MisterWives play Orlando this week Credit: Photo by

MisterWives has done this song and dance a thousand times in a thousand different ways — and they still mean it every time.

Throughout a decade spent in an ever-changing music industry, the genre-transcending quintet of vocalist Mandy Lee, bassist Will Hehir, drummer Etienne Bowler, saxophonist Mike Murphy and guitarist Marc Campbell have stayed true to their creative vision and music-first mindset.

With the 2023 release of Nosebleeds, MisterWives’ fourth studio album, the group delivered their most definitive statement yet: a suite of emotionally charged tracks that resonate widely with audiences.

“We’ve always been told we’re too alternative for pop radio or too pop for alternative radio,” Bowler tells Orlando Weekly.“We weren’t trying to fit into a certain style, per se. We weren’t writing for anyone but ourselves.”

From their initial Spotify Sessions released in 2014 — when Tumblr and lace chokers ruled the world — to the mature sounds of Nosebleeds, MisterWives has kept listeners hooked. And when it comes to keeping a band of changing individuals going for more than a decade, this group knows a thing or two. They pay attention to the bottom line, true, but not at the expense of their love for music.

“The music industry, like any industry that attempts to monetize an art form, will always be interesting,” Hehir says. “There will always be people who look at it from a strictly business side, and then people who look at it from a strictly artistic side. We’ve had the same manager throughout our entire career, and he’s been tremendous in supporting us and finding opportunities that fit us as a band.”

Just as people change, industries and business models change. Though MisterWives have taken the stage in the City Beautiful before, Thursday’s performance features a new-look MisterWives — navigating a new type of music industry.

“When we started the band, we started as people whose job it was to make music and then go tour,” Bowler says. “Now, 10 years later, our job is to be content creators on TikTok.” Bowler and Hehir do recognize the importance of following social media’s infamous algorithms to get their art noticed, admitting it has revolutionized the game in a balance of good and bad ways.

“You don’t have to go to a record label to be like, ‘I want to make music that people can hear,’ because people can do that right from their own individual platforms,” Hehir says.

On the flipside of this music biz circa 2024, you must lean in on capturing an audience’s attention in a few seconds or less, he added. The band, specifically vocalist Lee, whom Bowler and Hehir agree is more social media-savvy than her bandmates, has worked on figuring out ways to promote their music via social media while maintaining the “integrity of the art,” as Hehir says.

Even in a social media-forward atmosphere, the band say they’re fortunate to work with creative minds behind the scenes who present their art as is. “Inevitably, if you’re not putting the music first, you’re going to feel completely unfulfilled because you’re sacrificing one for the other, right?” Hehir says.

Regardless of the way the world changed over the last decade [quite a bit, by any metric!], MisterWives kept writing and producing songs that bite in different ways. Love? Anger? A bad breakup? Vague ennui? There’s a MisterWives song for that. And that’s down to the band’s genuine and enduring love for making their music and singing their lives, both on record and on stage.

“I think what we’ve always really said is once the show stops being fun or when you have to put on a front while you’re playing a show, that’s probably when it’s like,‘Oh, this isn’t working for us anymore,’” Hehir says.

“It doesn’t really matter what you’re going through; for that hour and a half, you’re enjoying every single second of it. As a band we’ve gotten along for 10 years, and there have been highs and lows and ups and downs, but you play a show like it’s the last fucking time you’re ever going to be doing it.”

So, what’s next for the restless quintet? Bowler and Hehir say after writing and touring for a decade, it might be a good time for a break. Following Thursday night’s stop at the Plaza Live, the band will hit Jannus Live in St. Petersburg, then the Holiday From Real cruise that sails out of Miami and returns Nov. 13. The band hinted these stops may be the last for a while.

“We don’t really have a concrete plan of what’s to come next,” Bowler says. “I think we’ll still play some shows, but we’re going to take some time before jumping into the next record.”

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This article appears in Nov 6-12, 2024.