this past September saw his own career explode into the sky like, well, fireworks.

A glowing New Yorker piece by Amanda Petrusich, who dubbed Manning Fireworks the best album of the year, furthered the frenzy. Facebook’s repurposed Pazz & Jop Poll had it No. 2, just behind Tigers Blood Waxahatchee, a.k.a. Kathryn “Katie” Crutchfield (whose sublime song “Right Back To It” MJ contributed vocals to), while Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Entertainment Weekly, Paste, Stereogum and Uncut all had it in their 2024 Top 10. High-profile appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and WXPN Philadelphia’s World Café followed and added fuel to the, well, fireworks.

“He’s at the start of something really amazing,” says Rusty Sutton, who manages both Lenderman and Wednesday out of the Durham, North Carolina management company The Glow, which he runs with Martin Anderson. Opened six years ago, their roster now includes fellow NC act Sylvan Esso and Wye Oak, among others. “Jake’s music just works on different levels.  There are so many dimensions that everybody can find something to love about it, between the lyrics and the guitar virtuosity. The live experience is key, too, for threading the needle between indie-rock and a southern jam band like The Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Go to the shows, and young people are in the front, and older ones like me are in the back.”

Wasserman Music agent Andrew Morgan, who has been booking MJ and Wednesday for three years now, compares the rapid growth to another of Wasserman clients Chappell Roan.

“I remember flying to see Jake play at the Market Hotel in Brooklyn, this rather dumpy venue on the second floor of a building near the subway station, after Boat Songs first came out,” he said. “I’d never been asked for more guest lists in my life.  The room was just dangerously packed.  People were flipping out.  They sang all the words to the songs, it just felt like a very meaningful moment for him.”

Lenderman also acknowledges being influenced by southern gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner and Harry Crews, with a gift for creating his own language with lines like: “You once was a baby and now a jerk” (“Manning Fireworks”); “So you say I got a funny face/It makes me money” (“Wristwatch”); “Kahlua shooter/DUI scooter” (“Joker Lips”); as well as “And every day is a miracle/Not to mention a threat/Of bees nests nestled in a hole in the yard/Of Travolta’s bald head” (“On My Knees”).

Both Sutton and Morgan are making sure the growing hype doesn’t overshadow the music, with dates scheduled for Australia and New Zealand including performances at the Sydney Opera House and The Forum in Melbourne. The month after he’ll play three sold-out shows at Brooklyn Steel (1,800-cap).

“Jake is an artist whose growth has been very organic and holistic,” explained Morgan. “We’re letting the music speak for itself and people are responding. We want a tour of sold-out shows. We want people to know they have to buy tickets when they go on sale if they want to see him perform.”

Morgan says the reactions to Lenderman’s shows from promoters is something he’s never seen before,. “I sometimes get notes from promoters,” he explains, “but without fail like a couple of times a week when MJ’s out on the road, promoters I’ve worked with going back almost 20 years, hit me up being like, ‘That was fucking amazing.’ I’ve never heard that from them ever. There’s something about the MJ show that’s just lit them up…People are really into it and it feels really organic and sustainable. It’s exciting from a pure music enjoyment way.”

While the MJ buzz spreads, The Glow’s Sutton is looking at the bigger picture. “Every decision we make is about planning for career longevity,” he says. “This requires patience, care and thought. We try to stay on our feet, be nimble and take it day by day.”

According to recent Pollstar Boxoffice Reports, Lenderman’s touring revenues are still relatively modest. His two shows at San Francisco’s Independent Feb. 17-18 before 1,100 grossed $27,500 and his play at Tucson’s Rialto Theater on Feb. 11 for 1,200, for example grossed $30,100 His upcoming triple plays at Brooklyn Steel or single night at the Shrine should catapult revenues into the six-figure range.

The lanky, tousle-haired heartthrob is a veritable triple threat. Call him “the three Jakes,” with skills as a performer, singer/songwriter and guitarist. The comparisons to Neil Young and Crazy Horse come with the unexpected blast of psychedelic feedback from a powerful band that straddles lines between indie, jam and Americana roots music. His wry, tongue-in-cheek songwriting evoke all-time greats like Paul Westerberg, Alex Chilton and Randy Newman, with sly self-effacement. There’s strong sonic reference to GenX ‘80s-90s slacker bands like Dinosaur, Jr., Sparklehorse, Sebadoh and Pavement.

 “I grew up believing that every band that I like somehow is influenced by Neil Young. he’s my number one,” Lenderman says when asked about influences. “I love Dinosaur Jr. and J. Mascis so much, they’re one of my favorite bands ever,” he says. “I got to sit in with them in December in L.A. and that was a huge deal for me. I’ve started to get into Paul Westerberg over the past several years. I’ve been digging more into his solo stuff. I really like his record, Stereo. I haven’t spent as much time with Big Star as I’d like to. They’re kind of like the dBs. I’m really interested in these Southern bands that are kind of poppy. I’m starting to get more inspired by that kind of stuff while I was writing this album. A song like “She’s Leaving You” is inspired by that style. It’s so cool to see bands like that coming out of the south.    

And while MJ himself isn’t overtly political, Manning Fireworks‘ title track does make references to someone who “opened the Bible in a public place” and is now “Standing close to the pyre, manning fireworks.” With one hand on the good book and the other on the nuclear button, it sounds eerily familiar to someone we all know too well.

“I did discover a place called Manning in South Carolina where fireworks are legal,” confesses MJ when asked. “I like how the title, in the context of the song, is an action, but on its own, it could be a place. I think it’s impossible to ignore Trump, obviously, so that was part of it.  Maybe more than subconscious, but less as a direct comparison. It could be about one of his followers, like Elon Musk.”

A basketball fan who played shooting guard on his high school team, Lenderman’s Boat Songs include “Hangover Game,” a tribute to his namesake MJ, recounting Michael Jordan’s famed flu game, where the superstar, suffering from an apparent fever, scored 38 points to defeat the Utah Jazz in game five of the 1997 NBA Finals. As the song title suggests, Jordan, as is rumored, may have been out gambling and drinking and his showing up for the game sleep-deprived was heroic. “Chicago still won, which is kind of the point of the song.”

With the entire history of pop and rock at his Internet-age fingertips, MJ places lyrical easter eggs in the songs, quoting Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” in the more rocking “Rudolph,” a song about Lightnin’ McQueen from Pixar’s Cars running over the red-nosed reindeer or The Band song of the same name in “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In.” (Watching “The Last Waltz” at Thanksgiving was reportedly something of a Lenderman family tradition.)

“I got interested in referencing other people’s stuff because it was kind of funny to me,” explains Lenderman. “Also, the type of rock guitar music we’re making isn’t that original.  So, I’m doubling down by using those lyrics. Once I finished the album, it was like, ‘Whoa, there are a lot of those in there.’”

Lenderman agrees with his management and booking agency’s plan to grow slowly and not skip steps, ruling out arenas and outdoor sheds for now.

“Even if the possibility was there, I don’t think this is music for stadiums, arenas or even theaters,” insists MJ. “I like playing clubs. It’s fun to perform in a room where you can hear yourself and your bandmates.”

And while MJ Lenderman might seem the next-big-thing to many, the current balkanized state of the popular music business makes an ascent like that of Kurt Cobain – or Chappell Roan, for that matter – problematic at best. His current album is on the great Anti-, an Epitaph sub-label and home of Tom Waits, Beth Orton, Ben Harper, Bob Mould, Daniel Lanois, Jeff Tweedy and Nick Cave, among others, and has sold nearly 47,000 in album equivalent streams to date, with a total of 24 million U.S. streams, 37 million globally. Lenderman has accumulated between 500,000 and 600,000 monthly Spotify followers, with a total of 5.7 million streams for Manning Fireworks’ most popular track, “Wristwatch.” Not bad, but not nearly platinum, or even gold, for that matter. He is critically acclaimed, but his ascent will be muted by an industry with traditional gatekeepers on a steep decline.

Lenderman instead gives credit to his hometown’s close-knit music community. “Asheville used to have all this affordable housing,” he says. “There was a pretty tight music community there. We’re not competing with anybody. This isn’t a major media center. In Ashville, if you play shows long enough, people will start to notice you. There have been plenty of supportive people locally who made things possible for us. There was the Static Age Records store and the Mothlight club, which is no longer there. That was huge for us; they would let us open for touring bands that we looked up to. And Drop of Sun studios, where we recorded Boat Songs and Manning Fireworks, was more interested in promoting local talent than making a profit.  We recorded the Rat Saw God Wednesday album there for crazy cheap. We got a record deal after that, so it really helped.

 With Wednesday’s new album – the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Rat Saw God — coming out this spring, MJ is ready to cede the spotlight to his “other” band. “Wednesday will now get their share of attention,” he said. “I’m excited for the attention to finally shift away from me.”

“We’ve found a way to proceed in which neither act gets marginalized,” says The Glow’s Sutton. “There is no side project here. Jake was very much involved in what I think is Wednesday’s best album yet. It’s the culmination of all the work they’ve put in until now. They have a lot of love and respect for one another.”

Adds Wasserman Music’s Morgan, “These two acts that are so intertwined can now develop on parallel paths, but there will always be a connection between them, and now they can each succeed on their own. Jake and Karly are like old souls.They are in their 20s but take their job super-seriously. They’re here to make great music and become sustainable touring artists around the world.”

Could this one-time choir boy and self-declared “lapsed Catholic” be Gen Z’s Dylan or Neil Young? “I don’t know about that,” he demurred. Will we see Jake one day played by another lanky curly-haired heartthrob like, say, Timothy Chalamet in his own Hollywood biopic?

“He’d be good, but he’s a few years older than me,” laughs Lenderman, offering an instant reality check.

For someone who just celebrated his 26th birthday on Feb. 4, his world promises to get a lot larger. No longer a complete unknown, MJ Lenderman is seeing his career blast off and reaching many of the goals he set for himself. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else. I didn’t have a plan B,” he says. “I’ve always just wanted to support myself by playing my music.”