Rhian Teasdale

Rhian Louise Teasdale is a musician from Formby, England. While best known for being one of the members of Wet Leg, she released several songs before that under the name Rhain. She was associated with the music scene in Bristol.

Early life
Rhian Louise Teasdale was born in Formby but moved to the Isle of Wight when she was eight. Her parents were both in the merchant navy. After early reviews misidentified her as being from Iceland, she used a December 2016 interview to joke that this was due to the presence of "a secret tunnel that runs right through from Reykjavik to Sandown, [with the] entrance where Woolworths used to be". Teasdale dropped out of her A-levels to undertake a music Btec at Platform One music college on the Isle of Wight, at which she met future-bandmate Hester Chambers, with whom she bonded over a shared love of Laura Marling, Patrick Watson, and Nordic music.

Around age 16, Teasdale met Aled Chivers, the future founder of Chiverin, who later drew her to Bristol and signed her as Rhain. In 2016, she released a single, "Humdrum Drivel", which NME described as "every inch charming", followed by another single, "Pavlova", which The Independent described as "stripped-back" and "featur[ing ...] unmistakable vocals fit with haunting piano accompaniment". She released the single "Solid Gold" in 2018, which she had developed with Plastic Mermaids, a band fronted by Douglas Richards and containing his brother Jamie Richards. She then released "Time Traveller", a song about her grandfather, which she had previously performed for Burberry Acoustic in February 2017.

Wet Leg
On 2 September 2018, Teasdale and Hester, having contributed guitar and piano to each other's works, were sitting on a Ferris wheel at that year's End of the Road Festival, when they decided to form Wet Leg together. They named the band after closing their eyes, shuffling through emoji combinations, and coming across one that happened to be a local term for an overner. They recorded ten songs in April 2021 produced by Dan Carey, and in June 2021, the band signed to Domino Recording Company and released "Chaise Longue", which was produced by Jon McMullen, written during Christmas 2019 five weeks into Teasdale staying at Chambers' and her boyfriend's house, and for which a video was also released. On 28 September 2021, they released "Wet Dream", by which time "Chaise Longue" had been streamed three million times and its video viewed over a million times. "Wet Dream" was written about an irritating ex-boyfriend who continued to love bomb Teasdale despite her breaking up with him.

On 29 November 2021, the pair released the double-A side single "Too Late Now"/"Oh No", and announced their debut album, Wet Leg. They released a further single on 28 February 2022, "Angelica", which was produced by Josh Mobaraki, and then a further single on 4 April 2023, "Ur Mum", which features an 11.02 second scream, inspired by Teasdale's experiences of living above a London branch of the Psychedelic Society that ran scream therapy sessions at 7pm on Tuesdays. Their debut album was released on 8 April 2023, and contained "Chaise Longue", "Angelica", and the ten tracks they had recorded with Carey in April 2021, all of which were written or co-written by Teasdale. The album charted at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart; the same day, "Chaise Longue", "Wet Dream", "Angelica", and "Ur Mum" entered the UK Independent Singles Chart, peaking at No. 13, No. 7, No. 38, and No. 46 respectively. "Chaise Longue" and "Wet Dream" would both additionally peak at No. 74 on the UK Singles Chart. In June 2022, the band asserted that they had completed their second album.

Artistry and personal life
Teasdale's voice has been compared to Kate Bush, Bjork, and Joanna Newsom. In a December 2016 interview, Teasdale noted that she had an eclectic taste in music as a teenager, listening to various artists, including A Tribe Called Quest, Arcade Fire, The Bees, Devendra Banhart, Bjork, Joni Mitchell, and Scout Niblett. She also noted she was inspired by "the attitude [...] of people that have just picked up an instrument, used their ears and made something that sounds good to them".

In July 2022, Teasdale announced that she had "a pretty good-looking girlfriend", and labelled herself as "queer…querying?"; the following July, Douglas Richards used an article in The Sunday Times to make assertions about Teasdale's personal life and Wet Leg, including that he and Teasdale had dated off and on between 2013 and 2019 and returned to his home during the first United Kingdom COVID-19 lockdown. Richards also used the piece to claim that during the latter period, Teasdale would get "really furious with" him and would use "anything that she could to throw at [him] and make [him] feel shit", and that "at least five songs" from Wet Leg's eponymous debut album made "direct attacks on him", including "Piece of Shit", "Wet Dream", and "Ur Mum". Richards also claimed he had written several of the band's songs, including "Oh No" and "Too Late Now", and that his brother, Jamie Richards, came up with the name "Wet Leg" after mishearing Douglas's suggestion of "Wet Book" from one of the "lists of stupid band names" Douglas and "a couple of friends" had added to whenever they thought "of a funny combination of words".

Far Out magazine's Tom Taylor  and Glamour magazine's Chloe Laws responded by accusing Richards of misogyny. Consequence's Abby Jones said, "To paraphrase Teasdale's own words, he seems a bit like a 'piece of shit,' indeed". The i's Rebecca Reid suggested his time would be better spent working harder and rebuilding better instead of wasting time "firing shots" at Teasdale's career. The Forty-Five's Jenessa Williams criticised The Times for "gleefully leaning into the narrative that any successful female artist must have been hiding her secret male songwriter all along".