The enigmatic multi-instrumentalist Sam Ray from Baltimore steers Teen Suicide, whose emo-infused noise punk drew widespread notice during the early 2010s. Following an intense sequence of bold and erratic recordings, the outfit paused operations before regrouping to deliver the stylistically varied 2016 album It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot. Ray later redirected the endeavor under the American Pleasure Club banner and sustained activity until a medical emergency interrupted his work. Reinstating the Teen Suicide name, he resurfaced in 2022 with the intense and philosophically charged Honeybee Table at the Butterfly Feast.
Ray and drummer Eric Livingston formed the initial lineup of Teen Suicide in 2009. The duo compiled early recordings into the 2011 release Bad Vibes, then issued the EPs DC Snuff Film, Goblin Problems, and Hymns before unveiling their first album, I Will Be My Own Hell Because There Is a Devil Inside My Body, via Run for Cover Records in 2012. Bassist Alec Simke entered shortly afterward and contributed to the subsequent EP Waste Yrself. Although the group dissolved in 2013, its members occasionally reunited for isolated performances and stray tracks over the following years. Expanded and remastered editions of the debut album along with DC Snuff Film and Waste Yrself (combined on one disc) surfaced in 2015. Late that year the standalone track "Sonic Youth" emerged without clear attribution to Teen Suicide. Several months afterward, plans for a new album surfaced, culminating in the April 2016 arrival of the expansive sophomore effort It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot.
Ray, drummer Sean Mercer, and bassist Nick Hughes announced the retirement of the Teen Suicide name and tested interim monikers such as the World's Greatest and Dumpster before adopting American Pleasure Club as their ongoing identity. Vocalist Kitty Ray, Sam Ray's spouse, joined the lineup, and the project issued A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This in 2018 followed by Fucking Bliss in 2019. A serious but undiagnosed respiratory condition and ensuing brush with death sidelined Ray for an extended stretch. That ordeal shaped the expansive 2022 statement Honeybee Table at the Butterfly Feast, which revived the Teen Suicide designation and functioned as a thematic continuation of the 2016 full-length.
