Teenage Bottlerocket are coming back to The Netherlands in April 2025

They’ve toured the world countless times. They kept the leather jacket-and-Converse look alive through an increasingly neon landscape. They’ve written songs about KISS, Top Gun and Minecraft. Hell, they’ve even been on CNN a few times! So please welcome back to the spotlight Wyoming’s own Teenage Bottlerocket, whose ninth album, the 12-track Sick Sesh! — traffic-cone-orange cover art and all — is out on Fat Wreck Chords. “This record is 12 songs because 14 was too long,” cracks vocalist/guitarist Ray Carlisle. “We wanna keep the energy up.” 

“We spent a lot of time on guitar tones this time around — that was important for us,” he says. “We made sure to bring the noisy, loud, irritate your fuckin’ mom guitar back. There’s a ton of intentional guitar noise and feedback. We dug up the amps we used for Freak Out! and They Came From The Shadows. This is punk rock, after all. Stay Rad! Is a great record, but it’s very radio-friendly. I wanted to do the opposite of that: Let’s get fuckin’ noisy.”

With more than 100 original songs already in their catalog, how does the band stay motivated when they’re eight records deep? “We’re always in competition with ourselves,” Carlisle explains. “The real competition is between me and Kody. It’s like, ‘You wrote a song that destroys everything else on this record. Let me try to do that to you real quick. How’s that feel?” And then he comes back and one-ups me. “It’s all about the songs,” he continues. “The songs carry this record all the way. That’s not to say there are bad songs on our other records — we have a hard time releasing a shitty song. But these songs are especially great. You know ALL’s best-of record where Allroy is dissecting a musical note? I felt we kind of tapped into that record in a great way, not in a ‘Oh no, they’re experimental now!’ way. This is a Teenage Bottlerocket record through and through, but there’s a lot of hidden elements.”

Carlisle’s pride about Sick Sesh! is obvious, but he’s not the only one who loves the album. “Fat Mike called me and said, ‘Hey, this is your best record,” Carlisle recalls. “I said, ‘Cool, thanks for noticing.’” With Sick Sesh!, Teenage Bottlerocket will return to the road next year and is coming back to The Netherlands for two shows:

21/04: Haarlem, NL - Patronaat
22/04: Hoogeveen, NL - Het Podium