Today local Philadelphia alt-rockers Her New Knife announced the October 31st release of chrome is lullaby: re, featuring remixes of the six tracks of 2024 EP chrome is lullaby courtesy of Angel Emoji (of Frost Children, who headline The Foundry November 12th), Grimace, Red Rakes, Certain (Sword II), SILICONE VALLEY, and They Are Gutting a Body of Water (whose December 12th show at The Church may be sold out, but who still have tickets for Night Two, December 13th), whose remix of the EP’s opening track, “kittyriff,” dropped today as the EP’s lead single. The standard EP will be available on vinyl and cassette, with the remixes appearing on the B-side, courtesy of TAGABOW bandleader Doug Dulgarian’s own Julia’s War Recordings.
Over the course of the past year, Her New Knife have played shows opening for both TAGABOW and Frost Children (Last year the two provided support for julie at Brooklyn Bowl, one of the best shows of the fall.), appeared at festivals like Nothing’s Slide Away and SXSW (where they played eleven sets), and spent much of July on the road with local peers SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE. On September 22nd, the quartet — Edgar Atencio (guitar and vocals), Ben Kachler (guitar), Carolina Schooley (bass), and Elijah Ford (drums) — will be playing their second-ever show at Johnny Brenda’s when they kick off a 14-date tour opening for Water From Your Eyes (featuring our buddy Nate Amos/This Is Lorelei), a band that Her New Knife’s Edgar Atencio tells me during a recent Zoom chat that he’s a big fan of.
*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Izzy Cihak: Since we’re both Philadelphia-based, I have to ask your thoughts on the city…
Edgar Atencio: Philly’s a lot different from where we’re all from. One thing that I like about Philly is almost everyone tours and, through that, it’s lot more possible to meet and know people from different cities. Most people from Philly, or who live here and make music here, know people who live in New York, Boston, etc. It’s a network.
Izzy: You’ve played a lot of big shows this year, with some festivals and a bunch of dates with SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE recently. How have your 2025 live shows been going so far? What have been some standout moments?
Edgar: They’ve gone pretty well. My favorite shows on this last tour were not even in the biggest rooms, though. Our friend in LA just threw us this house show in East Hollywood, and that was my favorite show; it was just packed and sweaty and fun. We’ve definitely played some venues bigger than we’ve ever played before this last year, and that’s cool, but I think the coolest part about that is mostly just hearing everything be loud because we’re on a big, nice stage.
Izzy: What are some of the things you enjoy about touring and being on the road together in addition to playing the shows?
Edgar: We make time for a lot of extracurricular activities. Some of us brought fishing poles and Ben always brings catcher’s mitts and a baseball, so we’d play catch. It was funny, we would invite SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE like every other day when we were free, like, “Hey! Let’s go here!” “Let’s go there!” “Let’s do this thing!” They tour a lot, so I’m sure they just like to relax and chill, so they were always just kinda like, “Nah, I’m going to my hotel” [laughs]. But we like to have fun.
Izzy: You’re about to kick off a tour with Water From Your Eyes right here at Johnny Brenda’s. How excited are you for those dates? Were you previously fans of Nate and Rachel? I also love This Is Lorelei.
Edgar: I started listening to them when they came out with an Audiotree a few years ago. I’ve seen Water From Your Eyes a few times in Philly, like I saw them at The Church, I saw them play at Union Transfer, I even saw them play at Bonk’s Bar. So, I’ve liked them for a few years and we’ve all listened to them before this tour, so we’re pretty excited.
Izzy: What can be expected of your live set on these dates?
Edgar: We’ve been working on new songs, sort of in lieu of the recording of an album. A good portion of the stuff that we play is unreleased and I think, by the time the Water From Your Eyes dates come, our set will be even more unreleased shit. I’m looking forward to that, I think it’ll be cool and striking, ya know [laughs].
Izzy: And what are your thoughts on Johnny Brenda’s? I definitely think it may be the best room in the city and just a rad place. Touring artists tell me it’s one of their favorite rooms in the country all the time.
Edgar: I’ve been there a lot of times since living here, and it definitely looks the coolest. I like how tall it is, I like the Victorian curtains in the back, it’s cool. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of cool shows there. We’ve played there once; I think we did it as a three-piece. I’m excited to play there as a full band.
Izzy: Have you seen any particularly special or memorable shows there as a fan?
Edgar: I saw Morgan Garrett [who will be opening Johnny Brenda’s for Water From Your Eyes and Her New Knife on 9/22] there, and that was cool.
Ben: I saw Model/Actriz there!
Izzy: Yeah, I’ve been to tons of crazy shit there over the years.
Edgar: Cindy Lee played, it must have been 2023, but during the set they just like tackled this middle-aged guy in the crowd because he was on his phone too much [laughs].
Izzy: You mentioned that you’re working on new music and hoping to have more of it done for the Water From Your Eyes tour. What can be expected of the new music, as it compares to previous singles and EPs?
Edgar: Since coming back home from tour, there’s been this personal growth that I’ve done, in terms of the music that I enjoy and the stuff that I envision myself making. You work on something, and you’re kind of inadvertently influenced by outside sources. Coming back home, I just moved into a new house, and for the first few weeks I had like nothing in here, or I had my stuff, but everything was in boxes.
All I had was being at home and playing guitar and coming up with stuff. It kind of gave me a new outlook on the stuff I wanna make, it’s honed my ideas a little more. I was just in this rut of working on stuff, but then not really finishing things, and then listening to stuff, and being like, “That’s cool.” Then I would think about working on stuff, and I’d think about all these things I think are cool, and I’d be like, “That’s not cool enough,” [laughs].
Now I feel a lot more direct, which I think is the vibe of the new songs. And the music has changed recently, too. We started off as an indie/shoegaze band, and I think the music now’s a lot harder and more precise. It’ll be different, but people will understand that it’s who we are and what we’ve been building to become… music with some ugly guitar parts, but all very deliberate and cool. I’m looking forward to it.
Izzy: Finally, and this is a big question, but I just realized that this year is the fifth anniversary of “Piled Up,” which would make the band officially half-a-decade old, so I’m curious what have been some of the highlights of the first five years of Her New Knife?
Edgar: When you start out, it’s not really about anything other than, “I wanna do this! I wanna write music. I wanna do this thing.” Things like identity and purposeful decision making sometimes don’t necessarily come firsthand. For me, it’s been really exciting to see us continue to play together and write new songs and realize this specific vision of what, personally, I’m trying to make. I’ve seen the way I play guitar change, and the way I sing, and become more deliberate. That, to me, will always be really satisfying, more so than meeting musicians that I think are really cool, which is really cool, but I just think personal growth and development as an artist has been the most satisfying and gratifying thing about these last few years, for sure.
*Get your tickets here.
**Listen for Her New Knife on the September edition of Philthy Radio, 9/19 on Y-Not Radio.
