How MisterWives Went From Being Dropped by a Label Mid-Pandemic to Launching Their Own With Photo Finish (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Ellise Shafer After being dropped by Fueled by Ramen last summer and successfully releasing music independently, New York-based indie-pop band MisterWives are entering a new era in their nearly decade-long career.

In a homecoming of sorts, the five-person group is re-teaming with indie label Photo Finish to launch their own imprint, aptly named Resilient Little Records.MisterWives — consisting of lead singer Mandy Lee, percussionist Etienne Bowler, bassist William Hehir, guitarist Marc Campbell and saxophonist Mike Murphy — first signed to Photo Finish, now distributed by Virgin, in 2013.

It was the home of breakout EP, “Reflections,” as well as the band’s first two studio albums, “Our Own House” and “Connect the Dots.” But MisterWives and Photo Finish diverged in 2017 as the label exited its deal with then-distributor Universal. “When we parted ways it was very much against our wishes,” Hehir tells Variety. “It was probably the first and only time I cried, when we found out about it… So the reason that we’re going back to them, in so many ways, is the reason we wanted to work with them from the get-go.

It’s a small team, they’re all incredibly driven, they’re all incredibly talented and they just want to work together. They have this never-ending work ethic, which I think we missed so much with all the other labels that we’ve gone to because, in one way or another, we were kind of falling through the cracks.”MisterWives, whose sunny, synth-heavy grooves and endlessly entertaining live shows have made them a staple of the indie-rock scene for years, signed to Fueled by Ramen in 2019 and released third album “Superbloom” in 2020.