This coming Saturday, May 30th, Fire Talk Records’ Robber Robber wrap their initial North American run behind sophomore LP Two Wheels Move the Soul at our very own Johnny Brenda’s. The making of the follow-up to 2024 debut full-length Wild Guess was largely characterized by Robber Robber co-founders Nina Cates (vocals/guitar) and Zack James (percussion) being displaced from their longtime living quarters in January of 2025 as their landlord called for the building to be demolished. The resulting circumstances had the two couch surfing between friends — including Lily Seabird, who you may have seen sharing the stage of The Dolphin with the Burlington, Vermont indie rockers in fall of 2024 — and finding a home of sorts at Little Jamaica Studios (which also produced portions of Wild Guess), where Nina, Zack, Will Krulak (guitar), and Carney Hamler (bass) joined longtime engineer Benny Yurco to make an album that had Rolling Stone characterizing the quartet as a band that, “make[s] clattering, skronking, unsettling post-punk without sacrificing melody or groove… as chaotic as it is listenable.” Earlier this week, I got a chance to chat with Robber Robber’s Nina Cates about their headlining jaunt behind Two Wheels Move the Soul, this upcoming summer of 2026, and just some of the things they’ve accomplished since their first EP dropped half a decade ago.
Izzy Cihak: Last month you released Two Wheels Move the Soul, your sophomore album. Have you had any favorite reactions to the LP so far?
Nina Cates: It’s been very cool to meet people who know the music in cities we’ve never played in before.
Izzy: How does it feel like the album compares to Wild Guess?
Nina: I think it’s a little colder maybe than Wild Guess, as far as writing it goes. I think both were driven by being curious to try things, but I think having had Wild Guess out we felt more comfy wandering further off into new directions a bit–since there was a frame of reference already.
Izzy: Do you, at the moment, have a favorite album track? I think “Bullseye” is my favorite this very second…
Nina: I love that you like “Bullseye” 🙂 I know our answers differ on favs between band members, but I’ve been stuck on “Avalanche Sound Effect” as my favorite for quite a while. I think something about the simple intro and segmented build into chaos kinda scratches an itch for me
Izzy: You’ve recently put out a few really cool music videos for album tracks, including “Talkback” (which I know you made yourselves) and “The Sound It Made” (which was made by Wes Sterrs, who I was actually just talking about with Liz Cooper, who also recently collaborated with him), in addition to your cover of “Suspicious Minds.” What kinds of things have been influencing the visual elements of Robber Robber recently? Do you enjoy thinking about and working on that kind of stuff?
Nina: We are having a lot of fun finding old cameras or things that look cool sort of accidentally (like the security camera we used for the “Talkback” one) and then leaning into it. It’s almost too easy to make things look pretty good with how nice phone cameras are these days that it’s kinda fun to hunt for old lo-fi things. We tried to sneak in elements of old videogame motifs in “The Sound It Made” video and the “New Year’s Eve” video too. We love thinking about the visual world of the band.
Izzy: Some artists hate this kind of question, but I can never help myself… Considering that this is your sophomore LP, do you have any favorite sophomore LPs in your own music libraries?
Nina: Surfer Rosa is a stellar sophomore album.
Izzy: You’re currently on a batch of tour dates behind Two Wheels Move the Soul which wrap at our very own Johnny Brenda’s. What can be expected of the live show?
Nina: I think it being the last show of tour will mean it’s pretty high energy and we’ll be pretty tour tight and dialed hopefully. It’s been a fun process figuring out how to translate these songs live with just guitars and drums, but we’ve been loving playing them out and we have some new funny sounds we’ve figured out since our last time in Philly. Tiny amps, clunking noises, broken stuff, we’re playing a combination of lots of the new record and some of our favorite live songs from the last record too.
Izzy: I just realized that this year will be the fifth anniversary of Caldera, your very first EP. What are some of your most vivid memories of both making and touring your earliest music?
Nina: Woah! Hey, Happy 5! That’s crazy–we made the earliest EPs on laptops in basements and dorms and played a ton of basements and DIY shows, but definitely have learned a ton about touring more sustainably since then (energetically and financially, haha), fewer basements nowadays but we still have so much love for a nice basement show. We threw one in on this run actually just for fun in Hadley, Massachusetts.
Izzy: On a related note, and this is a big question, but what are some of your biggest personal highlights of the first half-decade of the band?
Nina: The first time we were ever taken on a tour as support was huge for us. We were supporting Thus Love and GIFT for a few shows in New England and that really felt like a milestone. They’re all friends of ours too so it was especially fun. The first time we ever played in New York was also a big one. It was a shit show; we showed up for load in and they told us we couldn’t soundcheck because there was a comedy show that went on right until doors of our show, and we were getting shocked a lot, and I think the mic fully cut out during our friend’s set and she had to run over to the guitarist’s mic to finish the song.
Izzy: Following your current North American run, you have a bunch of fall dates, first supporting Modest Mouse at some pretty huge shows in the States, followed by a bunch of Europe and UK gigs. Are there any cities or shows you’re especially excited about?
Nina: Ahh man, we’re excited about all of it! The Modest Mouse shows will be the biggest we’ve ever played by a pretty big margin so we’re all incredibly excited to see what they’ll be like. I’m also super psyched to play some of the festivals in Europe–it seems like they have a really supportive rock community out there.
Izzy: Between your current tour and those fall dates, you don’t have any shows (at the moment) announced for the summer, so I’m curious how you’re hoping and planning to spend this summer, whether relating to Robber Robber or just summertime fun, if you’re into that sort of thing…
Nina: Definitely trying to eat a lot of hotdogs on the beach but also stoked to have some time at home to write. We’ve got a handful of ideas we’ve been batting around but haven’t had much time to focus on it since the fall, alongside touring and gearing up for Two Wheels’ release. Summertime in Vermont is lovely though–glad to have some time to hang.
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