Little Hag’s Avery Mandeville takes us track-by-track through the raw emotion and bold energy of her band’s third studio album ‘Now That’s What I Call Little Hag,’ a sonically ambitious and expansive indie rock record that shines bright with its own fierce, unapologetic, and undeniable light.
Stream: “The Machine” – Little Hag
Little Hag’s Avery Mandeville can be a musical chameleon at times, but she is – forever and always – unapologetic, unfiltered, and uncompromising.
This much rings true throughout her band’s third studio album, whose sonically and emotionally charged songs run the gamut from punk to pop, folk to neo-disco, and beyond; despite such a wide variety of sounds and styles, Now That’s What I Call Little Hag is not only an exceptionally cohesive collection, but also one that shines bright with its own unique, cathartic, and seductive light. It’s the gorgeous, fiery glow of relentless vulnerability and self-exploration; of connection through release; of endless pools of energy combined with the rawest of raw emotions.
Little Hag enchants, empowers, invigorates, and inspires through her breathtakingly charming and churning music, pulling listeners deep into a world passion and tension constantly collide and we can all be our boldest, truest, fiercest and most f’ed up selves.
You’re like Rapunzel
I’m like the guy
Throw down my charger
The one thing I left behind
Gas up my dildo
And go f* myself
Eat a patty melt alone
Consider getting help
Find me a human
that can give it to me
Find me a human
better than the machine
– “The Machine,” Little Hag
Released August 23rd, 2024 via Bar/None Records, Now That’s What I Call Little Hag is a delightfully unapologetic fever dream from one of indie rock’s freshest voices. The brainchild of Asbury Park-bred, and now South Philadelphia-based Avery Mandeville (whom Atwood Magazine once described as “ruthless, reckless, progressive, and grounded”), Little Hag is a dynamic, boundary-pushing “bitch rock” band with a defiant punk mentality.
Comprised of Mandeville together with Cara Introcaso, Matthew Fernicola, Owen Flanagan, and Mitchell Warren-Devlin, Little Hag began its life in the mid-2010s as Avery Mandeville & the Man-Devils; they ultimately changed their name and signed to Bar/None Records in 2020, releasing two studio albums – 2020’s Whatever Happened to Avery Jane? and 2021’s Leash – in relatively quick succession, all while gaining local and regional acclaim for their “infectious” live shows.
As far as the band’s name is concerned, Mandeville explains that ‘Little Hag’ was one of many identities (well, social media handles) she previously went by; it just so happens that this one stuck in real life, too.
“I used to change my Instagram handle frequently in like 2016 to whatever struck me,” she says. “For a while it was @officialjoeyfatone, @officialbarbrastreisand, @officialdanitykane, and the like. Then it was @mrnicebutt and @nomoremrnicebutt. Eventually I landed on @littlehag. I was out one day and someone said, ‘Are you little hag?’ and I thought… you know what? I am Little Hag. I had been performing under my own name at the time and wanted to shift away from Avery Mandeville as the music became more rock band and less singer/songwriter.”
Atwood Magazine previously premiered the Avery Mandeville single and music video “Get Real!” in 2018, praising both the authenticity and excitement of her artistry: “Mandeville brings a level of clarity, vulnerability, and ferocity to her indie rock songs that we haven’t seen or heard in years,” we wrote at the time.
These same words ring true more than six years later, as Mandeville and her Little Hag bandmates continue to channel our innermost human experiences into powerful, palpable moments of musical expression.
“I wrote the majority of the record in January 2023 following a breakup,” Mandeville tells Atwood Magazine. “I went down to Durham with my best friend Noah (touring drummer for Samia and Willow Avalon, solo artist as Wormy) to visit some friends with the goal of writing a song a day for the month we were there. Seven of those made it on the record. I felt weird and lost at that time, unsure of where I would be living and what the future would hold. So those feelings were channeled through the trademarked Little Hag™ sarcasm and caustic humor.”
“My vision seems to never trump the bankroll or the deadline, or rather the deadline becomes the vision,” she adds. “I always need to get things done as efficiently as possible, so that involved making quick time on the songs we did as a full band in the studio and having friends produce the other songs from home or without me. I would write a song, send the demo, and say, ‘do your thing.’ This became the energy of the record – a very diverse sounding collection of songs that would not have existed in this form without the help of eight different producers at eight different studios.”
Mandeville cheekily describes Now That’s What I Call Little Hag as bitchy, fun, and stupid.
The album’s title, she says, is a direct nod to the beloved Now That’s What I Call Music compilation series. “I love the Now That’s What I Call Music CDs because I grew up on them and have a small collection of them,” she explains. “I’m a very nostalgic person. I thought it would be funny to present this batch of songs that way and really rip off the aesthetic. It was fitting because there’s so many genres happening on this record like punk, industrial, pop, hip-hop, dance, alt-country, and folk. So it’s really a Little Hag sampler in the way the ‘Now’ records are.”
While it may be home to a smorgasbord of musical styles and influences, Now That’s What I Call Little Hag nevertheless feels like the definitive Little Hag record, bringing Avery Mandeville’s unapologetic energy and brutal vulnerability to the forefront on each of its thirteen tracks.
“I think the production remaining cohesive despite its sonic diversity is a testament to the strength of the songwriting and my unique voice,” she reflects. “These songs can be really dark but also really funny, and as always very raw. They’re much less generically rock than our first record Whatever Happened to Avery Jane? and Leash, as I’ve grown and my palate has expanded.”
“There’s also a lot of pent-up queer energy here that I didn’t know what to do with before. This is definitely my coming out record because I had never written about queerness before, at least not intentionally. Like a straight woman could not write ‘which one of you schlubs am I gonna wind up with’ about all men (on ‘Schlub’ from 2021’s Leash). But I had never faced it head on in music because I had never faced it head on in life.”
The way that you
The way that you
I know that you
The way that you
Y O U O Y O U blew it (oops!)
You blew it baby you had it all
I know that’s why you’re upset
You blew it baby you had it all
I know that’s why you’re being a prick
Highlights abound on the dramatic journey from Now That’s What I Call Little Hag’s album opener “The Machine” to closer “Suck Out the Pain” as Little Hag invite listeners onto their musical and emotional rollercoaster. Standouts include the brooding, melancholy indie pop anthem “The Suburbs,” the raucous, feverish, and messy upheaval “Oops!,” the angst-fueled eruption “1000 Birds,” the sample-forward, jazz- and nostalgia-soaked reverie “All 3,” and the seductive sapphic love song, “King Cake.”
“I love the last two minutes of ‘Hell Yes.’ It’s huge and you will not see it coming,” Mandeville says of her own favorite moments. “I love Dana saying ‘I need the internet in the sky’ because that is where we will all be going one day. I love ‘King Cake’ just because it’s truly the only sincere love song I’ve ever written, but I still somehow manage to use a word like ‘slaughter’ in it. I love ‘You Blew It!’ because it’s so aggressively bitchy and the perfect ‘f-you’ song. But if you listen to one Little Hag song, let it be ‘Oops!’ please.”
As for favorite lyrics? There’s at least one obvious answer: “I love ‘gas up my dildo and go f* myself’ on ‘The Machine,’” she smiles, “[as well as] ‘do my little dances, shake my little ass’ on ‘Oops!’ and ‘won’t somebody come quick and just Eternal Sunshine me?’ on ‘Suck Out the Pain.’ I like being stupid. Music really should not be serious; it’s the least serious thing a person could do.”
1994 called and said
“Wake up Avery,
Time to be a bitch
With high standards and poor health”
Opened up a can of worms
It tasted nasty
Blamed it on somebody else
Then felt bad for myself
If I do my to-do list
I’m allowed to be happy
Or just close my eyes
And put it back up on the shelf
I wanted to feel complete
So I let you fill me
Let’s avoid the world
And act like this will all go well
I wanted to feel something
Oops! All nothing
Unserious though Mandeville may feel at present, Now That’s What I Call Little Hag feels tailor-made to be here for us throughout life’s good and bad moments. It’s a simultaneously polished and raw record that hugs the ears and the heart, offering itself as both a cozy blanket and a cathartic cuddle buddy; a comforting musical companion ready to soundtrack all those long nights ahead.
No matter where they go and what they do, Little Hag remain unapologetic, unfiltered, and uncompromising – a calling card that is, and will continue to be, their greatest strength as a group.
“I hope people feel bold enough to say their ugly, boring feelings as well as their ugly interesting ones,” Mandeville shares. “It’s okay to act f’ed up, to be f’ed up, and to f up. Life is art and you’re living it!”
“Also, be gay if you can. It will fix everything.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Little Hag’s Now That’s What I Call Little Hag with Atwood Magazine as Avery Mandeville goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her band’s third album!
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:: stream/purchase Now That’s What I Call Little Hag here ::
:: connect with Little Hag here ::
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Stream: ‘Now That’s What I Call Little Hag’ – Little Hag
:: Inside Now That’s What I Call Little Hag ::
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The Machine
“The one thing I left behind when I moved out my my ex’s apartment was my vibrator charger. He threw it down from the balcony one day as I walked by after work so I didn’t have to come upstairs. I felt lonely and weird and unsure of the future, eating patty melts alone at Bond St. Bar in Asbury Park and wondering if it would ever be worthwhile to be with someone again. I felt like all I needed was myself, my friends and my vibrator. That is, until I met my girlfriend. I wrote the bridge after I met her on the feeling of the machine not as a replacement for love but a welcome addition. Producer Josh Perna (of King Leer and Saint Slumber,) encouraged me to write a section that elevated the story and brought it somewhere else.”
Oops!
“Oops! is a song for bathing in your toxic traits and being an agent of chaos. Text your ex, ghost someone before they become your ex, look at your face until you need botox, post a cry for help, impulse buy, eat hot chip and lie. I wanted to have fun and find joy in all the things we’re supposed to feel ashamed about, some for good reason and others not so much. Sometimes it’s fun to be loud and messy and self obsessed and bad. I should probably talk about this with my therapist. This is my favorite song to play live because we do it just a few BPM faster and it feels really punk and off the rails. If you listen to just one Little Hag song, let it be Oops! The music video, directed by Mickey Mann, uses real cameras, camcorders, phones and an endoscopy camera which add so much texture to this really chaotic world that Mickey creates.”
The Suburbs
“My mom always says ‘you’re not in heaven with God’ as a reminder to stay aware of my surroundings. But it feels like the worst thing that could happen to me in the suburbs is death by boredom. I felt this longing to get out of Jersey for the first time, coupled with the equally paralyzing fear of change and starting over somewhere else. I couldn’t shake the vision of becoming a sad old townie who complains as every place I ever loved closed down or changed dramatically. So now I’m a sad displaced Asbury Park townie living in Philadelphia, which feels like the best of both worlds. The suburbs will always be home, and they’ll always be there for me, but now I don’t have to get in my car every time I need something from the store.”
1000 Birds
“Thought this one up as I cleaned the toilets at The Saint in Asbury Park. Sometimes, Scott (the owner) would make you mop twice if you didn’t really get in there the first time or left streaks. It was always funny how much he cared about the appearance of the place because it was the epitome of a shitty little dive bar venue. It got me thinking of the tens of restaurant and bar jobs that I’ve worked, and how you really shouldn’t be allowed out in society if you’ve never lived that life. So it’s not really about The Saint, or Scott, but the things we do to survive in capitalism, and how pointless it feels to make art when your life is f*ing stupid and a cliche and you have no money. I miss The Saint badly and would do anything to clean those bathrooms one more time. I worked the door and also played the very last show that ever happened there, in December of 2022, which was pathetic in its townie way but also kind of iconic. It was the first place in Asbury that I ever played. It felt like a little sign that it was time to go.”
All 3
“What can I say! I’m a cancer. I’m way too nostalgic, especially when triggered by the notion that anyone I’ve ever loved in the past has survived without me? Moved on, even? The world still turns? Literally what gives. This one was totally out of pocket about an old ex who had every right to be living their life. I just couldn’t help but get in my feelings and think about us.”
You Blew It!
“Banger of the album award goes to You Blew It! I was pissed off (obviously) because my ex was f*ing my friend so I had to dismiss him from his bass player duties. I was hoping we could still be in Little Hag together after we broke up but when I found that out it was all too much. He texted me ‘I know that you’re making a huge mistake, but it’s your mistake to make’ which was so pompous and delusional that it was actually iconic. What else is there to say but YOU blew it, buddy! It was so cathartic and fun to call it out over and over again with these repetitive, layered lyrics. By the time we got to the end vocal takes I was screaming in a way I didn’t even know I could. I was inspired by New Body Rhumba by LCD Soundsystem and Into The Void by Nine Inch Nails, and producer Joe Zorzi (of Modern Chemistry) really understood the assignment.”
Would It Kill You?
“Same ex, different vibe. I felt let down by him a lot throughout our relationship, but it was really encapsulated in a fight where he basically said that he would not go to the ends of the earth to protect me if I needed it. Not even hypothetically. He would not defend my honor a la Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, which is obviously when things should’ve ended. I would, without question, go Will Smith Mode for the people I love and if you wouldn’t, you are pathetic lol”
HHSTTHN
“Sometimes I’m just a rotisserie chicken cooking on a spit of my 5 different feelings and then sitting under a heat lamp in a plastic bag. Feelings are just feelings, they’re not always logical or fact, so it’s stupid but fun to stew in them and think about everything bad that’s ever happened to you. Will I ever be loved? Was I hotter when I was 21? Am I enough? Is it ok to say ‘horny’ 4 times in a song? Will I ever get un-banned from Twitter? Yes, no, yes, yes and no.”
King Cake
“It’s crazy to write your first sentimental, saccharine and sincere love song at 28 (when you’ve been writing songs since 15). I think that’s what falling in love with a woman can do for you. Or maybe it’s just that writing a love song for a man seems embarrassing? (The verdict is still out if I’m bi or a lesbian, we’re working on it, but someone please check back in with me about it to update this article in like 2-5 years. I’m sure by then we’ll have it sorted.) The vibe was inspired by Andromeda by Weyes Blood, the slide guitar and drama and lush landscape. Cara (vocals/keys) cried the entire time we recorded this because she loves love too. It felt so good to fall in love with Emily, and she really is surgically implanted in my brain like the little baby in the king cake. She has agreed to stay there for the foreseeable future and to be honest if she ever tries to leave me we’re going to have a big problem! Love is real!”
Hell Yes
“It was that part of COVID where we all wanted more government money and less brain cells. I had this song in a big pile of ‘I don’t know what to do with this’ because it was the first pop/dance track I’d ever written, as part of a COVID-era songwriting challenge by my friend Rick Barry. I brought it to producer/multi instrumentalist Dana Why who imbued it with some of our favorite influences at the time like Handsome Furs. To be frank, he went absolutely apeshit with it. The guitar solo that ends in screams is one of my favorite moments on the record. Just unabashedly fun and totally unique.”
Hangin on a Thing
“Did I mention that I’m nostalgic? There was a point where I thought an ex and I were going to get back together, which felt so comfortable and safe. We were hanging out again for the first time since we broke up and it was fun indulging that feeling. I wanted the power back and a sense of peace. So we went to the ballet and the bar but it all shook out how it did before, and I knew it would, or so I told myself. I put on a brave face like I was over it, and sane, and I think so did he, but it was all so long ago now that I don’t remember why I fell so hard or cared so much.”
God I’m So Annoying
“It’s weird to make a man’s bed when you know you already slept in it for the last time. I was so attached to my ex, perhaps too attached, and felt like if I didn’t end it right then, walk out the door and not come back, that I never would. It was heartbreaking to leave him because I still loved him and perhaps always will in a way. He’ll always be the last man I ever loved. But I was also pissed off for his shortcomings. I felt annoying for being dramatic and having these big feelings (but it’s not annoying to only accept what you deserve and nothing less.)”
Suck Out the Pain
“Suck Out The Pain was one of those songs that wrote itself in 15 minutes. I hummed the verse melody into a voice memo (which according to my phone was April 23rd, 2022) before I had a concept for the song. I thought it and then forgot it. A week later I fell asleep watching Jersey Shore, the episode where Snooki and Deena are wasted and making out for hours in Italy. I dreamed about a girl I used to have a huge thing for going down on me with 4 rows of teeth like a shark. It was hot and scary and when I woke up I was just on the couch in my boyfriend’s apartment. I think this triggered a profound longing for “the before times” because, though they were fun, I had also romanticized them beyond reality. The truth was that I was bartending and drinking too much and living at my mom’s house, and this brief fling felt so magical and effortless inside of all that. I remembered the huge gay feeling of walking to my car in the morning after the first night we kissed and feeling almost manic, like God was real and this was proof and He really had my back. I would look at pictures of us on my phone and feel sad that I’d never be gay again (untrue), despite being really happy in my relationship with a man at the time. So I think it’s normal to want a lobotomy sometimes from the things that you’ve blown out of proportion when they hold you hostage. Or maybe that’s just being a Cancer.”
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© Melissa McLaughlin
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