Teen Suicide

Led by enigmatic Baltimore singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sam Ray, Teen Suicide’s emo-charged noise punk earned plenty of attention in the front half of the 2010s. After a prolific run of ambitious and unpredictable releases, the group temporarily disbanded, then re-formed for 2016′s eclectic It’s the Big Joyous Celebration, Let’s Stir the Honeypot. Ray then spun the project out under another name, American Pleasure Club, and continued working until a health scare forced him to hit pause on his career. Reviving the Teen Suicide moniker, he returned in 2022 with the wild and existentially driven Honeybee Table at the Butterfly Feast.
Teen Suicide was initially built around the core duo of Ray and drummer Eric Livingston. Formed in 2009, the pair issued a compilation of early demos titled Bad Vibes in 2011, followed by a trio of EPs (DC Snuff Film, Goblin Problems, and Hymns) and their debut full-length (I Will Be My Own Hell Because There Is a Devil Inside My Body) on Run for Cover Records in 2012. Bass player Alec Simke joined them shortly after the album’s release and appeared on their third EP, Waste Yrself. Teen Suicide disbanded in 2013, but the ensuing years saw the members sporadically re-forming for one-off shows and the occasional single. In 2015 they released remastered and expanded versions of their debut LP and the DC Snuff Film and Waste Yrself EPs (the latter two were issued as a single album). A new single appeared late that year titled “Sonic Youth,” though it was nebulously uncredited to Teen Suicide. A few months later, it was revealed that they had a new full-length ready for release. Sporting another lengthy title, the band’s ambitious and wide-ranging sophomore LP, It’s the Big Joyous Celebration, Let’s Stir the Honeypot, arrived in April 2016.
After announcing that they would be retiring the Teen Suicide name, Ray and the rhythm battery of drummer Sean Mercer and bassist Nick Hughes cycled through a handful of temporary names. Singles were released using monikers like the World’s Greatest and Dumpster before the band finally settled on the more permanent American Pleasure Club. With the addition of Sam Ray’s wife, vocalist Kitty Ray, American Pleasure Club released two albums, 2018′s A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This and 2019′s Fucking Bliss. Struggling with a mysterious respiratory illness and a subsequent near-death experience, Ray was temporarily sidelined over the next couple of years. The trauma of this period informed the tone of his next release. Musically and thematically ambitious, 2022′s Honeybee Table at the Butterfly Feast saw him revert back to the Teen Suicide name and acted almost as a sort of sequel to the group’s 2016 LP. ~ James Christopher Monger