QTY

QTY stand as quintessential New Yorkers whose sound fuses gritty urban attitude with sharp, bookish songwriting, echoing Lou Reed’s vocal phrasing while channeling the infectious riffs of the Strokes. Emerging from the breakup of their earlier group Grand Rapids, guitarists and singers Dan Lardner and Alex Niemetz tracked a batch of demos during a 2014 trip to San Francisco; the recordings earned them a contract with Dirty Hit Records even though the pair had yet to perform live. For the next two years the musicians stayed out of sight, concentrated on writing, and played the odd clandestine show while perfecting their material, finally surfacing with several singles in 2016. They confirmed their arrival via a fully announced concert at the Bowery Ballroom in the first months of 2017, then issued their self-titled debut album—produced by Bernard Butler—in December of that same year.